Physician Prescribing Information Physicians - Start offering Pharmacogenetic Testing in your practice right away. Read Psychiatric Times Article June 2005 - Advances in Pharmacogenomics Reduce Side Effects and Save Lives Click Here Pharmacogenetic testing is the alternative to "one size fits all" and "trial and error" prescribing. Knowledge of patient drug metabolizing gene variants, found in more than half of patients, can help determine the appropriateness and dosage of many of the most commonly prescribed drugs including:
View chart below. Each time you prescribe medication, your patient will fall in a category. A - PM, poor metabolizer, absent or greatly reduced ability to clear or activate drugs. B - IM, intermediate metabolizer. Heterozygotes for normal and reduced activity genes. C - EM, extensive metabolizers. The norm. D - UM, ultra metabolizer. Greatly increased activity accelerating clearance or activation. Example. You prescribe an antidepressant who is a poor metabolizer. Roughly 10%-15% of the population. By day 9 that patient is having a toxic reaction to the antidepressant. Your choices or what is usually done? Increase dosage, change to a different medication or take the person entirely off antidepressants. If you increase the dosage, of course the adverse reactions will just escalate. If you change to a different medication, all antidepressants use a genetic pathway. You may very well compound the problem. Take the person off the antidepressant. You will instantly have a patient go into withdrawal. Solution If you have a patient currently having drug adverse reaction or not responding, prescribe a drug reaction test. You will know if it is the wrong medication, if the person should even be using that type of medication or how you need to adjust the dosage for the patient. Ideally, before you even prescribe a medication, you have your patient receive a drug reaction test, take the guesswork out of the equation for you and your patient. Most antidepressants will use three pathways. Most other medication will only use one pathway.
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