Polygenic Risk Score Predicts Statin Response

Harlan M. Krumholz, MD, SM ReviewingNatarajan P et al.

Another stride towards personalised medicine through Statins response.

The aspiration of precision medicine is to personalize our approach to individual patients. One question is whether patients have sufficient heterogeneity in their responses to common treatments such that we can identify who has the most to gain.

A previous study associated a polygenic risk score with relative reductions in risk for coronary heart disease, obtained from statin therapy (Lancet 2015; 385:2264). Now, investigators have examined whether an expanded polygenic risk score based on 57 DNA sequence variants associated with coronary disease had associations with the relative reduction in risk with statin therapy.

In WOSCOPS, a primary prevention trial (NEJM JW Cardiol Nov 2007 and N Engl J Med 2007; 357:1477), high genetic risk was associated with a significantly greater relative reduction in risk with statin therapy (relative risk reductions: high-risk scores, 44%; other risk levels, 24%). This finding was consistent in analyses including the two primary prevention trials previously studied.