Nurse empowerment through Pharmacogenetics

OBJECTIVE: to verify the existence of elements that justify the use of pharmacogenetics by the Brazilian nurse. METHOD: this is a quantitative, cross-sectional, observational, descriptive study, whose final sample was 67 individuals. The participants were healthy at the time of the study and reported a history of previous use and the occurrence of adverse effects by drugs commonly used and metabolized by CYP2C9. We collected 4 mL of venous blood for subsequent DNA extraction by salting out method and genotyping of the CYP2C9*2 and CYP2C9*3 polymorphisms, using Polymerase Chain Reaction in real time using Taqman assays. RESULTS: the use of drugs metabolized by CYP2C9 was frequent (more than 75% of the individuals have already used between 2 or 4 of these drugs). Regarding adverse events, there were 19 perceived symptomatic occurrences associated with drugs metabolized by CYP2C9. The allele frequency of the polymorphism * 2 and * 3 in the population studied was 11.1% and 7.5%, respectively, and there was a coincidence between the presence of alleles of low enzyme activity and the occurrence of adverse effects. CONCLUSION: there are elements that justify the adoption of pharmacogenetics in the nursing care to reduce the occurrence of adverse reactions to drugs metabolized by CYP2C9.