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Abstract
Evaluation of: Meckley LM, Gudgeon JM, Anderson JL, Williams MS, Veenstra DL. A policy model to evaluate the benefits, risks and costs of warfarin pharmacogenomic testing. Pharmacoeconomics 28(1), 61–74 (2010).
Patients using warfarin for oral anticoagulant therapy need to be frequently monitored because of warfarin’s narrow therapeutic range and the large variation in dose requirements among patients. Patients receiving the wrong dose have an increased risk of bleeding or thromboembolic events. The required dose is influenced by environmental factors, such as gender, age, diet and concomitant medication, as well as genetic factors. Pharmacogenetic testing prior to warfarin initiation might improve dosing accuracy and, therefore, safety and efficacy of warfarin treatment. Meckley et al. studied the clinical consequences and costs of genotyping before warfarin treatment. The results of their study suggest that pharmacogenetic-guided dosing of patients initiating warfarin could improve health (quality-adjusted life-years) but at a high cost per quality-adjusted life-year gained. Owing to the inevitable assumptions that have to be made in all cost–effectiveness models, great uncertainty remains regarding the cost–effectiveness of pharmacogenetic-guided warfarin dosing.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
This project is funded by the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement HEALTH-F2-2009-223062. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.