Individualized drug therapy.

The pharmacogenetics of either individual patients or tumors has been used to aid the progress of personalized medicine to generate antitumor drugs (eg, trastuzamab and erlotinib) that are active against tumors expressing particular growth factor receptors. Outside the field of cancer therapeutics, pharmacogenetic tests have been introduced to detect patient genotypes with the aim of individualizing existing treatments. For example, the analysis of thiopurine S-methyltransferase genotypes enables the prediction of toxicity in patients to be treated with either 6-mercaptopurine or azathioprine, while the uridine 5'-diphosphoglucuronosyl-transferase 1A1 genotype may predict irinotecan toxicity. There is a large body of information concerning cytochrome P450 (CYP) polymorphisms and their relationship with drug toxicity and response; however, currently, there is limited use of CYP genotypes to individualize treatments. It is now well recognized that the CYP2C9 genotype, when combined with the genotype for vitamin K epoxide reductase complex subunit 1, is predictive of dose requirement for oral anticoagulants, a fact that is likely to have clinical utility. There is also potential to individualize treatments with certain drugs on the basis of CYP2D6, CYP2C19 and CYP3A5 genotypes. Studies on genes encoding drug receptors in relation to individualized prescription have been limited but there is increasing information on the relationship between response to beta2-adrenoceptor agonists and the genotype for the beta2-adrenoceptor gene. The introduction of pharmacogenetic tests into routine healthcare requires both a demonstration of cost-effectiveness and the availability of appropriate accessible testing systems.