ABSTRACT
Clinical anesthesiologists recognize that there is considerable variation in response to drugs, so that one of their principal aims is the individualization of drug therapy (1). Many factors lead to altered pharmacoki netics and pharmacodynamics and, hence, to altered drug response and, in some cases, toxicity. However, a major develop ment in pharmacology over the last 10 years has been the application of molecular genetics to clinical problems. Pharmacoge netics is that area of genetics that examines individualization of drug response based on the presence of one or more abnormal genes leading to genetic variation in drug response. Thus, pharmacogenetics deals with the modification of drug response by hereditary or genetic influences (2).
