CLEVELAND — Imagine if you could know if that medication your doctor is about to prescribe would even work for you. The technology is real.
It's called pharmacogenomics, and some hope it becomes part of the basic practice of medicine.
The test is a simple cheek swab, and your DNA is then sent to a lab. Two weeks later, your doctor knows a few things about the drug they want to give you.
"Which ones will work, which ones will cause side effects, and which ones will be partially effective but may need a higher dose," Cleveland Clinic Dr. Ardeshir Hashmi said. "These are the questions answered by a simple cheek swab."
Hashmi says the Clinic has been testing patients over age 65 for the last two years. One reason is because our bodies change as we age, and so can our medication reactions.
"Medications stay in our bodies for much longer at doses that were previously not causing problems," Hashmi explained.
Also, many seniors are already taking multiple medications, some of which could potentially be causing more harm than good or perhaps no longer even by necessary.
"People come to us in their 80s on 15 medications, on average," Hashmi said.
Pharmacogenomics can help doctors de-prescribe medications that aren't working or change those that may be causing side effects or interacting with other medications. Currently, it's only being used with depression, anxiety, sleep, and pain meds, but Hashmi says they're now starting to use it on cholesterol drugs, as well.
There are several companies that make the tests, and the hope is that more medicines will be added to the list of what it can test for. Results take about two weeks, and while it's covered by some insurance companies, it's not covered by all.
As for accuracy, Hashmi says his team was pleasantly surprised to see that the testing works very well. He also believes it should be a regular tool for any clinician to use if they're going to be prescribing medications to patients.
"As genomics expands to different medications, we hope this will become the way of practicing medicine," Hashmi told 3News.