The role of genetics in drug dosing

Abstract

Renal transplantation is the optimal form of renal replacement therapy (RRT) for the majority of patients. Both short- and long-term graft rejection are well recognized complications following transplantation, and optimal immunosuppression is often difficult to achieve. Pharmacodynamics (PD) and pharmacokinetics (PK) are hard to predict in all patients, and best practice involves the use of standard dosing based on weight and therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM). Pharmacogenetics (PG) is the use of genetic screening to predict metabolic responses to different immunosuppressive drugs and enables more accurate predictions of PD and PK to be made. This has the potential to improve graft outcome by reducing both short- and long-term graft rejection.