Precision medicine. This post continues the discussion on how we can make sense of clinical data in the absence of outcomes in the context of precision medicine – a concept that drives much of what we do on a research basis. The fundamental idea is that clinical care in pediatric epilepsies can be personalized and tailored to underlying etiologies. With continual progress in gene curation and variant interpretation alongside clinical knowledge, we typically expect that treatment suggestions are immediately implemented after the discovery of the causative genetic etiology. For example, a child with early onset epileptic encephalopathy is found to have a gain-of-function variant in SCN8A and is almost immediately started on a sodium channel blocker such as Trileptal. However, to what extent is this the case? In the context of precision medicine, how precise are we exactly?
Tag Archives: outcome measures
Precision medicine in the absence of outcomes
EMR. Genomic data is increasingly available for large patient cohorts. In parallel, healthcare is increasingly digitized and large amounts of data can easily be extracted and analyzed at the click of a button. In principle, this should provide tremendous opportunities to understand how epilepsy care can be personalized based on genetic factors. However, we quickly run into challenges. Obtaining information on seizure frequencies, for example, requires manual chart review. Trying to understand how a person’s genetic makeup affects responses to anti-seizure medications is therefore not possible in large healthcare systems where related questions in other diseases can increasingly be answered. Here is a brief overview of how we can meaningfully engage with clinical data when outcomes are simply not available. Continue reading
Precision medicine in genetic epilepsies – three criteria to consider
Three criteria. You hear the phrase precision medicine quite frequently these days and might wonder what this is all about. In a nutshell, in the context of genetic epilepsies, the basic idea behind precision medicine is to use genetic patient information for treatment decisions. The broader vision behind this aims at improving the lives of individuals with epilepsy by making smarter and faster treatment decisions, which lead to better treatment response and fewer side effects. But how should we assess information on reports of precision medicine in the literature? Here are the three important criteria to assess. Continue reading
