The Role of Personalized Medicine in Current and Future Clinical Practice of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine: Towards Anesthesiomics

Personalized medicine is a new paradigm in medicine; both in science and practice. The role of novel aspects of cellular and molecular medicine in the thrive of personalized medicine is undeniable; with the exceptional roles of genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, interactomics and other OMICS. Anesthesiology and perioperative medicine is involved with many different aspects of patient care; including preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative care. The rapid recent developments in personalized medicine many of which are discussed throughout this book, have greatly affected anesthesiology and perioperative medicine; leading to novel paradigms not only in upgraded research fields but also transforming practice; actually or potentially. In fact, we do not possibly need to wait until we use “anesthesiomics” in our daily practice. In this chapter, a general review of the role of personalized medicine in anesthesia and perioperative medicine is presented; detailed aspects are discussed in the next chapters. The ultimate goal of medicine is to improve quality of life and patient care; novel interdisciplinary approaches are mandatory if we would like to overcome the future challenges of human health.