Chronic Hepatitis C and Depression

The goal of personalized medicine is to

1. Apply prevention strategies to those uniquely at risk for disease
2. Give therapies that are uniquely suited for a molecular cause of disease
3. Avoid therapies that would not be useful and in fact may be harmful to those being treated

I am certain there are other goals, but I think these are the over-riding themes.

In a study in the journal Gastroenterology we see another example of how principle 3 comes into play.

This study examined patients with Hepatitis C. The therapy for Hepatitis C includes Interferon. This medication has long been known to cause depressive symptoms in a subset of patients who take this therapy. The study found that those patients who had a polymorphism in the HTR1A gene (aka serotonin receptor 1A) were almost 3 fold more likely to have interferon induced depression. Imagine combining this with the likelihood for cirrhosis polymorphism I mentioned in April. I can see it coming together, the right drug or not, for the right person, and the right disease.

The only catch is that these results need replication in a larger population.

Stay tuned

Personalized Medicine in Hepatitis

From Stanford today a study results released showing the effectiveness of a genetic test indicating which patients infected with the Hepatitis C virus will progress to cirrhosis (destroyed shrunken liver). Until this study gastroenterologists had to guess which patients would develop this condition. None of the clinical factors including alcohol use or age at infection could accurately predict cirrhosis. This signature panel of 7 single nucleotide polymorphisms predicted risk better than clinical factors. Does that mean this test co developed by Celera Genomics is useful for all? Well....

1. We need validation studies
2. This was just evaluated on Caucasians
3. We are getting closer
4. Now if we could just get one of these for hepatocellular cancer