Pharmacogenetics and the Practice of Medicine

Drug–Drug-Interactions (DDI) are a well-known cause of adverse drug events 1.The number of potential drug interactions increases exponentially with the number ofTaken drugs, making it hard to consider all drug interactions in polypharmacy patients.Drug interaction databases can help the clinician to recognize and avoid adverse drugInteractions.2 A phenomenon can be observed in dailypractice, though: even if a Database warns about a clinicallyrelevant DDI, the patient may not show any signs of aGiven DDI. This discrepancy between scientific evidence and clinical reality causes alertFatigue and also raises conflicts between the DDI warning pharmacists and no adverse Drug event-observing physicians.