Pharmacogenomics overview: Potential benefits and challenges

Pharmacogenomics is an area of diagnostic testing that is currently receiving a great deal of attention as one of the major tools to be used on the road to personalized medicine. Many genetic polymorphisms have been identified that relate to interindividual variability in response to therapeutic drugs-both prescription and over-the-counter (OTC). The ability to identify these genetic changes pretherapeutically demonstrates the potential to improve patient care by avoiding adverse events due to specific drugs, and to increase the efficiency of other drugs through identification of patients most likely to respond. However, these benefits are equally offset by significant obstacles to widespread testing. These challenges must be addressed so that the potential benefits of pharmacogenomics can be realized.