Which Patients Respond to Clozapine?

Pharmacogenetics, the study of the interaction of genotypes and drugs, has the potential to enable researchers to test the predictability of a patient's response to medications. To improve prediction of response to clozapine -- an atypical antipsychotic medication that is costly and powerfully effective and has substantial variability in response -- these researchers examined pharmacogenetic associations in 200 clozapine-treated, white, British schizophrenic patients. The study focused on a combination of 19 genetic polymorphisms in, mostly, serotonin and dopamine receptor subtypes as well as a serotonin transporter; patients' responses to treatment were measured retrospectively with the Global Assessment Scale.

Using logistic regression to …