Pharmacogenomics of alcohol addiction: Personalizing pharmacologic treatment of alcohol dependence

Abstract

Alcohol dependence is a serious psychiatric disorder with harmful physical, mental and social consequences, and a high probability of a chronic relapsing course. The field of pharmacologic treatment of alcohol dependence and craving is expanding rapidly; the drugs that have been found to reduce relapse rates or drinking in alcohol-dependent patients and are approved for treatment of alcohol dependence are naltrexone, acamprosate and disulfiram, whereas also topiramate appears as a promising therapy. For many patients, however, these treatments are not effective. Evidence from a number of different studies suggests that genetic variation is a significant contributor to interindividual variation of clinical presentation of alcohol problems and response to a given treatment. The aim of the present review is to summarize and discuss the findings on the association between gene polymorphisms and the response to alcohol dependence treatment medications. It is anticipated that future implementation of pharmacogenomics in clinical practice will help personalize alcohol dependence drug treatment, and development personalized hospital pharmacology.

Keywords

• alcohol
• addiction
• naltrexone
• topiramate
• disulfiram
• acamprosate
• pharmacogenetics
• personalized drug treatment
• hospital pharmacology