Personalized Medicine in Gastroenterology
Davor Sˇtimac and Neven Franjic ́
Abstract Personalized medicine systematically uses all available information
about a patient, including his/her molecular make-up, in order to optimize preven-
tive, diagnostic, and/or therapeutic measures. In gastroenterology, it is mainly
applied for managing inflammatory bowel diseases (therapeutic approach, drug
toxicity), gastrointestinal malignancies (development of biomarkers of early rec-
ognition, therapy optimization), viral hepatitis (markers of response to therapy,
optimization of therapy),H. pyloriassociated diseases (virulency, tendency to
develop certain complications, response to therapy), and many other diseases.
Despite the anticipated financial and ethical obstacles, personalized medicine offers
the possibility of more precise diagnostics, more accurate therapy, and better
prevention, which will in turn result in better long-term treatment outcomes.
1 Personalized Medicine
Personalized medicine systematically uses all available information about a patient,
including his/her molecular make-up, in order to optimize preventive, diagnostic,
and/or therapeutic measures.^1 Although both personalized medicine and evidence-
based medicine have roots in scientifically proven facts, their patient approach
methods fundamentally differ. Evidence-based medicine requires inductive reason-
ing to acquire answers; individual differences are ignored, and a general conclusion
Professor Davor Sˇtimac, M.D., Ph.D., Head of KBC Rijeka, Division of Gastroenterology,
Department of Internal medicine, University Hospital Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia.
Neven Franjic ́, M.D., Ph.D., Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Internal medicine,
University Hospital Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia.
(^1) Guttmacher and Collins ( 2002 ) Zavod za javno zdravstvo “dr. Andrija Sˇtampar”, Personalizirana
medicina. Available at:http://www.stampar.hr/Default.aspx?art¼2229&sec¼ 16.
D. Sˇtimac, M.D., Ph.D. (*) • N. Franjic ́, M.D., Ph.D.
Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Internal Medicine, University Hospital Rijeka,
Rijeka, Croatia
e-mail:[email protected]
©Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
N. Bodiroga-Vukobrat et al. (eds.),Personalized Medicine,Europeanization and
Globalization 2, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-39349-0_13
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