Some patients have negative response to medication. In the past, there was no easy way to test out if a patient has any adverse reactions to prescribed medication. NHS has reportedly spent £460 million to treat 250,000 patients who are admitted to hospital due to adverse reactions to prescribed drugs.
Thanks to Imperial College London, they’ve successfully developed a handheld device that makes use of the analysis of genetical information, DNA, to predict if a patient would have any adverse reactions to any drugs to be prescribed.
The handheld device is called Single Nucleotide Polymorphism Doctor or SNP Dr in short and can be pronounced “snip doctor”. The device is able to identify the presence of specific DNA sequences in a patient’s genome, which might be the cause of any adverse reactions to certain medications.
The common cases are patients reacting badly to prescribed drugs such as anti depressants or drugs to lower cholesterol. Unless there is a detailed medical history of a patient, or else it’d be hard for a doctor to know that a patient would have bad reaction to some prescribed drugs. Having the “snip doctor” portable handheld device, it’s now so much easier for a doctor to take a quick check on the spot based on the patient’s DNA in saliva or cheek swab samples. From that on the doctor can tailor dosages and drugs to suit individual needs of each patient.
via Imperial college
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