Companion diagnostics
The best treatment starts with a good diagnostic system. The application of metabolomics in diagnostic and companion diagnostic testing provides an outstanding position for Personalized Medicine approaches that can deliver new drugs with greater efficacy, specificity and improved safety for the patients.
Today, patient phenotype and the possible therapeutic actions on that phenotype are not widely considered when particular treatment is assigned. For tissues whose primary physiological function is metabolic, metabolites are considered the most robust indicators of organ function. Therefore, a detailed analysis of the serum metabolome may reveal metabolic profiles which can be used as disease biomarkers.
Additionally, a complete analysis of the metabolome can be used to identify biomarkers capable of predicting patient's reaction to drug/food intake in such a way that treatment could be personalized for each individual, choosing the best active ingredient and the most suitable dose.
Metabolomics establishes molecular foundations by:
• Predicting therapeutic responses to the treatment: patients' variable response to same treatment.
• Monitoring the efficacy of treatments and readjusting a dose or treatment during the progression of a disease.
• Drug toxicity among certain patients. Toxicity effects can be predicted prior to drug administration.
• Patient stratification. Classification of patient subtypes to perform effective personalized treatment protocols. Metabolomic testing also optimizes the patient selection for clinical trials.
• Tracking the disease evolution, detecting subtle changes in the circulating metabolome associated with disease progression.