Browsing by Subject "drug-drug interaction"

There are significant inter-individual differences in the effects of drugs. These differences can be caused by, for example, other diseases, adherence to treatment, or drug-drug interactions. A drug-drug interaction can lead to an increase in the concentration of the active substance in the circulation (pharmacokinetic interactions) or a change in the effect of the drug without changes in plasma concentration (pharmacodynamic interactions). A drug-drug interaction can change the efficacy of a drug or affect the adverse drug reaction profile. The individual’s genetic background, such as diversity in drug-modifying enzymes (polymorphism), also has an effect on the efficacy and the risk for adverse drug reactions of some drugs. A pharmacogenetic test can be used to study how genetic factors affect drug treatments. The aim of this master's thesis was to examine the possibilities of personalized migraine pharmacotherapy from the perspective of pharmacogenomics and drug-drug interactions. Four online drug-drug interaction databases available in Finland were compared. Inxbase is the most widely used interaction database by physicians in Finland and it is also integrated into Finnish pharmacy systems. Other databases used in this study were the international professional database Micromedex as well as Medscape Drug Interaction Checker and Drugs.com Drug Interactions Checker. The latter two are open-access databases available for healthcare professionals and patients. Interaction searches were conducted in the selected databases between acute and prophylactic drugs used for the treatment of migraine (e.g. bisoprolol-sumatriptan). Fourteen acute and 12 prophylactic drugs were selected for this study based on the Current Care Guidelines in Finland (Käypä hoito), and the data were collected in Excel spreadsheets. The first search was completed in December 2019 and the second search in March 2020. In this study, many potential interactions were found between acute and prophylactic drugs used to treat migraine in Finland. For more than half of the drug pairs studied, a potential interaction was found in at least one of the databases. There were significant differences between the interaction databases regarding which interactions the database contains and how the severity of the interactions was classified. Of the interactions found, only 45% were found in all four databases, and each database contained interactions that were not found in the other databases. Even very serious interactions or drug pairs classified as contraindicated were not found to be consistently presented across all four databases. When selecting drug treatment for a migraine patient, potential drug-drug interactions between acute and prophylactic drugs as well as the patient's genetic background should be considered. Individualizing migraine treatment to achieve the best efficacy and to reduce the risk for adverse drug reactions is important because migraine as a disease causes a heavy burden on individuals, healthcare, and society. Pharmacogenetic tests particularly developed to help choosing migraine treatment are not yet available, but tests are available for few other indications in both public and private healthcare. The use of these tests in clinical practice will increase as physicians’ pharmacogenetic knowledge and scientific evidence on pharmacogenetic tests increase. Utilization of pharmacogenetic data requires that test results are stored in electronic health records so that they are available in the future, when changes are made to drug treatment of individuals. More studies are warranted to better understand the clinical impact of pharmacogenomics and drug-drug interactions in migraine care.