Are your medications making you sick? If your answer is yes and/or maybe…you are not alone. Actually what could be occurring is an Adverse Drug Reaction(ADR). While some adverse drug reactions (ADR) are not very serious, some can cause death, hospitalization, or serious injury. ADR’s affect more than 2 million people in the United States each year, including more than 100,000 fatalities. In fact, adverse drug reactions are one of the leading causes of death in the United States.*
A new standard of care has been born. This new standard of care encourages medical professionals to work towards Personal/Precision Medicine. The Human Genome Project that was completed in 2001 has brought the world new and incredible tests called Pharmacogenomic testing(PGx) that can now help deliver Personalized/Precision Medicine. What initially cost hundreds of billions of dollars now costs anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars…and what is even better is that Insurance and Medicare see the benefit in quality of life and lowering the cost of health care. So… Can PGx testing reduce ADR’s? Could your or your patients benefit from PGx testing?
Pharmacogenomics is the study of genetic variations that influence individual response to drugs. Knowing whether a patient carries any of these genetic variations can help prescribers individualize drug therapy, decrease the chance for adverse drug events, and increase the effectiveness of drugs.
Pharmacogenomics has the potential to provide tailored drug therapy based on genetically determined variation in effectiveness and side effects. This will mean:
More powerful medicines – Pharmaceutical companies will be able to produce therapies more targeted to specific diseases, maximizing therapeutic effects while decreasing damage to nearby healthy cells.
Better, safer drugs the first time – Recovery time will go down and safety will go up as the likelihood of adverse reactions goes down or is eliminated altogether.
More accurate methods of determining appropriate drug dosages – Current methods of basing dosages on weight and age will be replaced with dosages based on a person’s genetics –how well the body processes the medicine and the time it takes to metabolize it