Genotype-guided Supportive Care in Symptom Treatment of Cancer Patients

Cancer patients often require administration of multiple supportive care pharmacotherapies while receiving chemotherapy regardless the type of cancer. Supportive care therapies are commonly prescribed to nearly all cancer patients and could include antiemetics (ondansetron), pain management (opiates), GI protection (PPIs), antidepressants (select SSRIs), anticoagulation (warfarin) and antifungal prophylaxis (voriconazole). These are all are associated with known pharmacogenetic interactions, which in some cases render the drugs ineffective or toxic. This could result in negative impacts on quality of life in patients who are already undergoing complicated and costly anticancer regimens. Pharmacogenetic-guided therapy based on an individual patient's genetic profile could potentially target symptoms for which an individual is uniquely susceptible, guiding use of medications that are most likely to be effective, thereby reducing unnecessary physical complications and financial strain. It is hypothesized that patients in the genotype intervention arm will report lower scores for overall symptom distress as compared to patients in the delayed genotype intervention arm following initiation of chemotherapy.