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Unclear How Patients Accept Tailored Drugs

Posted on: Saturday, 1 November 2008, 00:00 CDT

More doctors are using personalized medicine, but it's unclear how patients react to using genomic diagnostics for tailor-made drugs, U.S. researchers said.

Study leader Amalia M. Issa -- who heads the Program in Personalized Medicine and Targeted Therapeutics at the Abramson Family Center for the Future of Health, a joint initiative between University of Houston and The Methodist Hospital Research Institute -- said personalized medicine uses a genotype or gene expression profile to stratify patients into smaller sub-populations, to achieve greater prescribing precision. The technique can be used to identify disease stages, the most appropriate medications or dosages, or even preventative measures.

Issa's project will analyze the willingness of patients from various socioeconomic backgrounds to adopt, and pay for the use of, genomic diagnostics to tailor prescriptions.

"Personalized medicine lies at the crossroads of science and technology, and there are a number of barriers to its translation and implementation into clinical practice," Issa said in a statement.

"As the science and technology advance, we need to be able to understand how personalized medicine applications will be accepted and adopted by patients," she said. "After all, it is patients who will help shape how the different technologies are used and which populations use them."

Source: United Press International

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