Is genetic testing the future of personalized cancer treatment?
Many people living with cancer have benefited from the advancement of personalized medicine in the oncology field. However, this advancement has been limited as up until now we have not had the genetic testing to precisely match someone’s genetic code to potential drug treatments for their disease. The field of matching drugs to DNA is known as pharmacogenomics.
Recently, the British Pharmacological Society and the Royal College of Physicians (both UK) stated that a genetic test could become available in the next year to predict how well drugs will work in an individual’s body.
President-elect of the British Pharmacological Society, Mark Caulfield, explained: “99.5% of us have at least one change in our genome that, if we come across the wrong medicine, it will either not work or it will actually cause harm.” The genetic analysis would cost around £100 and carried out using a sample of blood or saliva. The report suggests that we have the technology to roll out genetic testing to guide the use of 40 of the most prescribed drugs in the UK.
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As we age and are prescribed more drugs, research suggests that there is a 70% chance that by the age of 70 you will be on at least one drug that is influenced by your genetic make-up. Munir Pirmohamed (University of Liverpool, UK) commented: “We need to move away from ‘one drug and one dose fits all’ to a more personalised approach, where patients are given the right drug at the right dose to improve the effectiveness and safety of medicines.”
This is exciting news for the oncology field, with hopes that the testing will continue to evolve so that it can help guide treatments in the future. Chairman of NHS England, David Prior, concluded that pharmacogenomics is the future and that “it can now help us to deliver a new, modern personalised healthcare system fit for 2022”.
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Source: Royal College of Physicians. Personalised prescribing: using pharmacogenomics to improve patient outcomes. Report: https://www.bps.ac.uk/getmedia/b43a3dca-1bbf-4bff-9379-20bef9349a8c/Personalised-prescribing-full-report.pdf.aspx
To learn more about pharmacogenomics visit our journal site: Pharmacogenomics.
