Health Ask The Expert
Individualized Prostate Cancer Care: Q&A with an Expert
Featured Expert:
How does individualized medicine target treatments to a particular patient’s needs and genes? And does it guarantee successful results? H. Ballentine Carter, M.D., director of the Prostate Cancer Program at Johns Hopkins Medicine, breaks down the basics of individualized medicine and explains why it’s important for prostate cancer care.
Is individualized prostate cancer care a new concept?
No, individualized, or personalized, medicine is not a new concept. As doctors, our goal is always to match the right type of treatment (or disease management strategy) to the right patient at the right time.
However, what is new is the ability to use different measurements to track how large numbers of patients react to treatments and disease management strategies. We can then identify subsets of patients who respond to treatment in a particular way.
