Even with correctly prescribed and adequately administered drugs, serious adverse drugs reactions (ADR) are contributing to patients? morbidity and even mortality as well as to excessive medical expenditures. At present, many ADRs cannot be prevented, since the individual rate of metabolism for innumerable compounds is part of an individual?s genetic make-up. This problem is of even greater importance in cancer chemotherapy, where factors of tolerance for highly toxic agents come into play; excessive responses to a drug or its failure to act can have grave consequences, but are sometimes difficult to ascertain because a certain level of untoward reactions is commonly expected and accepted. The role of an individual?s genetic make-up is rarely if ever investigated and pharmacogenomic information is still rather the exception than the rule.
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