Nowadays, well-being and health are topics that we usually bring up in conversation between friends, colleagues, with family or with a partner, at any time and place. And it is not for less, the pandemic made it very clear to us the importance of self-care, vaccines, prevention and timely diagnoses, such as personalized medicine, which uses information from a person’s genes or proteins, can give us
For months we lived in uncertainty, because we did not know what was going to happen during the pandemic, which had suddenly come to change our lives… until the vaccines appeared and we began to regain our peace of mind.
But what about other diseases with which we are still not calm, because we hear stories that do not always have a good prognosis? Could something be done, now with a lot of research focused on health? Everything indicates yes. This is thanks, in part, to new emerging technologies that are leading down a path called precision medicine.
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Hit the target of disease
Each person is unique thanks to their genetics, lifestyle, where they live, among other factors, so when you get sick, the evolution and prognosis of your condition may be different from someone else who is also diagnosed with the same thing.
Starting from this base, precision medicine seeks to “investigate the biological, molecular and genetic bases, using emerging technologies to be able to understand, for example, how a tumor behaves in a certain person, and then be able to manage it accordingly,’ a tailored treatment suit for the patient”, explains Dr. Francisco Olguin, medical leader of Oncology at Pfizer Mexico.
By studying genes, proteins and other personal characteristics, such as lifestyle, gender or ethnic origin, among other factors, a much more accurate diagnosis and treatment of the disease could be obtained.
For example, in the case of breast cancer, if when studying the person (with precision medicine techniques) certain alterations are found, drugs or targeted therapies can be developed. Which is a great advance because they are no longer given a general treatment to which they may not respond, but one that hits the mark or particular alteration.
“Cancer treatment has already been optimized and that is why it has evolved,” says Dr. Olguin, who adds that “Mexico is adapting to more technologies.” In fact, since 2020 there has been the Lung Biomarkers Program in which 6 laboratories in the country participate, including Pfizer, in an alliance with the Mexican Association of Pharmaceutical Research Industries, so that within the diagnoses the type of cancer-specific mutation and facilitate personalization of treatment.
Undoubtedly, the development of innovative therapies will increase people’s survival and maintain their quality of life.
Although the research continues and it cannot yet be said that this has reached the majority of the population, the goal is to be able to develop drugs and vaccines with potentially transformative results: “treating the right people with the right alternatives,” stresses Dr. Francisco Olguin.
Although precision medicine has a greater field of use in oncology, this may be an alternative that only a doctor can determine to treat different diseases of genetic origin, such as diabetes, obesity and depression.
We are reaching for promising futures that will change medical practice.
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