title: Individualized pharmacogenetic therapy: a critical analysis.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Individualized, or personalized, therapy is highlighted as the declared goal of pharmacogenetics. In this paper, the content and significance of the individualization concept are analyzed.
  
  
  METHODS
  Our analysis is based on a systematic reading of the current literature pertinent to pharmacogenetics.
  
  
  RESULTS
  This analysis reveals that the pharmacogenetic understanding of individualization is based on a biomechanistic paradigm. In contrast to a notion of individualized therapy based on a biopsychosocial paradigm, this biomechanistic concept does not provide for individualization in psychosocial terms, but instead leads to the stratification and classification of patient populations. This finding does not necessarily cast doubt on the efficacy of pharmacogenetics, but does call its underlying ideology into question.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The term 'individualization of therapy' does not reflect the real potential of pharmacogenetics, but instead represents a widely used and theoretically unjustified publicity slogan.
authors.affiliation: Forschungsschwerpunkt Biotechnik, Gesellschaft, Umwelt, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Deutschland. Mechtild.Schmedders@Uni-Hamburg.de
authors.forename: Mechtild
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schmedders
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: van Aken
authors.forename: Günter
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Feuerstein
authors.forename: Regine
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kollek
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D010346:Patient Care Management; D010597:Pharmacogenetics; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations