"The test, which relies of measurements of proteins in the blood, has roughly twice the accuracy of existing risk scores. It could enable doctors to determine whether patients’ existing medications are working or whether they need additional drugs to reduce their risk “I think this is the new frontier of personalised medicine, to be able to answer the question, does this person need enhanced treatment? And when you’ve treated someone, did it actually work?” said Dr Stephen Williams at SomaLogic in Boulder, Colorado, who led the research. It could also be used to hasten the development of new cardiovascular drugs by providing a faster means of assessing whether drug candidates are working during clinical trials. The test is already being used in four healthcare systems within the US and Williams hopes it could be introduced to the UK in the near future." https://www.theguardian.com/society...-heart-attack-stroke-double-previous-accuracy
I generally like the idea of predictive testing, but I am skeptical with the second line. It could enable doctors to determine whether patients’ existing medications are working or whether they need additional drugs to reduce their risk I would like to know that no pharma company was involved in the development of the testing.
I question the posting of medical news in this forum when it does not have any political relevance, not even any relevance to controversy in society. Did you have a point in posting this?
It's health care, it's progress, and at 70, it's something I worry about. You just made it political, so thanks for that.
This test is progress, but it's still mostly useless. No medical decision should be based on the result of this test. It is simply not accurate enough. And even when used in combination with already existing tests, probably will not increase accuracy much, because the underlying indicators it is looking at are similar. (If you test positive in one test, you likely will on the other, and that correlation is much greater than the correlation between the test and actually predicting heart disease) It could be a great test in a socialized healthcare system though that is rationing care and has to decide which patients are slightly less likely to benefit from expensive treatment. That is, if you're willing to make sacrifices and kill some people, and rely on weak evidence to decide which ones are a little bit more worthy of trying to save.
Sort of, but not really. By the time those proteins make their appearance in the blood, things have often progressed very far and are close to being too late.
