Stratified (personalised) medicine

The European Alliance for Personalised Medicine (EAPM) defines personalised medicine as “a targeted approach to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease based on an individual’s specific profile”.

Anyone new to this area should be aware that quite often the terms ‘personalised medicine’ and ‘stratified medicine’ are confused and used as if they mean the same thing. This is discussed again in the book that you can open below.

However, the two closely related terms are important in this area, ‘stratified medicine’ and ‘personalised medicine’. They are explained and discussed below.

• ‘Stratified medicine’ is the use of a medicine that targets a group or proportion of patients with a disease (a sub-population). An example could be a sub-population that are impacted by a particular disease based on age and disease stage. This is instead of using one medicine to treat all patients with this disease. Sometimes a ‘companion diagnostic’ is needed to tell if the medicine is suitable for the patient, or what dose should be used. The pharmaceutical industry is using companion diagnostics more and more in the development of new medicines.
• ‘Personalised medicine’, on the other hand, aims to use targeted medicines that take into account other information about the individual patient. This is in order to tailor the treatment and management of the patient to his/her individual situation. Personalised medicines are used to ensure the best outcome and reduce the risk of side effects. The other information that is used might be clinical, environmental and/or lifestyle information. 

Both stratified and personalised medicine can also identify people who are at risk of getting diseases in the future. This information can help finding the best preventive action to reduce the risk for these people. Some examples are:

• Changes to diet and exercise -  to reduce the risk of heart disease.
• Surgery - for people at high risk of breast cancer.