Mission

Predictive medicine is a rather new health care field that sounds promising and cutting-edge. As a result, it attracts significant media attention. But what exactly is predictive medicine? Essentially, predictive medicine uses tests to determine a person’s probability of developing a given disease. Using biomarkers, it informs people of the health conditions they are disposed to and it reveals the agents that would likely make them ill.
The ability to prevent diseases, to treat patients before they become sick, and to encourage them to change unhealthy lifestyles make predictive medicine highly appealing for many people. However, there are also a number of complex questions about the use of these tests and results. It’s clear that predictive medicine has a major role to play in this century health care, and EUSPM would like to help researchers and physicians in this direction.

Making predictions is inherent to medicine. But predictive medicine is a rather new phenomenon,
because now not only the process of a disease can be predicted, but also the occurrence of a disease.
The range of predictive information will grow rapidly because of developments such as:

The results of the Human Genome Project: times ago the complete human genome map was published (Science 2001);
The combination of biotechnology with information technology, e.g. resulting in so called DNA-chips;
The development of pharmacogenetics and the resulting growth of preventive medication

It is still difficult to formulate a good definition of predictive medicine. Predictive medicine has the following characteristics, and EUSPM tries to promote them:

It is not oriented towards the diagnosis of actual illness or treatment, but to the detection and reduction of risks;
Predictive medicine therefore has a different time-scheme compared to symptom related medicine. It is often related to symptoms and illnesses that could manifest themselves far into the future;
It assumes a statistical style of reasoning and the concomitant practices in the application of knowledge.

In brief, predictive medicine is about nonsymptom- related, risk-oriented health care practices. Its emergence indicates not merely a cognitive development in medicine but introduces new types of medical practice and the accompanying new relationships between doctors and patients, physicians and researchers and between different biomedical profession.

Agenda for EUSPM action

Promotion of the public airing of points of dissension between medical experts in the field of predictive medicine. Demolishing the idea that medicine is a monolithic structure. Protection of warning voices in medicine and health care.
Promoting plurality in respect to predictive medicine: making explicit in the mass media and education (including medical education) variations in experiences – personal accounts, points of view.
Monitoring of quality control in health care (including health education and information).

TOPICS of the FIRST CONGRESS of EUSPM

Lipidomic
Proteomic
Genomic
Metabolomic and Metabonomic
Pharmacogenetic
Inhborn Errors of Metabolisms
Nutrigenetics
Transcriptomics