Descriptions of precision medicine infographics

Diagram 1: Traditional medical approach: the same treatment for all the patients

This diagram illustrates how traditional medicine works, the so-called “one-size-fits-all”. Three patients are presented. Each one has a group of cells with different surface receptors, demonstrating the biological diversity between these individuals. Each patient receives exactly the same treatment, despite their biological differences. This leads to two graphs on the follow-up of the patient’s health condition. For some of them, a rising curve indicates that the treatment had a positive effect while, for the others, a flat curve is the sign that the treatment had no effect. Therefore, this diagram shows that with this traditional medical approach, an identical treatment can work for some patients but fails for others, as biological specificities are not taken into consideration.

Diagram 2: Innovative approach: a targeted treatment, adapted to the genetic of each patient

This diagram illustrates how precision medicine works. Three patients are presented. Each one has a group of cells with different surface receptors, demonstrating the biological diversity between these individuals. Each patient undergoes medical analyses, which allow identifying the biomarker, and therefore detecting measurable characteristics linked to the disease. Depending on this identified biomarker – different for each patient – the most suitable treatment is administered to the patient. For each patient, the efficacy of the treatment is represented in a graph, showing a rising curve, sign of therapeutic efficacy: the treatment worked in all the cases. This diagram demonstrates that, thanks to precision medicine, each patient who receives a treatment specifically adapted to his biological profile, improves its chance of therapeutic success.