Beth was hospitalized for a minor surgery, that required one overnight stay. Four hours after receiving routine anesthetics she began to develop unusual life threatening complications as a result of a reaction to a by-product of the anesthetic that were accumulating in her body.
What term do we use to describe the by-product that results when a chemical is metabolized in a patients body? Explain how Beth could have an adverse reaction to the by-product even though the anesthetic did not seem to cause problems directly.
How could work on a human metabolome database help prevent future complications like the one Beth experienced?
The term metabolite is used to describe the by-product that results when a chemical is metabolized in a patients body. When a drug is administered to an individual, it is metabolised primarily in the liver. It undergoes a series of reactions under a process called biotransformation to hasten the excretion of the chemical substance.
The anesthetic agent that was administered to Beth did not cause any problems directly. But the anesthetic drug is a foreign substance and it undergoes metabolism and breakdown in the the human body. Most anesthetic drugs are metabolised by the liver and excreted into bile or into the urine by the kidneys. There is a possibility that one of the metabolites can cause adverse reactions. This can be best illustrated by halothane . Halthane as such is a safe anesthetic drug. But after undergoing metabolism trifluoroacetyl metabolites are formed. Some individuals may form antibodies to these metabolites that cause the type II hypersensitivity. This susceptibility is genetic in nature. Certain metabolites of halothane are also known to cause local hypoxia and tissue reactions in the liver leading to halothane hepatitis.
Work on a human metabolome database can help prevent future complications like the ones which Beth experienced. All possible metabolites of a particular drug can be listed out and mapped in the database. When drugs undergo testing in clinical trials, adverse drug reactions can be correlated with these databases to determine if a toxic metabolite was responsible for the adverse reaction. Drug metabolomes can also be used to predict if drug reactions have any links to genetics. The metabolomes can be correlated with genetic databases to predict drug sensitivity and prevent life threatening complications that might occur after administering a drug.
Beth was hospitalized for a minor surgery, that required one overnight stay. Four hours after receiving...