Since the pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics field started to rise, the information on the relationship between genes and response to drugs has increased exponentially. There is evidence of the utility and impact of genetics in the choice of therapeutic regimens improving both efficacy and safety of them. Some international efforts have created clinical guidelines that allow the implementation of pharmacogenomics to daily clinical practice. In addition to clinical outcomes, economic benefits have been associated with the translation from “the bench to the bedside“.
Even though there is high-quality research addressing the utility of implementing pharmacogenetics programs in clinical practice, most of this evidence comes from the United States or Europe. Moreover, commonly, it does not include the Latin American population, or, when the guidelines do, it is considering as one big group. Some recently formed scientific societies and international efforts are looking to shorten the gap of evidence and information in the region. Latin America is a vast region with some characteristics that do not allow easy implementation of research made in other settings. It is one of the most genetically diverse areas, having frequencies or polymorphisms not found in other regions. There is a lack of high-quality Latin American population-focused research about the relationship between specific genes and drug response, and, also, there is a lack of knowledge of frequencies. Altogether, there are many disadvantages to the implementation of pharmacogenetics to clinical practice in Latin America.
This is the second volume of the successful
Research Topic, a RELIVAF-CYTED initiative, which aims to continue to address high-quality pharmacogenetic and/or pharmacogenomic research with a focus on the Latin American population and its needs. The goal is to increase the information on the clinical implementation and the impact of pharmacogenetics in Latin American patients. Also, we envision collecting experience in the region, looking for strategies and new perspectives, as well as encouraging the research among countries in the region. We welcome previous authors and new authors to contribute to the collection.
In this second Research Topic, we welcome article types such as Original Research, Review, Systematic Review, and Case Reports, carried out in Latin American patients associated with:
• Pharmacogenetic/pharmacogenomic characterization of Latin American populations.
• Ethnic characterization of drug response and allele variants related to it.
• Drug-gene pair associations and variability of response in Latin American populations
• Pharmacogenomic predictive models for drugs mainly used in the region.
• Pharmacogenetics guidelines and the implementation of pharmacogenetics in clinical practice.
One can find more information on the Article Types guidelines in the Pharmacogenetics and Pharmacogenomics section
here).
We look forward to receiving your contributions to this Research Topic.