Patients taking drugs to treat any health condition should be aware of what pharmacogenetics is. According to the Genetics Home Reference of the National Institute of Health, pharmacogenetics, also often termed pharmacogenomics, is an area of medicine that addresses the differences in the responses of individual patients to drugs that result from their own genetic differences. These differences result from metabolic pathways that are distinct in each patient, and the pharmacogenetic differences between patients can have both positive or negative effects in relation to a patient’s treatment for a health condition.
Today, doctors and medical experts know that just about every metabolic pathway that is seen in the body can be subject to genetic variations between patients. Medical scientists specializing in pharmacogenetics work to decrease the chances of an adverse drug reaction in a patient because of his or her genetic variations. Adverse drug reactions in patients who are on drugs to treat a health condition can be severe and even fatal, so pharmacogenetics is a very important field of endeavor. This is especially true when doctors must treat patients who require drugs that are particularly likely to bring about different responses in patients due to varying metabolic pathways.
History and Origins of Pharmacogenetics
Attention was first called to pharmacogenetics in the 1950 when differences in patients abilities to metabolize suxamethonium chloride. Afterwards, genetic variations in patients’ ability to metabolize other drugs began to be analyzed, and it was noted that certain ethnicities and races could demonstrate shared tendencies regarding their metabolic pathways. For example, it was noted in this first instance where pharmacogenetics became officially recognized that one in every 3500 Caucasians can be expected to have increased difficulty with metabolizing suxamethonium chloride.
The Integration of Pharmacogenetics in Health Care Today
Those working in pharmacogenetics still have much work ahead of them despite the progress made in this area since the 1950s. Most drugs are still not yet tested to determine possible through the Genome-Wide Association Study process to determine any genetic variations in how they will be metabolized. At the same time, experts estimate that more than a quarter of all of the most common medications do have some metabolic discrepancies between patients that result from genetic differences.
Ideas behind pharmacogenetics are closely linked with the concept of personalized medicine, or the customization of healthcare for each patient depending on a patient’s genes. Although high costs of genetic testing that pinpoints information necessary to pharmacogenetics and personalized medicine has made these healthcare precautions difficult to access and develop in the past, the price of this testing has been steadily decreasing. It is highly likely that pharmacogenetics and personalized medicine will play an increasingly important role in providing the appropriate treatment to patients in the coming years.
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Despite its potential for the future, pharmacogenetics is now still at its very basic stages, and it is not yet widely used. Yet it is hypothesized that in the future, pharmacogenetics will allow doctors to precisely tailor their treatments to patients in order to best respond to cases of severe health conditions such as HIV/AIDS, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease.