Potential Role of Patients' CYP3A-Status in Clozapine Pharmacokinetics

The atypical antipsychotic clozapine is effective in treatment-resistant schizophrenia; however, the success or failure of clozapine therapy is substantially affected by the variables that impact the clozapine blood concentration. Thus, elucidating the inter-individual differences in clozapine pharmacokinetics can facilitate the personalized therapy.

Since a potential role in clozapine metabolism is assigned to CYP1A2, CYP2C19, CYP2D6 and CYP3A enzymes, the association between the patients' CYP status (CYP genotypes, CYP expression) and clozapine clearance was evaluated in 92 psychiatric patients.

The patients' CYP2C19 or CYP2D6 genotypes and CYP1A2 expression seemed to have no effect on clozapine serum concentration, whereas CYP3A4 expression significantly influenced the normalized clozapine concentration (185.53±56.53 in low expressers vs 78.05±29.57 or 66.52±0.25 (ng/mL)/(mg/kg) in normal or high expressers, P<.0001), in particular that the patients expressed CYP1A2 at a relatively low level. The functional CYP3A5*1 allele seemed to influence clozapine concentrations in those patients who expressed CYP3A4 at low levels. The dose requirement for the therapeutic concentration of clozapine was substantially lower in low CYP3A4 expresser patients than in normal/high expressers (2.18±0.64 vs 4.98±1.40 mg/kg, P<.0001). Furthermore, significantly higher plasma concentration ratios of norclozapine/clozapine and clozapine N-oxide/clozapine were observed in the patients displaying normal/high CYP3A4 expression than in the low expressers.

Prospective assaying of CYP3A-status (CYP3A4 expression, CYP3A5 genotype) may better identify the patients with higher risk of inefficiency or adverse reactions and may facilitate the improvement of personalized clozapine therapy; however, further clinical studies are required to prove the benefit of CYP3A testing for patients under clozapine therapy.