What is Pharmacogenomics?

You can tell your doctor that you are interested in how changes in your genes may affect your response to any medicines you are currently taking or will be taking. You can share your concern for being at risk of not responding to a medicine or of having a bad reaction to a medicine, and that a pharmacogenetic test may be able to give you information about some medicines.

Be aware that only a few drugs currently have strong enough scientific evidence to support changing the drug choice or dose based on your genetics. If your doctor would like more information, you can suggest they visit www.pharmgkb.org(opens in new window) or www.cpicpgx.org(opens in new window), where information and resources for physicians can be found.

A pharmacogenomic test is a genetic test that specifically attempts to predict how a person will respond to a medication. It may also provide information about a person's risk of developing a disease. The results of pharmacogenomic tests show how likely it is that an individual will have a particular response to a certain medicine. Many genetic and environmental factors can contribute to response to medicine, as well as interactions with other medications taken at the same time.

Anyone interested in getting a pharmacogenomic test or anyone who has pharmacogenomic test results should be aware that there are limitations to this kind of testing. You can find a summary of some of these limitations here(opens in new window). PharmGKB does not offer advice on the advantages or disadvantages of specific pharmacogenomic tests.