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Joan Stephenson, PhD

JAMA. 2002;287:1637.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Seattle—With the human genome sequence largely in hand, researchers have predicted that pharmacogenetics—the study of the genetic causes of individual variations in the body's response to drugs—will help physicians tailor treatment to patients' genetic makeup, allowing them to prescribe medications most likely to help and least likely to cause harm. Now, researchers have reported here at the Ninth Annual Retrovirus Conference that they can identify HIV-infected individuals with a particular gene variant that indicates they are at risk of experiencing a severe, potentially fatal reaction to the widely used antiretroviral drug abacavir.

DRUG HYPERSENSITIVITY

About 5% of people who take abacavir develop hypersensitivity to the drug, usually within the first 6 weeks of therapy. The adverse effects, which worsen with continued treatment, include fever, rash, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and shortness of breath. Patients who are sensitized to abacavir and stop taking the drug risk a life-threatening . . . [Full Text of this Article]