GENOME BASED MEDICINE IN HEART FAILURE
Background
5.7 million Americans suffer from heart failure (HF) - a chronic, progressive condition in which the heart muscle is unable to pump enough blood through the heart to meet the body’s needs for blood and oxygen. Heart failure is the final common pathway for many cardiovascular diseases, which progresses by underlying heart injury or inappropriate responses of the body to heart impairment. It is estimated that 30-40% of diagnosed patients will die from heart failure within 1 year.
In recent years, new HF treatments were developed, focusing on improvement of symptoms and on delaying the progression of the disease. Since those treatments increase patients’ life expectancy but never brings a cure to HF, the impact of chronic HF patients is constantly growing.
Although HF seems to be a single disease - many physiological systems are involved in its pathophysiology, causing each patient to develop heart failure via a different set of dominant physiological systems.
Nevertheless, this physiological variance is targeted with a "One Size Fits All" therapeutic approach, which does not take into account the specific personal disease characteristics. All patients are prescribed with similar HF treatment, following uniform guidelines with same medication classes and therapy combinations administered in fixed target doses.
The Solution - Genome Based Personalized Medicine in Heart Failure
Our research has repeatedly demonstrated that individual HF patients may have specific characteristics regarding their disease’s pathophysiology, affecting their disease course and prognosis. The research found personal genetic differences, within HF patients, that can explain different clinical presentations – thus enabling personalized targeted care with specific “personalized” treatment regimens.