PHARMACOGENOMICS AND PRECISION MEDICINE Pablo Pereira de Freitas

Abstract

Currently, there are several forms of treatment used in Western medicine, however, these methods are at a crossroads where the treatment for some pathologies, or symptoms in general clinical cases, are subject to standardization of therapy carried out by the clinic based on symptoms. It is understood that each patient has their individuality, the human body responds differently to stimuli and treatments, often having adverse effects as in the classic case of vaccines. This leads us to think of a way to increase the effectiveness of therapies, with drugs or other treatments specific to each patient. In modern medicine, it is possible to achieve this feat thanks to precision medicine, which aims at targeted and specific treatment for the patient, taking into account the patient's genetic characteristics. From this module, pharmacogenomics emerges, which studies the interaction between genes and medications. By analyzing parts of the DNA, it is possible to obtain information about the patient's metabolization profile for a given drug, in addition to the expected response induced by the treatment. Although it is not yet widely applied in clinical routine, due to the high cost, pharmacogenomic markers demonstrate that if applied, they can greatly improve the quality and safety of therapies, in addition to identifying rare genetic variants previously neglected, reported to explain a large part of the variability inter-individual interaction in drug metabolism. In this research, the fields of study and application of pharmacogenomics and precision medicine were approached objectively, based on a literature review.