Genetic polymorphisms and its influence in chemotherapeutic treatment of leukemic patients

Abstract

In Chile, the incidence of leukemia is 4.2/100.000 adults a year. Among them, 2.8/100.000 is acute leukemia and 1.4/100.000 chronic leukemia. The chemotherapy for cancer has been improved through the years in clinical practice and it constitutes a very useful therapeutic option in leukemia. However, its use is limited due to uncertain response; therefore, the pharmacotherapy choice is mainly empiric. In this sense the inter-individual differences in response to antineoplastic drugs could be due to pharmacokinetic factors (affecting absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion) or pharmacodinamics (affecting receptors or another pharmacological target). It is estimated that genetics accounts for 20 to 95% of variability in therapeutics and toxicological response to drugs, which are mainly metabolized through polymorphic biotransformation enzymes (80%). Therefore, the present review gives a comprehensive study of the probable response of patients to established leukemia chemotherapy treatment in Chile according their genetic profiles on involved metabolizing enzymes.