[Skip to Navigation]
Sign In
Editorial
January 5, 2016

Establishing the Clinical Validity of Arrhythmia-Related Genetic Variations Using the Electronic Medical Record: A Valid Take on Precision Medicine?

Author Affiliations
  • 1Maine Dartmouth Family Medicine Residency, Augusta
  • 2Associate Editor, JAMA
JAMA. 2016;315(1):33-35. doi:10.1001/jama.2015.17702

The precision, or personalized, medicine movement predicts a future of patient care informed by measurable genetic, environmental, and behavioral characteristics unique to the individual patient.1 Implicit in this approach is the availability of biomarkers, including genetic variants, that accurately predict important health outcomes. Over the last decade, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified hundreds of new genetic variations, largely single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that might serve as biomarkers for many common conditions. In general, these account for little in the variance of disease, and the predictive value of such SNPs has been largely disappointing.2,3

Add or change institution
×