Cholesterol-lowering drugs are less potent for some because of a genetic variation -- a finding that may one day lead to genetic screening to prescribe the correct drug dosage, researchers said Tuesday.
A study of 1,500 people treated with a cholesterol-lowering statin drug found those with a common genetic variation governing cholesterol synthesis had a 22 percent smaller reduction in their total cholesterol after six months of therapy.
The researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School said an analysis of 10 candidate genes turned up one -- a variation in the HMG-CoA reductase gene --that produced the undesired effect.
“We recognize that these data ... provide strong clinical evidence that there may be promise in the concept of 'personalized medicine' and the use of genetic screening to target certain therapies,” study author Daniel Chasman wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“Future studies must determine whether this difference can be offset by dose adjustment or the choice of an alternative ... therapy.”
In an accompanying editorial, Susanne Haga of the U.S. Center for the Advancement of Genomics wrote that numerous factors go into an individual’s response to a drug, including their genetic makeup.
“By guiding drug therapy, pharmacogenetic testing could help to prevent serious injuries, hospitalization, mortality, and health care costs associated with adverse drug responses, and avoid the cost and inconvenience of prescribing drugs to patients who are likely to be nonresponders,” Haga wrote.