Lecture 2 Flashcards
How many motivations are there for personalised medicine?
What does each entail?
2
- Cost of Adverse Drug Reactions- Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs) account for 3% - 18% of all UK hospitalizations, with an annual cost to the NHS of £1 - £2 billion.
- Cost of lack of efficacy - E.g. treatment of epilepsy
Start on low dose of Drug A
Gradually increase dose until effective treatment or negative result. If the latter start on low dose of Drug B … Keep continuing until effective treatment attained
What is the hope if personalised medicine can be improved?
Better outcomes
Less time-consuming
More cost-effective
Using better ways of measuring the individual to both predict and monitor the patient’s response to treatment
Pharmacogenetics in 2020 include 21 drugs (non-cancer) have testing required by US FDA
True or false
False
31
What type of biomarkers are mostly FDA approved in oncology?
Somatic
What is a major drug metabolising enzyme that controls how fast the body utilises drug and thus how long that drug remains effective?
CYP2D6
What is Azathioprine?
A thiopurine drug which induces T-cell apoptosis (cell death)
What is Azathioprine widely used as?
An immunosuppressant agent in transplantation and inflammatory bowel disease
What enzyme is associated with the challenges of Azathioprine use?
And why?
TPMT
TPMT enzyme is required to catalyze azathioprine and deficient enzyme levels can lead to bone marrow depression with azathioprine
TPMT enzyme activity is controlled by genetic polymorphisms in TPMT gene, and one in 300 subjects have very low enzyme activity – therefore not safe to prescribe this to such individuals
Is Pharmacogenetic testing for Azathioprine performed by measuring enzyme activity or genotyping?
Measuring enzyme levels
Pharmacogenetic testing for Azathioprine is recommended where?
The US
About half of the UK patients are tested for what prior to treatment with azathioprine?
TMPT
TMPT testing predicts other adverse events
True or false
False
Does not predict other adverse events
Frequency of TMPT variants vary across population groups.
True or false
What is the implication of this in relation to Azathioprine?
True
Implication:
TPMT~0: Avoid or very low dose. High risk of fatal toxicity.
Intermediate TPMT:
Use a 50% dosing
strategy.
Normal TPMT:
Usual dosing strategy
What is Warfarin used for?
To prevent blood clotting in patients atrial fibrillation, strokes, deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism
Therapeutic dose varies from patients to patient 20-fold difference in effective dose among Caucasian patients
True or false
True
What can warfarin trigger?
- Fatal haemorrhaging if dose too high
- Stroke if dose too low