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Everyone in a diverse, nearly 100,000-person sample carried at least one genetic variant that affects how their body processes medications, and a quarter of those people had been prescribed a medication that is known to be impacted by the variant they carried, a new University of Pittsburgh–led analysis reveals in Science Translational Medicine.

The discovery highlights the value of genetic testing for some medications and suggests that electronic health record alerts could be helpful when a clinician prescribes one of these medications. Such an alert would allow the clinician to consider prescribing an alternate medication or adjusting the dosage.

"Many people have experience with taking a medication that is not working well for them or that has a side effect," said senior author Philip E. Empey, Pharm.D., Ph.D., associate professor in Pitt's School of Pharmacy and associate director for pharmacogenomics at the Institute for Precision Medicine at Pitt and UPMC.

"While many things impact how a patient responds to medication, our research tells us that genetics could be a factor for a large proportion of patients and it points to the value of precision medicine in prescribing."

More than 300 medications have information on their labels about genetic variant interactions, where genetic testing may be of value to guide prescribing, Empey said. One example is a chemotherapy drug used for colon cancer that could have serious toxicity in up to 8% of patients who carry these genetic variants, so those patients are proactively tested before treatment.

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