C. Role of Pharmacogenomic Testing in Clinically Safe & Effective Drug Therapy
Despite our improved understanding of the molecular basis of pharmacogenetic defects in drug-metabolizing enzymes, their impact on drug therapy and ADRs, and the availability of validated pharmacogenetic biomarkers to identify patients at risk, this clinically relevant information has not been effectively translated to patient care. Thus, the much-heralded potential for personalized medicine, except in a few instances of drugs with a relatively low therapeutic index (eg, warfarin), has remained largely unrealized. This is so even though 98% of US physicians are apparently aware that such genetic information may significantly influence therapy. This is partly due to the lack of adequate training in translating this knowledge to medical practice, and partly due to the logistics of genetic testing and the issue of cost-effectiveness. Severe ADRs are known to contribute to 100,000 annual US deaths, about 7% of all hospital admissions, and an increased average length of hospital stay. Genotype information could greatly enhance safe and efficacious clinical therapy through dose adjustment or alternative drug therapy, thereby curbing much of the rising ADR incidence and its associated costs. (See Chapter 5 for further discussion.)
It is increasingly recognized that the human gut microbiome can also significantly influence drug responses. It thus serves as another relevant source of therapeutic misadventures and adverse drug-drug interactions. More than 1000 species of intestinal microorganisms have been identified, including obligate anaerobic bacteria and various yeasts that coexist in a dynamic, often symbiotic, ecological equilibrium. Their biotransformation repertoire is nonoxidative, albeit highly versatile, extending from predominantly reductive and hydrolytic reactions to decarboxylation, dehydroxylation, dealkylation, dehalogenation, and deamination. Notably, such bacterially mediated reduction of the cardiac drug digoxin significantly contributes to its metabolism and elimination. Co-treatment with antibiotics such as erythromycin or tetracycline increases digoxin serum levels twofold, increasing the risk of cardiotoxicity. Similarly, drugs that are primarily glucuronidated in the liver are excreted into the gut via the bile, whereupon they are subjected to de-glucuronidation by gut microbial β-glucuronidases (hydrolases). The pharmacologically active parent aglycone is subsequently reabsorbed into the portal circulation with consequent extension of its pharmacologic action and hepatic phase II reconjugation and subsequent enterohepatic recycling. Thus, if the parent drug is dosage limited or has a low therapeutic index, this may mean increased toxicity. For example, under normal dosage, the analgesic acetaminophen is largely metabolized via glucuronidation and sulfation, as discussed earlier, and eliminated into the hepatic sinusoidal plasma. However, upon overdosage, the increased production of these metabolites is quite likely to saturate their normal excretory transport process. Their consequently enhanced biliary excretion would subject a greater fraction of the acetaminophen-glucuronide to de-glucuronidation by intestinal microbial β-glucuronidases, which may further contribute to the toxic acetaminophen burden. This possibility is even more relevant for glucuronides of parent drugs of noted gastrointestinal toxicity. Accordingly, selective inhibition of microbial β-glucuronidases has been documented to alleviate the gastrointestinal toxicity of anticancer drugs such as irinotecan, as well as the enteropathies induced by nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as indomethacin, ketoprofen or diclofenac, that incur substantial enterohepatic circulation. This possibility has fueled the pharmaceutical design and development of even more selective inhibitors targeted against microbial β-glucuronidases.