VDGH Managing Director Dr. Martin Walger emphasizes: "The key to personalized medicine lies in targeted diagnostics. Especially in the treatment of cancer, the use of molecular laboratory diagnostics is an indispensable core element for therapy decisions."
Modern diagnostics are useful in two ways: firstly, they enable doctors to obtain a concrete result using biomarkers, as symptoms often do not allow clear conclusions to be drawn. In addition, patients with all their genetic and cellular characteristics are better understood. Walger emphasizes that this allows the right medication to be used in the right dose for the right person.
Personalized diagnostics is also useful in the further course of therapy, for example by detecting when the effect of longer therapies begins to wear off. This allows the dosage to be changed or the patient can switch to an effective medication. This increases the certainty that the therapy is working and reduces the likelihood of relapse. Another application of personalized medicine is the determination of a familial risk due to hereditary predisposition in order to enable close monitoring of those affected.
The VDGH is committed to ensuring that patients in Germany benefit more from targeted diagnostics and therapy in the future. With its position paper on personalized medicine, the association aims to intensify the discussion.
