Racial Differences in the Response to Drugs — Pointers to Genetic Differences

Abstract

All physicians recognize that individual patients respond differently to medications, so that at so-called standard doses, a drug may have toxic effects in some patients but fail to produce the expected therapeutic effect in others. Our lack of understanding of all the factors determining such variability among individual patients is perplexing to both physicians and their patients and limits physicians' ability to individualize therapy. Consequently, prescribing drugs is an iterative process, in which physicians initially prescribe a standard dose of medication and then adjust the dose or choice of medication in response to the observed toxic or therapeutic response. For . . .