Study on the effect of CYP2D6*6 and CYP2D6*10 on the efficacy of donepezil in patients with dementia

Acetycholinesterase inhibitor such as denopezil is the most common drug used in treating the symptoms of dementia. Genetic factor is closely associated in this topic since it may influence the efficacy and response of dementia patients toward donepezil. The genotyping test may be conducted to determine the CYP2D6 polymorphism of patients since it has been used for research purpose as well as clinical drug trials. A nested multiplex allele-specific PCR method was used in this study to detect the CYP2D6 polymorphisms in human DNA samples. These allele-specific primers were used to permit the PCR amplification of the specific target sequences. The assay was tested on few samples of blood which were collected from group of patients with dementia in Hospital Kuala Lumpur. This PCR method successfully and accurately detected the homozygous wild-type, homozygous variant-type and heterozygous of each SNP. The genotype status was then correlated with clinical data of patient such as MMSE score to identify the changes of cognitive behaviour in this patient. The pharmacogenetics in patients with dementia may influence their responses toward donepezil because of the effects of CYP2D6 polymorphisms, especially CYP2D6* 10 and CYP2D6*6.