Silvia G. Priori, Carlo
Napolitano.
Laboratori di Cardiologia Molecolare ed Elettrofisiologia, Fondazione Salvatore
Maugeri, Pavia, Cattedra di Cardiologia, Facolta di Medicina e Chirurgia, Universita degli
Studi di Pavia, Policlinico San Matteo IRCCS, Pavia, Italy
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Molecular genetics is progressively entering clinical
practice. This new approach is likely to modify medical thinking and to influence, in the
near future, patients management and therapeutic strategies. Despite the large and
uninterrupted throughput of literature reporting new and exciting findings in the
understanding of the molecular basis of inherited arrhythmogenic disorders, rarely the
current knowledge has been put in the perspective of its practical implications. As a
result, clinicians are often uncertain on whether molecular diagnosis provides information
for patients management or it has to be regarded simply as a research tool. To answer this
question is not an easy task even for investigators involved in this process, and it is
even more difficult to provide a comprehensive answer that fits the several disorders.
This complexity is due to the fact that the level of understanding of the molecular basis
and their clinical counterpart is quite different for the various diseases.
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