Stratified Medicine, also known as
Personalized Medicine, is medicine specifically tailored for an
individual. The medicine works off the
genome sequence of individuals (being everyone has a unique genome) allowing
for more efficient drugs with fewer side effects, if any. Doctors can use a person’s genome to determine
diseases caused by mutations. In
addition to being able to diagnose a patient, genomes have the potential to
inform doctors what drugs work. It is
with this information Stratified Medicine gets to shine. Knowing how drugs will work on person will
increase the chances of finding the right drug sooner and overall increase the
number of lives saved.

A survey of UK health professionals
shows increased interest in the use of non-cancer stratified medicine for. Patients have also shown interest, believing it gives patients access to treatments they otherwise wouldn't have. The
medicine has already made significant impact on the UK’s National Health Service,
without being used for cancer. The
potential of using stratified medicine in conjunction with advance cancer
treatments is vast. However, there are
some problems with implementing stratified medicine as the norm. While there is an increased interest among
health professionals, they agree the health system would have to change to
support the use of stratified medicine.
The change might be slow but the use of stratified medicine could
advance the medical world further.

The UK has a very special opportunity
to advance their health care system, and set the example for the rest of the
world. I personally hope they can make
the change to incorporate stratified medicine.
It will allow the world to see how useful (or useless) it could be and
see if it is worth utilizing. I see the
use of these types of drugs to be the advancement of the medical world, with
large potential to save numerous lives.
I had no idea a concept of stratified medicine was possible or useful! As one who is interested in pursuing an education in medicine i found this topic extremely intriguing and caused thoughts of whether this could be an interesting career choice. Thanks to the enlightenment from this article i would like to read more on stratified medicine because the concept is interesting to me.
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