Evaluation of pharmacogenetic algorithm for warfarin dose requirements in Japanese patients

Warfarin dosing is difficult to establish because of considerable interindividual variation. Thus, warfarin pharmacogenetics have attracted particular interest in relation to appropriate control of anticoagulation.

The 200 eligible subjects were chosen from participants in a hospital cohort. Performance of a pharmacogenetic algorithm recently developed by the International Warfarin Pharmacogenetics Consortium (IWPC) was tested and compared with a clinical algorithm (without genotype data) by calculating the percentage of patients for whom the predicted dose deviated by less than 7 mg/week (1 mg/day) from the actual dose. The pharmacogenetic algorithm accurately identified a significantly (P<0.05) larger proportion of patients to achieve the target international normalized ratio than did the clinical algorithm (68% vs 36% for a low-dose group; and 21% vs 0% for a high-dose group). Also, an increase in warfarin dosage was found to be appropriate for the current status of alcohol drinking (4 mg/week, as against non-drinking) and smoking (3.3 mg/week, as against non-smoking).

The IWPC pharmacogenetic algorithm has clinical application, particularly in identifying Japanese patients who require a low dosage of warfarin and are at greater risk of excessive anticoagulation.