Utility of the Pharmacogenetic Information Provided by NEUROPHARMAGEN in the Treatment of Bipolar Depressionwith Bipolar Depression

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a severe psychiatric condition characterized by mood swings between (hypo)mania and depression, with a total lifetime prevalence of 2.4%. An early and effective therapeutic approach is key for the patient prognosis, being the pharmacotherapy the main therapeutic tool for its management.

Treatment guidelines for BD include a variety of psychotropic medications, including lithium, anticonvulsants, antipsychotics, antidepressants, anxiolytics, and combinations of these medications. However, treatment response is often inadequate and poor tolerability is frequently observed.

Variability in treatment efficacy and tolerability has been shown to be influenced by several factors, including the inherited genetic variation. Several meta-analyses have shown that some genetic variants influence the probability of response to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in patients with depression. Similarly, specific genetic polymorphisms have been associated with the risk of certain antipsychotic-induced adverse effects in patients with schizophrenia. However, the impact of many these variants has not been studied in the context of bipolar disorder.

NEUROPHARMAGEN is a pharmacogenomic-based decision support tool that helps clinicians in the selection and dosing of psychoactive drugs based on the integration of pharmacogenetic information, among other patient's characteristics that influence the medication success.

The clinical utility of NEUROPHARMAGEN has been evaluated in major depression disorder (MDD) through randomized clinical trials with hundreds of patients. Two small pilot trials in bipolar patients have suggested a potential clinical utility of this tool in this patient population. However, the output of pharmacogenomic-based tools such as NEUROPHARMAGEN is based in the analysis of several genes, which could differ in their individual clinical utility in a disorder-related manner.

This observational, retrospective, epidemiological study includes 76 patients who attended the Bipolar Disorder Program of the Psychiatry Service of the Hospital Clinic de Barcelona (Spain) with the aim of objectively evaluate the impact of the genetic variation in individual genes on the therapeutic response and side effects profile in this cohort, using NEUROPHARMAGEN.