Improving the efficacy of combinatorial pharmacogenetic testing in schizophrenia therapy in China: a meta-analysis

Pharmacogenetics/pharmacogenomics (PGx) testing has appeared as a convincing approach to assisting clinicians in adjusting drug selection and dosage according to the patient’s genetic information. The purpose of this meta-analysis was to compare the clinical efficacy of PGx guided treatment (experimental group) and empirical treatment (control group) in schizophrenia patients.

A thorough search and review of the literature referring to PGx testing guided therapy for schizophrenia was conducted in the PubMed, CNKI, VIP, and Wanfang databases. Data were collected from the eligible studies after quality assessment, and RevMan software was used to conduct a meta-analysis comparing the clinical outcomes between the experimental and control groups.

Seven trials were included, encompassing 1557 Chinese patients (767 in the experimental group and 790 in the control group). The pooled results revealed that the experimental group demonstrated more improved symptom remission and functional recovery than the control group; the adverse drug reaction incidence was also lower in the experimental group.

The meta-analysis findings confirm the significant beneficial clinical utility of pharmacogenetic testing guided therapy for schizophrenia. The conclusion should be viewed cautiously, considering several limitations in this study.