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WEDNESDAY, Nov. 7, 2018 (HealthDay News) — A polygenic risk score (PRS) for schizophrenia can predict 12-week posttreatment symptom scores among patients with first-episode psychosis, according to a study published online Nov. 5 in the American Journal of Psychiatry<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Jian-Ping Zhang, M.D., Ph.D., from the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra\/Northwell in Hempstead, New York, and colleagues examined whether a PRS for schizophrenia could predict antipsychotic efficacy in four cohorts of patients with first-episode psychosis (510 patients). Participants received initial treatment with antipsychotic medications and were genotyped on standard single-nucleotide polymorphism arrays. The PRS was computed based on a large-scale genome-wide association study for schizophrenia.<\/p>\n
The researchers found that a higher PRS significantly predicted higher symptom scores at the 12-week follow-up in the discovery cohort. The strongest result was seen with a PRS threshold set at P < 0.01. This threshold was used to replicate findings in the other three cohorts. In the combined replication analysis, a higher PRS significantly predicted greater posttreatment symptoms. The results were individually significant in two of the replication cohorts. The PRS was significantly predictive of adjusted 12-week symptom scores across the four cohorts. Compared with patients with a high PRS, those with a low PRS were more likely to respond to treatment (odds ratio, 1.91 in the two Caucasian samples).<\/p>\n
“Polygenic risk scores represent the combined effects of many thousands of genetic variants across the entire genome, and better represent the very complex genetic nature of schizophrenia,” Zhang said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Several authors disclosed financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry.<\/p>\n
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