Applying Pharmacogenetic Algorithms to Individualize Dosing of Warfarin

Summary

The purpose of this study is to determine whether DNA analysis improves the efficiency of dosing and safety in patients who are being started on warfarin therapy.Warfarin, a blood thinner (anticoagulant) prescribed to 1-2 million patients in the United States, is a leading cause of drug-related adverse events (e.g., severe bleeding), in large part due to dramatic (20-fold) differences between individuals in dose requirements. At least half of this variability now can be explained by 3 common genetic variants, age, body size, and sex; however, warfarin therapy continues to begin with the same dose in every patient with the correct individual dose determined by trial and error. This study proposes to determine genetic variations the same day from DNA simply obtained by swabbing the inside of the cheek and use this information to determine the proper dose regimen individually in each patient. The aim is to show that the investigators can achieve more rapid, efficient, and safe dosing in up to 500-1000 individuals who are initiating warfarin therapy for various clotting disorders across a large healthcare system in order to demonstrate improved dosing effectiveness, efficiency, and safety with genetic-based dosing, which could lead to a nationwide application resulting in as much as a $1 billion dollar annual benefit in healthcare outcomes.

Conditions

• Thromboembolism

Interventions

GENETIC

IWPC adapted genotype-guided dosing algorithm for warfarin

Within the first or second dose, apply an International Warfarin Pharmacogenetics Consortium (IWPC) adapted genotype-guided dosing algorithm to determine the daily maintenance dose of warfarin, based on clinical factors (age, sex, weight, height, etc.), and VKORC1 and CYP2C9 genotypes, to individualize the initial dosing of warfarin. (IWPC algorithm submitted for publication, 5-08) Note that a second comparison will be made between the combined genotype-guided dosing groups (standard and modified IWPC warfarin dosing algorithms) and a historical comparator group.

GENETIC

Modified IWPC genetic-guided warfarin dosing algorithm

Within the first or second warfarin dose, apply a modified International Warfarin Pharmacogenetics Consortium (IWPC)-adapted genotype-guided dosing algorithm to determine the daily maintenance dose of warfarin. The active comparator algorithm (see above) will be further modified to account for the temporal pharmacodynamics of warfarin metabolism, e.g., by ignoring the CYP2C9 variants for the first 2 days. Note that a second comparison will be made between the combined genotype-guided dosing groups (standard and modified IWPC warfarin dosing algorithms) and a historical comparator group.

OTHER

Standard of care treatment

The parallel, standard-dosing patient control cohort was identified by a query of the electronic medical records databases of the 3 participating hospitals for the time interval spanning enrollment of the randomized pharmacogenetic cohorts (July 2008-December 2010). Patients \>=18 years of age initiating warfarin therapy with a baseline and at least 1 follow-up INR level between days 3 and 14 were selected. Initial dose selection and therapy modification was at individual Intermountain-credentialed physician/healthcare provider discretion. Standard management is non-PG-based. A standard (fixed) initial maintenance dose of 5 mg/d is generally assumed.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Intermountain Health Care, Inc.

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Jeffrey L Anderson, MD · Intermountain Health Care, Inc.

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

TRIPLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2008-08-31

Primary Completion

2010-12-31

Completion

2011-06-30

Countries

• United States

Study Locations