Attempts to use genotyping for the purposes of “personalizing” the pharmacotherapy of patients with mental illness is a growing clinical practice. As a group of specialists within a healthcare discipline that has an evolving patient care role, it is necessary for psychiatric pharmacists to understand when pharmacogenomics should be considered during clinical care, and how best to use this type of information. While literature reports detail the typing of genes which code for the production of a wide range of proteins, today, psychiatric practitioners are predominantly genotyping CYP450 enzymes.
While not all psychotropic medications are metabolized by the CYP450 system,