Theme 5: Neoplasia - Part 5 Flashcards
What is pharmacokinetics?
what the body does to the drug
What are pharmacodynamics?
what the drug does the body
What is the study of pharmacogenetics?
The study of inherited genetic differences in drug metabolism pathways which can affect an individual response to drugs
What are the genetic variations that affect the metabolism of drugs?
Changes in protein: -gene amplification -promoter polymorphisms -translocations -deletions, insertions -single nucleotide polymorphism = altered outcome to treatment
What are the different ways genetic variations can affect drug metabolism?
- absorption: drug might be excreted and not enter body
- activation: most drugs prescribed are inactive and require enzymes to activate
- altered target - can no longer bind to particular enzyme
- catabolism (breakdown) -build up of activated drug might have toxic effects
- excretion - if transporters are mutated functions will be impaired
What are ADRs?
adverse drug reactions - account for 6.5% of UK hospital admissions
How can genetics help tailored treatment?
start with broad diagnosis - everybody receives the same medication (30-60% effective)
then tailor treatment to match an individuals makeup and response - more effective and fewer side effects
How is Trastuzumab an example of personalised treatment?
A.k.a Herceptin
- drug came about because it was found that 20% of breast cancers have over-expression of HER2
- trastuzumab is a monoclonal antibody to the HER2 receptor
What are BRAF inhibitors?
- melanoma is resistant to chemotherapy treatment
- ~50% of melanomas have a somatic mutation in the BRAF gene
- vemurafenib îs a BRAF inhibitor used in chemo
What is the most common type of genetic variant affecting drug metabolism?
SNPs
What does ADME stand for?
Absorption - how does drug get in
Distribution - where will it go?
Metabolism - how is it broken down?
Excretion - how does it leave?
what does TPMT do?
- thiopurine methyltransferase
- inactivates certain drugs
What does azathioprine do?
immunosuppressant used in organ transplantation and autoimmune disease
What is aminoglycoside induced hearing loss?
- G>A mutation causes non-syndromic hearing loss at later stages
- maternal inheritance
- accounts for 30% of tendency to amino glycoside toxicity
What did the PALoH study discover?
- most babies admitted to NICU are given gentamicin
- 1 in 500 babies have a genetic change that predisposes to complete irreversible hearing loss when given gentamicin
- a rapid molecular test has been developed which can tell if babies are susceptible to this drug
- saves 200 babies every year from going death
What is genetic counselling?
a communication process which deals with human problems associated with the occurrence, or the risk of occurrence, of a genetic disorder in a family
From what age can you have a genetic test?
From when your 18
What are examples of pre-natal genetic tests?
- amniocentisis
- transabdominal chorionic villus sampling
- PGD (selective IVF) - pre-implanation genetic diagnosis
What are the causes of childhood deafness?
- 50% genetic cause
- 50% other causes e.g prematurity, infection during pregnancy, childhood infection
What are the 5 most common types of cancer death in the world?
- Lung
- Colorectal
- Stomach
- Liver
- Breast