Personalized Medicine and Cardiovascular Disease: From Genome to Bedside

Cardiovascular diseases are among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the developed world despite advances in cardiac care over the last few decades. Although most of these advances in cardiovascular medicine have been made through trials of therapies on a population scale, the success of such therapies in a patient often is dependent on particular aspects of each individual. In this review, we present the evidence for the impact that the use of personalized medicine and genetics can have in the cardiac care of a patient, first through risk stratification based on inherent genetic risk inferred from the results of genome-wide association studies, to the use of pharmacogenomics to guide clinical management. Finally, we discuss the coming flood of human genome sequencing and the potential impact it will have on the care of patients from the standpoint of cardiovascular disease.