It may soon be possible to predict which patients are most likely to respond to the antipsychotic drug clozapine, according to Professor Robert Kerwin and Dr Maria Arranz (department of psychological medicine, King's College, London). This might allow prescribers to decide which patients are most appropriate for treatment with the drug, they say.
Presenting at the millennium meeting of the British Pharmacological Society on January 7, the researchers described recent genetic studies that they had carried out on 200 patients with schizophrenia, who were treated with clozapine for at least three months. They investigated 19 genetic variations in the receptor and transport mechanisms responsible for the action of clozapine and found that, in 80 per cent of cases, it was possible to predict those patients who would respond well to the drug.
"This may lead to a simple new test to select patients most suited to the drug. . . .This offers the potential to personalise therapy. Our results show how we could, in the future, individualise psychiatric treatment in a group of people who respond in different ways to different drugs," said Professor Kerwin.