Using genotyping to predict responses to anti-hypertensive treatment.

Hypertension is prevalent and affects approximately 1 in every 4 adults in the Western world. Although many drugs are effective in treating hypertension, an individual's response to treatment is unpredictable. Pharmacogenetics holds the promise of becoming a tool to predict this response but obstacles and shortcomings need to be overcome. Significant developments in molecular biology, including the sequencing of the genome, the cataloguing of genetic variation and the development of microarray techniques, enable analysis of many genotypes simultaneously. However, despite these technical advances there are, as yet, no clinical applications of pharmacogenetics in anti-hypertensive treatment. It is therefore necessary to design prospective pharmacogenetic studies that aim to identify a genetic profile that will predict the response to anti-hypertensive treatment.