Introduction to Precision Medicine in COPD

Abstract

Although there has been a tremendous growth in our understanding of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and its pathophysiology over the past several decades, the pace of therapeutic innovation has been extremely slow. COPD is now widely accepted as a heterogeneous condition with multiple phenotypes and endotypes. Thus, there is a pressing need for COPD care to move from the current “one-size-fits-all” approach to precision medicine that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each patient. Precision medicine is enabled by biomarkers that can accurately identify subgroups of patients who will most likely to benefit from therapeutics and those who will only experience harm (predictive biomarkers); predict therapeutic responses to drugs at an individual level (response biomarkers) and segregate patients who are at risk of poor outcomes from those who have relatively stable disease (prognostic biomarkers). In this essay, we will discuss the current concept of precision medicine and its relevance for COPD and explore ways to implement precision medicine for millions of patients across the world with COPD.