Overview

Psychostimulants (Biphentin®, Concerta®) are the first-line pharmacological treatments for children and adolescents (6-24 years old) with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) but experiences with these treatments vary from child-to-child. Despite helping many children and adolescents, some who use psychostimulants experience minimal to no benefit, while others experience intolerable side effects. If a personalized prescribing strategy were available to improve the use of psychostimulants, we could prevent a lot of suffering and negative outcomes. Unlike other pharmacological treatments (e.g., antidepressants) that have genomic markers to guide prescribing, we have limited evidence to facilitate similar personalized prescribing of psychostimulants. The PGx-STaR study aims to address this gap in knowledge by identifying genomic markers associated with psychostimulant response and side effects that could be used to optimize prescribing and shorten the path to wellness for 400 children and adolescents with ADHD.

Objective

To identify genomic profiles associated with psychostimulant treatment response and tolerability in children and adolescents with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).