Standard Dose Recommendations Can Lead To “Trial-and Error” Prescribing

Every patient has a unique metabolic phenotype, which results in varied responses to standarized drug dosages.

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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