Clinical perspectives

Abstract

The eventual clinical implications of the large efforts in pharmacogenomic research throughout the world described in other chapters may be profound and widespread, but the actual utility of pharmacogenetic knowledge in clinical practice to date remains limited and largely untested. Changes in clinical practice represented by changes in dose or in the drug administered that result in real changes in health outcomes would be important measures of progress toward the “personalized medicine” or “precision prescriptions” so frequently predicted. Such outcomes might include the avoidance of a specific toxicity or the achievement of a specific therapeutic effect, but, as with all measures of success in medicine, must also include real clinical outcomes.