Personalized Medicine in Clinical
Pharmacology
Dinko Vitezic ́, Nada Božina, Jasenka Mršić-Pelčić, Viktorija ErdeljićTurk,
and Igor Francetić
Abstract Clinical pharmacology includes the principles of personalized medicine as
tailoring of medical treatment to the individual characteristics of each patient. In this
chapter, three different areas of clinical pharmacology that are important in the
individualization of the therapy (therapeutic drug monitoring, individualization in
patients with renal and liver dysfunction, and pharmacogenetics/pharmacogenomics)
have been presented. The main goal of therapeutic drug monitoring is to use drug
concentrations to manage a patient’s medication regimen and optimize the outcome
of the treatment. Proper dosage adjustment is of utmost importance in patients with
liver or kidney dysfunction (main organs involved in the processes of metabolization
and elimination of drugs). The recognition that a part of interindividual variability in
drug response is inherited, and therefore predictable, created the field of
pharmacogenetics/pharmacogenomics. Therefore, it is important to take into consid-
eration all these specific fields, and the result will be adequate dosage for individual
patients. This personalized therapy would maximize therapeutic efficacy, minimize
drug toxicity, and can have an important economic impact on the health system. We
presume, in the future, that personalized medicine will probably lose this adjective
“personalized” since it is a unique medicine that uses all the tools we have at disposal
in order to use drugs optimally for individual patients. In this approach, clinical
pharmacologists certainly have a particularly important place.
Professor Dinko Vitezic ́, M.D., Ph.D., University of Rijeka Medical School and University
Hospital Centre Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia.
Assistant Professor Nada Božina, M.D., Ph.D., University of Zagreb Medical School and
University Hospital Centre Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia.
Professor Jasenka Mrsˇic ́-Pelcˇic ́, M.D., Ph.D., University of Rijeka Medical School, Rijeka,
Croatia.
Viktorija Erdeljic ́Turk, M.D., Ph.D., University of Zagreb Medical School and University
Hospital Centre Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia.
Professor Igor Francetic ́, M.D., Ph.D., University of Zagreb Medical School and University
Hospital Centre Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia.
D. Vitezic ́, M.D., Ph.D. (*) • J. Mrsˇic ́-Pelcˇic ́, M.D., Ph.D.
University of Rijeka Medical School and University Hospital Centre Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia
e-mail:[email protected]
N. Božina, M.D., Ph.D. • V.E. Turk, M.D., Ph.D. • I. Francetic ́, M.D., Ph.D.
University of Zagreb Medical School and University Hospital Centre Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
©Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
N. Bodiroga-Vukobrat et al. (eds.),Personalized Medicine,Europeanization and
Globalization 2, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-39349-0_14
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