Moving Beyond Genetics
to Precision Medicine
How we use precision medicine to improve complex disease care
The Challenges of Traditional
Approaches
to Complex Disease Care
Many health conditions start with the same symptoms, which leads to a long diagnostic journey. Finding the cause(s) of symptoms can be challenging and time-consuming because there are often many complex variables to consider simultaneously, making targeted management difficult.
This traditional approach doesn’t take into account each patient’s context including genetics, lifestyle, environment, and events that contribute to when a disease starts and how rapidly or severely the disease will progress. The goal of precision medicine is to understand all of these variables in order to intervene before the disease becomes chronic.
Typical approaches to complex disease care can lead to delayed diagnosis, ineffective treatments and poor outcomes. Providers and patients need a better solution than repeated tests, invasive diagnostic procedures and trial and error treatments that waste time and money.
Multiple Factors in Complex Diseases
Traditional medicine is designed for diseases caused by Mendelian single-gene disorders. Medical teams just don’t have the right tools to prevent complex diseases from becoming chronic.
Complex diseases, such as pancreatitis, are caused by the interaction of multiple genetic, environmental and other factors, which can vary significantly across individuals, and hard to detect early enough to prevent further progression.
Symptom-Based Diagnosis
Diagnosis for complex diseases such as pancreatitis is typically made by combining symptoms, physical exam findings, along with related lab results and diagnostic imaging. The patient is diagnosed and treated using evidence-based practice.
The problem with this approach is that while symptoms are treated, the underlying cause is often unknown and unaddressed. This can leave several questions unanswered and lead to a mis-diagnosis and potential recurrence and continued disease progression.
Long Diagnostic Journey
Many chronic conditions begin with the same or similar symptoms. Providers have to go through a long, diagnostic journey, as the disease progresses, and the patient gets worse. Finding the source(s) of symptoms can be challenging and time-consuming because there are often too many complex variables to consider simultaneously making targeted management difficult.
Unreliable Diagnosis
Current diagnostic methods are unreliable, invasive expensive, unpleasant, and often fail to identify the root cause of a patient’s symptoms.
Delayed Intervention
Delayed diagnosis and intervention of pancreatic disease leads to poor outcomes, reduced quality of life and a significant burden on the health care system.
Uncertainty and Stress
Providers and patients deserve a better answer than “I don’t know” to the question of how best to manage complex disease conditions.
Genetic Testing Alone Isn't The Solution
Genetic tests can help, however, they only identify genetic variants that are known to be causative; the genetic variants returned do not represent all the genetic variants associated with complex diseases. And, genetic testing alone doesn’t provide any guidance on how to treat the condition.
A New Approach to Precision Medicine
The ADVANCE® Precision Medicine Platform is a clinical decision support platform that simplifies diagnosis and may inform more accurate treatment selection at the earliest signs of pancreatic disease. ADVANCE® integrates each individual’s genetics, environment, and family and medical history to provide clinicians more actionable insights into complex diseases, including evidence-based recommendations for management and treatment options.
Our AI powered technology combines deep genetic sequencing with advanced analytics and evidence-based expert knowledge to provide genetic testing and a report that is actionable and easy to use.
Advanced Genetics
Next-generation DNA sequencing that goes beyond reporting traditional Mendelian variants to detect complex genetic variants for comprehensive risk assessment.
Patient Specific
Reports tailored to each patient, integrating genetics, symptoms, hereditary, medical history and environmental factors.
Easy and Actionable
Curated clinical considerations based on up-to-date literature and guidelines for easier, more actionable treatment planning.
High Quality
Our laboratory is CLIA-certified and offers read depths that far exceed clinical decision thresholds.
How We Use Precision Medicine to Unravel the Complexity of Chronic Diseases
“Healthcare teams are not well equipped to manage complex diseases, which takes a completely different set of analytic tools and technologies. Physicians haven’t been able to make a diagnosis at the point of early chronic pancreatitis because the patient hasn’t met the criteria of irreversible damage. With Ariel’s testing and clinical decision support, now they can.”
David Whitcomb, MD, PhD
Co-Founder and Chairman, Ariel Precision Medicine
Let Ariel Be Your Expert
You don’t have to be an expert in genetics.
We help you translate complex genetics data into a more personalized care plan. So, you can focus on optimal care instead of shifting through complicated genetics information.
References
- Ellison, MA, et al. Complex Genetics in Pancreatitis: Insights Gained From a New Candidate Locus Panel. Pancreas. 2020 Aug;49(7):983-998. doi: 10.1097/MPA.0000000000001612. PMID: 32658084.
- Shelton CA, Whitcomb DC. Precision medicine for pancreatic diseases. Curr Opin Gastroenterol. 2020;36(5):428-36. PMID: 32740003.
- Shelton, CA, et al. Pancreatitis Overview. GeneReviews® [Internet]. Seattle (WA): University of Washington, Seattle; 1993–2021.2014 Mar 13 [updated 2020 Jul 2]. PMID: 24624459.