[Music] you know we're all different
inside and out and that's the main reason
why many doctors now take our own genetic
makeup under consideration when it
comes to prescribing medicine,
it's called personalized medicine or
precision medicine.
Returning to the show
once again is Dr. Jay Wohlgemuth of
Quest Diagnostics Incorporated, good
morning.
Hey thanks for having me back.
Oh no thanks for being here because
today we're going to focus on
personalized medicine hearing it more and
more let's talk about that.
Yeah well personalized medicine is
really the use of genetic testing or DNA
sequencing to determine what therapies
will work in someone and which therapies
may not or may even cause side effects
or toxicity.
So it's moving away from the
trial and error approach that we've used
for so many years, right?
Absolutely it allows you to really determine
in a person which therapy will work
in advance, as opposed to trial and
error where you try something and six
months later to figure out it actually
doesn't work.
And you've wasted all this time and
money and you could have had to answer a
lot earlier.
Absolutely.
Doctor are there
any areas of Medicine in which patients
benefit from personalized medicine more
so than others.
The area that really is
picked up is around cancer.
Of course.
You know people with cancer in the
past would get a standard therapy
just based on a population and six months
later determine if it worked or not,
so now what we can do is we can take
the tumor tissue, sequence the DNA and
determine based on that which therapies
will work which therapies won't work and
which may cause toxicity and really
important information to optimize cancer
therapy.
So that one size fits all, is no longer
it's more of a target.
Much better
approach to know in advance what may
work before you undertake it and it's
not just a matter of cost its life and
death.
Of course.
What world does Quest
Diagnostics play here.
Well it turns out
for cancer specifically that 70% of
cancers are treated in community cancer
centers or community oncology centers,
and so we're able now to deliver genetic
information to those physicians and
patients in the community and we do it together
with IBM Watson, our partner where we're
able to crunch all the data that's
needed to determine the data of all of
these genes and all of these therapies, which therapy
works given this gene and also what
clinical trial may be out there for a
patient to enroll in based on their genetic
data.
Again more specific for the patient's
needs and what that patient needs at
that moment.
Targeted.
mm-hmm, Now for
patients who take several medicines
daily, does this help them maybe reduce
those numbers.
There is an approach there
that's highly beneficial in people with
multiple therapies to determine which
therapies will work but also which
therapies may interact and which therapies may cause toxicity and
again it's all about getting away from
trial and error because if you're on
eight medicines and you're trying one
and you're trying another and six
months later you figure out your
regimens not working, you know it's a
backwards way to work.
So now we're able to sort of do
some work upfront to try to optimize
your therapies in the beginning.
So what would you say the future holds
for personalized medicine.
Well there are a
lot of new tests coming and new applications, but really what I
see is convenience making this much
more convenient for people, so what
you'll see in the future is testing
available in grocery stores and pharmacies.
Really.
You'll also see what I really like is
home based testing.
What's that?
Well that
would be a case where you're able to
obtain a genetic test and have the box
dropped on your lawn just like an Amazon
order, take that box inside collect the
sample yourself send it in and have the
results come back on your smartphone.
As opposed to waiting weeks and
weeks to having to get it done.
Yes and see a
doctor and then go to another appointment it really lowers the
barrier to getting it done and I think a
lot more people will get involved
and get testing done because it's just
more convenient in the future.
And always
consult with your doctor first.
It's really important to consult with
a doctor about what testing makes
sense but also to have that doctor
available to help you understand what do I
do with this information
when I have it.
Great stuff thank you so much.
Thank you Olga.
Thank you doctor, and if
you'd like to learn more about this
personalized medicine or how Quest can
help you and your family with preventative health care visit
their website Quest Diagnostics dot
com slash patients, or go to our website
the balancing act dot com.
All right up next
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