The Pharmacogenetic Tool Kit to Guide Depression Treatment Decisions?

With the suboptimal response to many psychiatric treatments given by trial and error, clinicians and patients await the “personalizing” of treatment. Commercially available support tools for pharmacogenetic decision making are now being marketed to psychiatrists and, in the U.S., are reimbursed by some insurers. In an excellent review, these authors focus on tools offered by 22 companies.

The tools usually include multigene panels, based on single nucleotide polymorphisms, and are heavily focused on pharmacokinetic genes, less so on pharmacodynamic genes. For three support tools, published studies suggest improved clinical outcomes in depressed patients when prescribers follow the gene-based proprietary recommendations to prioritize the sele…