Personalized medicine
Advances in genetics, genomics and proteomics allow us to improve the diagnosis and our knowledge of diseases, to develop new treatments and, in general, to improve people's health.
The use of genetic tests and molecular diagnosis is rapidly expanding in clinical practice with the creation of a new approach in medicine: personalized medicine, a form of medicine that uses information about a person's genes, his/her proteins and environment to prevent, diagnose and treat a disease.
The rapid progress in the knowledge of the genetic basis of diseases, as well as the development of genetic tests that make possible identifying alterations in genes that suppose a higher risk of becoming sick, has made it possible to identify individuals and families at risk and to offer them appropriate advice and genetic counselling. The identification of these individuals and families allows us, besides an individualized assessment of the risk of becoming sick, to recommend prevention and screening strategies that are adequate with respect to the estimated risk and that have demonstrated their effectiveness in the decrease of the incidence and mortality of a certain disease.