ABSTRACT
Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) is an increasing health prob-
lem and a challenge for physicians, regulatory bodies, and the
pharmaceutical industry, mainly due to the potential severity and
undefined pathogenesis of this condition. In addition, DILI is often
inaccurately diagnosed, missed entirely, or not reported due to the
lack of reliable diagnostic biomarkers. Idiosyncratic DILI is generally
considered as unpredictable in terms of dose administration or
drug pharmacology. Hence, genetic variations are believed to play
an important role in DILI susceptibility. Polymorphisms in genes
involved in drugmetabolism, that is, phase I (bioactivation), phase II
(detoxification), and phase III (elimination), and the immune system
have been targeted for genetic DILI studies to date. This chapter
reviews the major findings in genetic DILI studies initially through
candidate gene approachmethods andmore recently using genome-
wide association (GWA) studies.
