[Pharmacogenetic strategies]

Factors influencing treatment outcome to medication include previous history of response to medication, duration of illness, ethnicity, and gender; as well as genetic factors. These genetic factors influence pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic effects of specific drugs such as absorption, metabolism, elimination, transport across the blood-brain barrier, and drug-target interactions. The detection of individual genetic differences in response to medication may lead to important new strategies for the treatment of psychiatric disorders. With the advent of molecular biology individual differences can be determined on the molecular level. The awareness of the importance of pharmacogenetic factors has recently led to numerous studies seeking association between genetic variants and treatment-outcome. The results however, are partially inconsistent. One of the main reasons for this inconsistency may be accounted by heterogeneity of study designs. As in genetic studies of complex phenotypes, several replications are required before a result can be accepted, first 'guidelines' have been proposed to make those studies comparable. These 'guidelines' and study results will be presented.