Drug-gene pairs in anti-hypertensive treatment improves patient care

A recent study suggests that drug-gene pairs in anti-hypertensive treatment, would clinically improve patient care. A systematic review was carried out and the results were published in the Journal of Human Hypertension.

The study included literature of a total of 26 studies consisting of 8847 patients which covered five classes of hypertensive agents, namely – Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Inhibitors (ACEI), angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARB), beta-blockers (BB), calcium channel blockers (CCB), and thiazide-like diuretics. The outcome of interest was the response to anti-hypertensive treatment in Asians based on each genetic polymorphism.

It was found that response to ACEI therapy was most susceptible to genotypic variations, while the efficacy of ARB and CCB was affected by pharmacogenetic differences to varying extents. For BB, only variations in the ADRB1 genotype significantly affect therapeutic response, whereas the therapeutic efficacy of thiazide-like diuretics was correlated with REN and ACE genotypic variations. Thus, the systematic review concluded that pharmacogenetics can play an important role in determining the anti-hypertensive effects of blood pressure-lowering medications and improve patient care.

Reference:

Tang, S.W.Y., Mai, A.S., Chew, N.W.S. et al. (2022) The clinical impact of anti-hypertensive treatment drug-gene pairs in the asian population: a systematic review of publications in the past decade. J Hum Hypertens. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41371-022-00765-y