WIKIMEDIA, CDCWhen touting the benefits of pharmacogenetic testing, researchers often point to screening for variants in CYP2C9 and VKORC1 to determine dosing of the anticoagulant drug Warfarin as a prime example. But results released yesterday (November 19) from the Clarification of Optimal Anticoagulation Through Genetics (COAG) Phase 3 trial suggest that the use of genetic information in determining a patient’s initial dose of the blood thinner does not result in better drug response than when dosage assessments are based on clinical data alone. Further, the results showed that considering genetic information when dosing African American patients actually led to poorer anticoagulation control, compared with initial prescriptions based solely on clinical data. The work was published online in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

“Given the lack of definitive information on whether or not pharmacogenetics can improve the care of patients and the need to study a broad...

Meanwhile, a separate team reported in NEJM this week (November 19) that CYP2C9 and VKORC1 genotype information led to fewer incidences of excessive anticoagulation, and helped researchers determine a patient’s proper dosage more quickly.

Speaking at the American Heart Association (AHA) meeting being held in Dallas, researchers expressed mixed feelings about the new data. “The bottom line is it looks like, although genetic testing does give you incremental information, [but] the knowledge that you gain is not enough to really have a big impact clinically; enough to make it worth the considerable trouble and cost it takes to do it,” MedPage Today quoted Duke University’s Robert Califf, a coauthor on the COAG study, as saying at the AHA conference.

Brian Olshansky from the University of Iowa added: “For the overall populations that are involved here, the benefits are so small compared to the amount of effort that is taken—and perhaps the expense—that I don’t really see it fitting into clinical medicine at this point unless we can really better define the populations,” MedPage reported.

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