Publications by authors named "Larisa Cavallari"

Current evidence indicates that dual antiplatelet therapy with aspirin plus a P2Y inhibitor is essential for the prevention of thrombotic events after percutaneous coronary interventions. However, dual antiplatelet therapy is associated with increased bleeding which may outweigh the benefits. This has set the foundations for customizing antiplatelet treatments to the individual patient.

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Pharmacogenomics is a growing area of medicine, and pharmacists across clinical practice settings have the opportunity to individualize medication selection and dosing using genetic data. However, many practicing pharmacists may feel ill-equipped to interpret pharmacogenomic test results because of insufficient education and training. Evidence-based, updated, and freely available resources such as the Clinical Pharmacogenetics Implementation Consortium guidelines can help pharmacists interpret and apply pharmacogenomic test results to patient care.

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Pharmacogenetics promises to optimize treatment-related outcomes by informing optimal drug selection and dosing based on an individual's genotype in conjunction with other important clinical factors. Despite significant evidence of genetic associations with drug response, pharmacogenetic testing has not been widely implemented into clinical practice. Among the barriers to broad implementation are limited guidance for how to successfully integrate testing into clinical workflows and limited data on outcomes with pharmacogenetic implementation in clinical practice.

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Article Synopsis
  • The effectiveness and safety of antiplatelet medications can differ from person to person, which means some patients might face a higher risk of recurring health issues while on treatment.
  • This variability is often linked to genetic differences that affect how these drugs are metabolized in the body, a topic explored by pharmacogenomics.
  • Personalized treatment choices based on genetic testing, particularly focusing on CYP2C19 variants, can optimize therapy, but despite the promising results, few hospitals have adopted these tailored strategies so far.
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The CYP2C19 enzyme metabolizes clopidogrel, a prodrug, to its active form. Approximately 30% of individuals inherit a loss-of-function (LoF) polymorphism in the CYP2C19 gene, leading to reduced formation of the active clopidogrel metabolite. Reduced clopidogrel effectiveness has been well documented in patients with an LoF allele following an acute coronary syndrome or percutaneous coronary intervention.

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Chronic pain is a prevalent condition with enormous economic burden. Opioids such as tramadol, codeine, and hydrocodone are commonly used to treat chronic pain; these drugs are activated to more potent opioid receptor agonists by the hepatic CYP2D6 enzyme. Results from clinical studies and mechanistic understandings suggest that CYP2D6-guided therapy will improve pain control and reduce adverse drug events.

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This prospective ex vivo and in vitro pharmacodynamic (PD)/pharmacokinetic investigation was conducted in patients with diabetes mellitus with (n = 31) and without chronic kidney disease (n = 30). PD assessments included platelet reactivity index, maximum platelet aggregation, and P2Y reaction units. Ex vivo pharmacokinetic assessments included plasma levels of clopidogrel and its active metabolite.

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  • Warfarin dosing is affected by individual clinical and genetic factors, with a need to explore genetic variants specific to African populations for better dosing guidance.
  • A genome-wide association study (GWAS) focused on 989 warfarin-treated participants from Uganda, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, as well as African American cohorts, found significant genetic variants associated with warfarin response.
  • The study highlighted the importance of the CYP2C9 and VKORC1 genes and identified a new potential genetic locus (MALL) that may impact warfarin response, warranting further research to understand its biological relevance.
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Dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) with aspirin and a P2Y receptor inhibitor (clopidogrel, prasugrel, or ticagrelor) is indicated after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) to reduce the risk of atherothrombotic events. Approximately 30% of the US population has a CYP2C19 no-function allele that reduces the effectiveness of clopidogrel, but not prasugrel or ticagrelor, after PCI. We have shown improved outcomes with the integration of CYP2C19 genotyping into clinical care to guide the selection of prasugrel or ticagrelor in CYP2C19 no-function allele carriers.

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Article Synopsis
  • The Association for Molecular Pathology's Pharmacogenomics Working Group aims to establish key attributes and a standard set of genetic variants for clinical pharmacogenetic testing.
  • The document outlines two tiers of recommended genetic variants, which will guide clinical laboratories in creating pharmacogenomics assays.
  • Focused on dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPYD) testing, the recommendations encourage standardization while serving as a flexible reference rather than strict rules.
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The ABCD-GENE score was developed to predict poor response to clopidogrel and includes Age, Body mass index, Chronic kidney disease (CKD; estimated glomerular filtration rate [eGFR] < 60 mL/min/1.73 m), Diabetes, and CYP2C19 GENE variants; a score ≥ 10 is predictive of reduced clopidogrel effectiveness after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Estimation of GFR without a race variable via the CKD-EPI Scr 2021 equation is now recommended.

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There is significant variability in the efficacy and safety of oral P2Y12 inhibitors, which are used to prevent ischemic outcomes in common diseases such as coronary and peripheral arterial disease and stroke. Clopidogrel, a prodrug, is the most used oral P2Y12 inhibitor and is activated primarily after being metabolized by a highly polymorphic hepatic cytochrome CYP2C219 enzyme. Loss-of-function genetic variants in are common, can result in decreased active metabolite levels and increased on-treatment platelet aggregation, and are associated with increased ischemic events on clopidogrel therapy.

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The ability of freely available in silico tools to predict the effect of non-synonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms (nsSNPs) in pharmacogenes on protein function is not well defined. We assessed the performance of seven sequence-based (SIFT, PolyPhen2, mutation accessor, FATHMM, PhD-SNP, MutPred2, and SNPs & Go) and five structure-based (mCSM, SDM, DDGun, CupSat, and MAESTROweb) tools in predicting the impact of 118 nsSNPs in the CYP2C19, CYP2C9, CYP2B6, CYP2D6, and DPYD genes with known function (24 normal, one increased, 42 decreased, and 51 no-function). Sequence-based tools had a higher median (IQR) positive predictive value (89% [89-94%] vs.

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Background: Cytochrome P450 2C19 (CYP2C19) intermediate and poor metabolizer patients exhibit diminished clopidogrel clinical effectiveness after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). However, outcome studies to date have lacked racial diversity. Thus, the impact of genotype on cardiovascular outcomes in patients treated with clopidogrel who identify as Black or African American remains unclear.

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Article Synopsis
  • SSRIs' metabolism is significantly affected by the pharmacogenes CYP2D6 and CYP2C19, which influences how effective these medications might be for treating depression in patients.
  • A clinical trial is being conducted to assess whether using genetic testing to guide the selection and dosing of antidepressants can provide better control of depression symptoms in individuals aged 8 and older.
  • The trial includes two groups: one gets pharmacogenetic testing and support immediately, while the other group is tested after 6 months, with the main outcome measured being changes in depression scores after three months.
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The University of Florida Health Precision Medicine Program plays a crucial role in delivering pharmacogenomics (PGx) result notes to providers who request PGx testing. Despite this, there is currently a lack of a formal assessment of provider needs and established best practice design principles to guide the ongoing development of PGx result notes. This study aims to enhance the content and format of the PGx consult note at UF Health by incorporating valuable feedback from healthcare providers.

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  • - Warfarin dosing is complicated by individual differences, and model-informed precision dosing (MIPD) aims to tailor doses to individual patients, although model selection is crucial for accuracy.
  • - Quantitative system pharmacology (QSP) models can improve dosing predictions but face challenges in validation and complexity; they were tested in this study using a previously developed warfarin/INR model.
  • - The study showed that the warfarin/INR model, especially when incorporating genetic factors like CYP2C9 and VKORC1, performed well compared to standard models, although adjustments may be needed for outpatient scenarios where data showed more variability.
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Background: An ABCD-GENE (age, body mass index, chronic kidney disease, diabetes, and CYP2C19 genetic variants) score ≥10 predicts reduced clopidogrel effectiveness, but its association with response to alternative therapy remains unclear.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between ABCD-GENE score and the effectiveness of clopidogrel vs alternative P2Y inhibitor (prasugrel or ticagrelor) therapy after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).

Methods: A total of 4,335 patients who underwent PCI, CYP2C19 genotyping, and P2Y inhibitor treatment were included.

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Previous findings suggest that medically underserved patients are prescribed medications with pharmacogenetic (PGx) guidelines at a high frequency. Thus, underserved patients may especially benefit from PGx testing, but little evidence exists regarding the effect of testing in this population. This pilot study aimed to generate key feasibility data and explore clinical outcomes of PGx implementation in underserved populations.

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The objective of this study was to characterize clinician response following standardization of pharmacogenetic (PGx) clinical decision support alerts at University of Florida (UF) Health. A retrospective analysis of all PGx alerts that fired at a tertiary academic medical center from August 2020 through May 2022 was performed. Alert acceptance rate was calculated and compared across six gene-drug pairs, patient care setting, and clinician specialty.

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Given the high prevalence of pain in older adults and current trends in opioid prescribing, inclusion of genetic information in risk prediction tools may improve opioid risk assessment. Our objectives were to (1) determine the feasibility of recruiting socioeconomically disadvantaged and racially diverse middle aged and older adult populations for a study seeking to identify risk factors for opioid-related falls and other serious adverse effects and (2) explore potential associations between the Risk Index for Overdose or Serious Opioid-induced Respiratory Depression (CIP-RIOSORD) risk class and other patient factors with falls and serious opioid adverse effects. This was an observational study of 44 participants discharged home from the emergency department with an opioid prescription for acute pain and followed for 30 days.

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Introduction: The CYP2D6 enzyme metabolizes opioids commonly prescribed for cancer-related pain, and CYP2D6 polymorphisms may contribute to variability in opioid response. We evaluated the feasibility of implementing CYP2D6-guided opioid prescribing for patients with cancer and reported pilot outcome data.

Methods: Adult patients from two cancer centers were prospectively enrolled into a hybrid implementation-effectiveness clinical trial and randomized to CYP2D6-genotype-guided opioid selection, with clinical recommendations, or usual care.

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This manuscript reports on a pilot program focused on implementing pharmacogenetic testing within the framework of an employer-sponsored medical plan at University of Florida (UF) Health. The aim was to understand the challenges associated with program implementation and to gather insights into patient attitudes towards PGx testing. The pilot program adopted a partially preemptive approach, targeting patients on current prescriptions for medications with relevant gene-drug associations.

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Pharmacogenetics (PGx) has the potential to improve health outcomes but cost of testing is a barrier for equitable access. Reimbursement by insurance providers may lessen the financial burden for patients, but the extent to which PGx claims are covered in clinical practice has not been well-characterized in the literature. A retrospective analysis of outpatient claims submitted to payers for PGx tests from 1/1/2019 through 12/31/2021 was performed.

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