North Indians are more genetically prone to bleeding with anticoagulant drugs than their southern counterparts, a new study has claimed.
"Although it pertains only to one drug, the study is important as the drug is widely given to large number of patients to prevent blood clot formation in heart and lungs and to the patients having risk of stroke," lead researcher Dr Risha Nahar Lulla said.
Conducted by Centre of Medical Genetics of Sir Ganga Ram Hospital on 291 individuals, the study found that more susceptibility of north Indians to Warfarin-led bleeding was due to a specific kind of gene mutation, which is highly prevalent in north Indian compared to south Indians, who were grouped as Aryans and Dravidians respectively, the study said.
Anti-coagulant drugs are used to prevent spontaneous blood clots by keeping the blood dilution level up to certain minimum limits in the blood stream.
Lulla said some doctors prescribe same dose of drugs to patients irrespective of their genetic make-up, bleeding incidents often occur in patients who are more reactive to the drug, which results in unnecessary hospitalisation.
"Different response predicted for the north and south Indians was due to specific gene mutations, prevalence of which is more in north Indians as compared to south Indians. Thus, a higher percentage of North Indians will require lesser than standard dose usually prescribed for such patients," Lulla explained.
"This study is a first so far to establish the quantum of anticoagulant dose range separately for Northern and Southern Indians. It would be wrong to rely on the genetic-based dosing guidelines set for the western people, as their genetic make-up differs from the Aryans and Dravidians ethnic groups in India," she said, adding that the study highlights the need to develop such genetic-based dosing guidelines for Indian populations.
The study 'Variability in CYP2C9 allele frequency: A pilot study of its predicted impact on warfarin response among healthy South and North Indians', has been published in the recent issue of Journal of Polish Academy of Sciences.
Besides Lulla, Ishwar Chander Verma, Renu Saxena, Ratna Dua Puri, all from Centre of Medical Genetics, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, and Roumi Deb of Amity Institute of Biotechnology, Amity University are other authors of the research paper based on the study.
