BMJ 1998;316:618-620 ( 21 February )

Education and debate

The new genetics

The new genetics in clinical practice

John Bell, Nuffield professor of clinical medicine. 

Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Oxford, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford OX3 9DU

john.bell@ndm.ox.ac.uk

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Common diseases are currently defined by their clinical appearance, with little reference to mechanism. Molecular genetics may provide the tools necessary to define diseases by their mechanisms. This is likely to have profound effects on clinical decisions such as choice of treatment and on our ability to characterise more clearly the course of disease and contributory environmental factors. This information also raises the possibility that new therapeutic interventions can be obtained rationally, based on a clear understanding of pathogenesis. Most of these genetic factors will act as "risk factors" and should be managed ethically and practically, as would other risk factors (in hypertension or hypercholesterolaemia, for example). The rapid advances in human molecular genetics seen over the past five years indicate that within the next decade genetic testing will be used widely for predictive testing in healthy people and for diagnosis and management of patients.

Molecular genetics was originally used . . . [Full text of this article]

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