Genomic data
could help doctors know whether to prescribe statins
Genomic
data could predict whether statins will benefit a patient or not, according to
an article in the open access journal Genome
Biology. The research suggests that genomic data alone can explain around
15% of patients' responses to a cholesterol-lowering statin, and further
studies could increase the accuracy of these predictions.
The
study looked at data from 372 participants in an American clinical trial for
the statin, Simvastatin, and found that certain genetic signatures were more
common in patients whose cholesterol was effectively lowered by the treatment,
while others were associated with patients who hadn't responded so well. It was
possible to predict how 15% of the patients would respond to statins, and this
data could help clinicians to make a decision about whether to prescribe
statins for individual patients.
This
study, by scientists from the Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute,
investigated whether there were any genetic signatures that were associated
with whether a statin lowered patients' LDL-cholesterol levels. They used data
from Caucasian, non-smoking participants in a clinical trial for the drug
Simvastatin. Looking back at the anonymized data, they were able to see which
patients responded well to the treatment and which didn't, and compare those
reactions to the data about their genomic profiles and gene expression.
They
found that differences in around 100 genes could explain 12-17% of the
variation in how effectively the statin lowered patients' LDL-cholesterol. The
genes were particularly accurate in predicting the patients that responded very
well or very poorly to the treatment. Some of these genes were involved in
cholesterol metabolism, but further studies are needed to find out about the
function of the others.
Because
the paper only uses data from Caucasians from a single clinical trial cohort,
the authors say that further study is needed to find out whether these genes
are a good indicator in other populations.
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Journal Reference:
Kyungpil
Kim, Eugene Bolotin, Elizabeth Theusch, Haiyan Huang, Marisa W Medina, Ronald M
Krauss. Prediction of LDL
cholesterol response to statin using transcriptomic and genetic variation. Genome Biology, 2014; 15 (9):
460 DOI: 10.1186/s13059-014-0460-9
Cite This Page:
BioMed
Central. "Genomic data could help doctors know whether to prescribe
statins." Science Daily,
30 September 2014.
<www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140930090640.htm>.