Pharmacogenetics and the Future of Perzonalized Medications

Abstract

Clinical genetic testing has grown across the globe over the past 30 decades as the causative mutations for Mendelian diseases have been pointed out, especially helped in part by the recent advances in molecular technologies. Substantially, the use of up to date tests and other strategies such as diagnostic confirmation, testing prenatally, and population-based carrier screening is offered with caution and careful consideration before implementing clinically. This may facilitate the appropriate use of brand new genetic tests available. Even though the field of pharmacogenetics began in the early 50s, clinical testing for the fundamental pharmacogenetic variants implicated in inter-discrete drug response variability has become available only recently. It helps clinicians to judge and prescribe drugs more wisely. Nowadays, most of the health organizations and drug safety commissions provide revisions that include pharmacogenetic information leaflets for selected drugs. However, regardless of some pharmacogenetic associations with adverse results, rest of the proposals has been proven successfully. When compared with testing for the Mendelian diseases, pharmacogenetic testing for other manifestations may have only a negligible positive predictive value, which is one rationale for underutilization. A number of other barriers remain with implementing clinical pharmacogenetics, including lack of clinical utility, professional education, and regulatory and reimbursement issues, among others. Through this review we put forward some of the challenges and barriers faced in executing a clinical pharmacogenetic test.