By IANS,
Washington : Tens of millions of smokers may now be able to quit the habit, thanks to patterns of genes identified by researchers that seem to influence how people respond to such treatment.
Scientists at Duke University, the National Institute of Drug Abuse, and universities of Pennsylvania and Brown scanned the entire human genome in a comprehensive search for genes that could determine treatment outcome.
They identified several variations that seem to indicate the likelihood of success or failure of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) and bupropion (Zyban).
“This takes us a big step forward in being able to tailor treatment to individual smokers to provide the therapies that are most likely to benefit them,” explained Jed Rose of Duke University and one of the study’s co-authors.
“In a few years, a simple blood test may provide physicians with enough information to recommend one treatment over another.”
In previous studies, the researchers performed the first genome-wide scan of over 520,000 genetic markers taken from blood samples of smokers entered in a quit-smoking trial.
When they compared the genes of smokers who had successfully kicked the habit to those who failed to quit, they found clusters of positive results in gene variants present more frequently in the successful quitters.
The current findings “confirmed that most of the genetic markers we previously identified remain significant predictors of who will have the most likelihood of success,” says Rose.
The latest findings, he added, “provide potential clues to match individuals with treatments”.
Both NRT and Zyban have proven effective at helping people abstain from smoking, but use different pharmacological mechanisms to achieve that abstinence.
The findings of the study have been published in the June issue of the journal Archives of General Psychiatry.