Personalized medicine for high blood pressure.

Personalized medicine refers to the use of diagnostic and screening methods that exploit knowledge of the patient’s unique molecular or risk profile to achieve optimal health and medical outcome through improved management of the patient’s disease or predisposition toward a disease. High blood pressure (hypertension) is the most common modifiable risk factor for vascular disease,2 which in turn accounts for more morbidity and mortality than any other category of disease. This invited review attempts to explain why individualized approaches are imperative to improve the detection, evaluation, treatment, and prevention of hypertension; to recount the history of the pursuit of this “holy grail”; and to propose approaches to overcoming the many obstacles to realization of personalized medicine for hypertension.