Abstract : Personalized medicine should lead to major advances for patient care since it contributes to deliver the «right drug to the right patient». In curative medicine, this approach should improve the efficacy of medications by initial selection of ?good responders?, and should reduce adverse events due to poor tolerance or toxicity by a better pharmacological choice and a more appropriate individualized dose adjustment. Over recent years, considerable technical advances have increasingly linked personalized medicine with predictive and preventive medicine. This progress raises hopes for major advancements in medicine, but may also cause some concern among the lay public. The patient should actively be involved in the decisions related to his/her health, in a true model of participatory medicine. Finally, personalized medicine should leave its strict technical nature and become more interested in the person as a whole, within a holistic approach also integrating psychosocial aspects that are so important in the physician-patient relationship.