Common mutations can affect how well a drug works, or even whether it is toxic to some patients
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskAll that could have been avoided had a simple test been done. The test examines a gene that encodes a liver enzyme called dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase . The enzyme breaks down several common cancer drugs. Without it, toxic levels of the drugs build up in the body, sometimes with fatal results. A complete inability to make-regulating gene that are known to reduce its production. As it turned out, Mr Ley had one of them.
All told, scientists have identified about 120 such drug-gene pairs so far. Roughly half of them are “actionable”, says Henk-Jan Guchelaar, a pharmacologist at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands—meaning that changing the dose or replacing the drug can lead to a better clinical outcome. And most people will be prescribed at least one of those drugs at some point in their lives.
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