Research on pharmacogenetics has entered a period of mushrooming growth. Therefore, it is highly desirable that leading scientists in this field gather to report new advances, to review processes, to discuss conflicting findings if any, divergent interpretations regarding cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzyme genotypic status-clinical responses and significant implication of genetic polymorphisms in the drug target sites, and also to make more meaningful plans for the future phases and directions of research.
An understanding of pharmacogenetics will undoubtedly improve treatment of diseases. Although gene information does not solve all of the problems, nothing will be clarified without them. Therefore, it should be stressed that all these studies are possible only when a fruitful collaboration among clinicians, clinical pharmacologists and molecular biologists has been established.
This volume aims to provide a comprehensive review and a future prospect about pharmacogenetics, especially in such fields as "Neuropsychiatry", "Cardiology", "Anesthesiology" and "Orthopedics" as well as general medicine. Also, it contains some proposals for technical methods for individual treatments and prospective application to future medicine. These pharmacogenetic approaches presented in this volume will be helpful for many basic and clinical researchers, pharmacologists and general clinicians to understand accumulated knowledge and new experiences in pharmacogenetic fields.
