A 12-gene pharmacogenetic panel significantly reduced the incidence of clinically relevant adverse drug reactions when implemented across diverse European healthcare systems, researchers report. “Large-scale implementation” of the pre-emptive genotyping strategy “could help to make drug therapy increasingly safe,” the Ubiquitous Pharmacogenomics Consortium investigators conclude.
The open-label, multicenter, controlled, cluster-randomized, crossover implementation study was conducted in 18 hospitals, 9 community health centers, and 28 community pharmacies in 7 European countries (Austria, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, and the U.K.). Adults presenting prescriptions for drugs recommended for genetic testing in the Dutch Pharmacogenetics Working Group guidelines were eligible to participate. Genotyping for 50 germline variants in 12 genes these outcomes based on a primary outcome of clinically relevant adverse drug reactions within a 12-week follow-up period: “In patients with an actionable test result for the index drug (n = 1,558), a clinically relevant adverse drug reaction occurred in 152 (21.0%) of 725 patients in the study group and 231 (27.7%) of 833 patients in the control group (odds ratio [OR] 0.70 [95% CI 0.54–0.91]; P = 0.0075), whereas for all patients, the incidence was 628 (21.5%) of 2,923 patients in the study group and 934 (28.6%) of 3,270 patients in the control group (OR 0.70 [95% CI 0.61–0.79]; P <0.0001).”