UCSF

Statin responsiveness is an area of great research interest given the success of the drug class in the treatment of hypercholesterolemia and in primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease. Interrogation of the patient's genome for gene variants will eventually guide anti-hyperlipidemic intervention. In this review, we discuss methodological approaches to discover genetic markers predictive of class-wide and drug-specific statin efficacy and safety. Notable pharmacogenetic findings are summarized from hypothesis-free genome wide and hypothesis-led candidate gene association studies. Physiogenomic models and clinical decision support systems will be required for DNA-guided statin therapy to reach practical use in medicine.