Pharmacogenetics and bone disease therapy

Drug response is known to be highly variable among treated patients. Today is well assessed that sequence variants in the human genome are one of the main cause of individual drug response. Pharmacogenetics is a novel discipline that represents the intersection between pharmacology and genetics. Analysis of genetic data could predict the personal response to drugs both in terms of beneficial and adverse effects. A more and more growing number of pharmacogenetic studies have been performed in the last decade, but, to date, only few of them had clinical application. And this is even more true in the field of bone disorders in which pharmacogenetic studies are still in their infancy. This review will offer an overview on pharmacogenetics with a special focus on the studies performed in the area of osteoporosis and other bone diseases.