The need to treat breast cancer with chemotherapy could be cut by a third if personalised medicine became a standard part of healthcare, according to new research.

Personalised medicine, which involves customising treatments based on a patient’s unique genetic makeup, is increasingly being touted as more effective solution to healthcare.

In the case of breast cancer treatment, this would involve a genetic test, the data from which would be combined with information about the patient’s medical history and circumstances to decide upon the course of treatment with the best potential outcomes.

The study, undertaken by Vlerick Business School, found that such an approach would see a 34% drop in the use of chemotherapy to treat breast cancer.

“Personalised medicine is not only able to deliver better medicine through better diagnosis and treatment. It also allows early detection of disease at the molecular level,” explained Professor Walter Van Dyck, of Vlerick Business School.

“This enhances the chances of early, better treatment. It saves costs to society by keeping patients out of later, more expensive treatments.”

While many would undoubtedly recognise the health benefits of personalised medicine, this cost benefit is likely to ensure that adoption by national health organisations actually occurs.

Many health organisations, particularly in countries with nationalised healthcare, are faced with the prospect of ageing populations requiring more care while budgets dwindle, and personalised medicine could be the solution.

“Healthcare would be much more cost-effective to society if there was an investment shift from the ‘hospital based in-patient’ modality, to a ‘physician based out-patient’ infrastructure,” said Van Dyck.

“This would allow the population to be stratified more much earlier into high/low risk groups by applying a combination of digital health records, patient history and genetic testing.”

Although personalised medicine shows significant potential, it has not yet been adopted by healthcare organisations on a meaningful scale.

However, that could soon change. In October an initiative was launched with the aim of making personalised medicine available to European citizens.

The initiative, which is being led by Prof Mark Lawler, Chair in Translational Cancer Genomics at the Queen’s University Belfast Centre of Cancer Research and Cell Biology, is looking at the best way to share new developments across the continent and build a shared regulatory framework for countries to adopt.

“This personalised medicine approach holds great promise and has already shown benefit in many diseases including cancer, heart disease, diabetes and respiratory disease,” said Lawler. “However, the real challenge is how to make sure that it becomes part of the standard of care for Europe’s citizens.”

In the US the FDA is already creating guidance on personalised medicine, however with so many different healthcare providers its introduction is set to be far more fragmented.