Pharmacogenomics in psychiatric practice: Latin America initiatives

Abstract

Although pharmacogenomics has had a good development in most of medical specialties, in Psychiatry has been particularly successful. Thus, it is extremely useful in psychiatric patients, given how common is the use of therapeutic regimens that combine several drugs, with significant interactions between them. Patients with complex pathologies such as bipolar affective disorder, major depression, psychotic depression, borderline personality disorder, organic brain damage with uncontrolled impulses, among others, have medical advice that is necessary to perform their genotyping. In some of these cases, the result may withdraw some drugs, lower doses, avoid certain combinations of drugs, and others simply continue using high doses or complex combination therapies with greater confidence and a solid pharmacological foundation. In this respect, CYP2D6 is a biotransformation enzyme particularly relevant in psychiatric drugs. Therefore, the characterization of its variants in Latin American people is extremely important. In this respect, some few studies in the region have revealed ethnic differences. Pharmacogenomics appear to be the main tool to find the right medicine and dose suitable for each subject in Psichiatry