Precision medicine and diseases as natural kinds: An epistemological dilemma

BACKGROUND: The most important advance of precision medicine (PM) has been a specific way to define and understand disease. However, PM may fail to be therapeutically effective if diseases are natural kinds. OBJECTIVE: To attest adverse consequences of treatments suggested by PM that do not generalize well. METHODS: Conceptual analysis of PM; Epistemology of clinical reasoning; Cases that show diseases as natural kinds to clash with epistemology of PM. RESULTS: Contemplation of future research options that could clarify the position of PM under the conception of diseases as natural kinds. CONCLUSION: Need for improved design of future interventions that better acknowledge problematic epistemology of PM