PRECISION MEDICINE FOR METABOLIC DISORDERS IN LOW- AND MIDDLE-INCOME COUNTRIES: AREAS OF OPPORTUNITY AND CHALLENGES FOR THE FUTURE

The purpose of this perspective is to analyze the use of precision medicine and its potential for the next few decades with a special focus on the low- and middle-income countries, using diabetes as a paradigm. Precision medicine has improved the diagnosis, prevention, treatment, and prognosis of several malignant neoplasia. Furthermore, this approach is useful in the management of monogenic diabetes. However, its impact in the current practice for the majority of the cases of diabetes is quite limited. Precision medicine has not fulfilled the expectations because it implies a long-term process composed by several feedback loops, and a number of internal and external validations and calibrations to target specific populations. If we want to obtain the expected benefits, the academic community and science agencies should work together to create the budgets and infrastructure that warrant the transfer of knowledge to the whole of society.