personalized medicine

A form of medicine that uses information about a person’s own genes or proteins to prevent, diagnose, or treat disease. In cancer, personalized medicine uses specific information about a person’s tumor to help make a diagnosis, plan treatment, find out how well treatment is working, or make a prognosis. Examples of personalized medicine include using targeted therapies to treat specific types of cancer cells, such as HER2-positive breast cancer cells, or using tumor marker testing to help diagnose cancer. Also called precision medicine.