Seminar CL3 – Patient safety through individualised therapy

 

The concept of personalised medicine with the focus on patient safety has received much attention recently, so in this sense it is not “new” to discuss it. It is one of the key areas for the drug regulatory authorities in many countries across Europe. However, what do we understand by individualised therapy and how can we convert a promise of today into tomorrow’s reality? There are different perceptions and definitions of personalised medicine. According to one definition, it is a medical practice with the knowledge and expertise to optimise drug therapy in the face of the many factors, which combine to determine individual patient variability in drug response. Our primary concern is, nonetheless, safety and well-being, such as genetics, age, gender, concurrent disease, concurrent drug therapy and environmental agents, including smoking and alcohol, and on the other hand, there are several drug factors, notably, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, adverse effects and drug interactions. Advocating for the concept of personalised medicine with the focus on patient safety, notably for the practice of individualization of drug therapy, has been of crucial importance for clinical pharmacology and hospital pharmacy. The practical application of the concept would allow for abandoning of the idea of “one drug dose fits all” practice. However, in the current scientific environment the concept of personalised medicine seems inexorably linked to the rapidly evolving science of pharmacogenetics and therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) methods.

 

In the future, significant advances in drug therapy may not be due to the development of new drugs or drug classes but to the development and integration of our understanding of inter-individual differences that occur during treatment with certain medicines.

 

• To evaluate the concept of individualised therapy;

• To categorise special groups of medicines which need individualised approach to provide safer and more efficient pharmacotherapy;

• To investigate available methods that we need for the best personalised therapy;

• To illustrate the possibilities for the hospital pharmacist so they played vital role for them.

 

 

After the presentation the participant should be able:

 

• to recognise the importance of the individualised therapy and the input of hospital pharmacists;

• to provide the best possible pharmacotherapy;

• to identify the complexity of that issue;

• to examine “new” potential position and role of the hospital pharmacists to improve the safety of the medical treatment which includes both counselling and guiding the patient.