by brant bullard | Jul 8, 2016 | News
Adverse drug effects can occur in any patient, but certain characteristics of the elderly make them more susceptible. An elderly person often takes many drugs (polypharmacy). They also have age-related changes that increase the risk of adverse effects.
Many drugs have adverse effects that resemble symptoms of disorders common among the elderly or changes due to aging.
Antipsychotics may cause symptoms that resemble Parkinson disease. In elderly patients, these symptoms may be diagnosed as Parkinson disease and treated, possibly leading to adverse effects from the antiparkinson drugs (eg, orthostatic hypotension, delirium, nausea). (more…)
by brant bullard | Jul 30, 2015 | News
There are 7 billion people on Earth. We’re entering an age of remarkable potential for personalized medicine to save and improve lives like never before. ~forbes.com~
Your genome is a complete set of your DNA. It holds all information for creating and maintaining you. As a human, yours has more than 3 billion DNA base pairs.
In short, it’s your human blueprint, your personal instruction manual.
What if we told you that with a single buccal swab of the cheek, we could analyze your individual make-up and know what drugs your body can metabolize, and which ones you can’t? We can, it’s called personalized medicine.
Past: Trial-and-Error
Present: Targeted, Personalized Medicine
Medications and geriatrics:
When you are dealing in the geriatric population, time matters. Days matter. At PGx Medical, our goal is to educate healthcare professionals across the country on the tools and resources available. “One day, and one day soon, I believe this will be the new normal. Metabolic Validation, via pharmacogenomic testing, will be mandatory for everyone with medical necessity before prescribing medications. Doing away with the guess work and knowing exactly what a person has the ability to metabolize, that will be part of standard of care,” said Clay Bullard, President of PGx Medical.
It’s a misconception that this tool will tell you what to do. It is a resource available that maps out an individual’s blueprint. A road map of sorts. It will guide healthcare professionals when dosing patients and help take away the old “trial-and-error” process that we have lived by for so many years. Can you imagine knowing the “first” time that you are on the right medication? And that your body will metabolize it the way the manufacturer of the drug intended for you to?
That’s the beauty of personalized medicine.
This tool wasn’t designed to decrease the amount of medications a patient is on. But to help them get on the appropriate medications. Medications their body can metabolize. According to the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists, on average, individuals 65 to 69 years old take nearly 14 prescriptions per year, individuals aged 80 to 84 take an average of 18 prescriptions per year. And 15% to 25% of drug use in seniors is considered unnecessary or otherwise inappropriate and 36% of all reported adverse drug reactions involve an elderly individual. And today there are over 43.1 million adults aged 65 and older in the United States; by 2040, that number will rise to 79.7 million. Those numbers are stagering when you think about drug use and healthcare costs in seniors.
Is it affordable?
Currently in the U.S. CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services), reimburses for pharmacogenomic testing. In short, you could know exactly what medications your patients can metabolize and it is covered by Medicare B. Medicaid reimburses in select states, and most private insurance companies cover the test with normal copays and deductibles.
Personalized medicine has been around for decades. So why now?
Personalized medicine, via pharmacogenomic testing, has been around for many years. But up until the last 5 years, it wasn’t affordable. Now that insurance companies are covering the test and CMS is reimbursing for the test, it has now moved to the forefront of the healthcare industry and is seen as a way to help cut healthcare costs. But many healthcare professionals still aren’t aware this tool even exists – or that this is an option in their day-to-day care.
“We work with physicians that won’t see a patient until they have a pharmacogenomic test done first. If that patient has medical necessity, then those physicians make sure they have their patients on the right medications,” said Bullard. “It’s just part of their patient care.”
How do I get tested?
A pharmacogenomic test comes on a doctors order. For individuals who want to be tested, get with your physician and request a test. For physicians or pharmacists who want to include this in their patient care, contact us and we will get you the information necessary to get you started.
The PGx Medical Metabolic Validation Program is available to review on a secure online portal within 48 hours from the time our lab receives the sample.
Helping people live longer…better! That is our goal.
PGx Medical
Individualized Care – Personalized Medicine
www.pgxmed.com
info@pgxmed.com
405-509-5112
Sources: forbes.com, www.ascp.com
by brant bullard | Jun 7, 2015 | News
Every patient has a unique metabolic phenotype, which results in varied responses to standarized drug dosages.
Despite the use of patient characteristics such as age, ethnicity and weight to optimize drug selection and dosing, adverse responses to prescription drugs persist and are associated with approximately 5% of hospital admissions and an estimated 100,000 deaths annually in the United States. The field of pharmacogenetics, also referred to as pharmacogenomics and often abbreviated as PGx, looks at how specific genetic variants impact medication response, and offers health care providers a more personalized way to select and prescribe appropriate drugs at safer doses.
Metabolic phenotype can influence systemic drug exposure and the likelihood of therapeutic responsee or toxity.
PM – Poor Metbolizer: Poor metabolizers have two non-functional alleles and therefore have little to no enzyme activity.
IM – Intermediate Metaboizer: Intermediate metabolizers have one non-functional allele and one normally functioning allele, and therefore have decreased enzyme activity.
EM – Extensive Metabolizer: Extensive metabolizers have 2 normally functioning alleles and therefore have normal enzyme activity.
UM – Ultra-rapid Metabolizer: Ultra-rapid metabolizers have one or more alleles which result in increased enzyme activity compared to extensive metabolizers.
A “one-size-fits-all” approach to drug selection and dosing does not account for the impact of patient genetics on drug metabolism, efficacy, and toxicity.
For more information on the PGx Medical Metabolic Validation Program, via pharmacogenomic testing, contact:
PGx Medical
Individualized Care – Personalized Medicine
info@pgxmed.com
405-509-5112
Source: Coriell Personalized Medicine Collaborative
by brant bullard | Dec 18, 2014 | News
It can be difficult to predict who will benefit from a medication, who will not respond at all and who will experience adverse effects. Pharmacogenetics seeks to understand how differences in genes and their expressions affect the body’s response to medications. Learn more from PGx Medical.
Listen to the live interview with OCAST and PGx Medical click here.
More on OCAST:
OCAST works with entrepreneurs, researchers and companies that are early in the process by helping them fund research to prove their ideas, linking them to larger funding sources and introducing them to other researchers and resources to strengthen their ideas. In our 26-year history, we have funded more than 2,450 research projects and provided support to hundreds of Oklahoma-based companies. The investment we make in those businesses yields a high return to the state – from increasing tax revenue to improving the quality of life of people around the world.
Read more at: Oklahoma Center for Advancement of Science & Technology
by brant bullard | Nov 3, 2014 | Metabolic Validation Program
At PGx Medical, our goal is to educate healthcare professionals across the country on our Metabolic Validation (pharmacogenomics) test.
Metabolic Validation is a way to “personalize” medicine. Personalized medicine isn’t a fad, it has been around for over a decade. But it is now coming to the forefront of the healthcare industry.
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