Lara Jehi, MD: Epilepsy Treatment Algorithms as Personalized Medicine

“We talk a lot about precision medicine as being the way of the future, and when we use the term ‘precision medicine’ it’s equated in our mind to the use of genetic data to target treatments. But we are more than our genetics. We are what we get exposed to, we are—in the world of epilepsy—our electrophysiological data, we are our imaging data. There are a lot of other variables that influence how we respond to any type of treatment.”

For the past several years, medicine as a whole has begun to trend toward a more personalized approach to the treatment of a number of conditions. With the increasing use of genetic data to better inform treatment response and the understanding of nuance and variations for each individual patient, the goal of providing patients a treatment that they’re certain to respond to has appeared more attainable.

Within this discussion has been the incorporation of algorithmic data into the physician’s decision-making process. At the 2019 International Epilepsy Congress, June 22-26, in Bangkok, Thailand, a topic of debate was the use of algorithms in the management and care of patients with epilepsy. Lara Jehi, MD, professor of neurology, Cleveland Clinic epilepsy center, argued in favor of their use, calling them “the ultimate example of personalized medicine.”

Jehi sat down with NeurologyLive^® to discuss exactly how the use of the data within these algorithms—which can include information from thousands of patients—can better inform the personalization of treatment for patients with epilepsy.

For more coverage of IEC 2019, click here.

REFERENCES

Jehi L. Algorithms in clinical practice — can they really help us predict outcomes? Presented at: 2019 International Epilepsy Congress. June 22-26, 2019; Bangkok, Thailand.