Drug repositioning with gender perspective focused on Adverse Drug Reactions

Abstract

Drug repositioning is a novel, useful, and crucial technique to find new uses for existing drugs. In this field of study, when the clinical trials necessary to obtain successful drug repositioning have been carried out, the female gender has not been given much consideration. Thus far, the participation of women in clinical trials has been very limited. There were several argued reasons to exclude them from trials, like the likelihood of pregnancy or sudden hormonal changes. This has meant that for a long time the adverse effects of a drug on women were unknown. Scientifically, it was known that due to the biological processes of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, the response to drugs was not the same in both genders, but despite this evidence, there is still no difference in the dosage or form of using a drug between men and women. In this study, we made a preliminary analysis where the main goal is to investigate gender differences within the drug repositioning field through the adverse effects produced by such treatments. A special section on specific cases of drug repositioning in rare diseases will also be considered to carry out the same verification previously mentioned in the text.

¿Por qué hay que hablar de mujeres en Química Computacional y no sólo de Química Computacional?

“…La presencia de mujeres, al menos en estas disciplinas, ha enriquecido la visión que se tiene respecto al manejo y tratamiento de ciertas enfermedades. Por ejemplo, se ha evidenciado la falta de representación de mujeres en estudios clínicos, lo que repercute en el espectro de efectos adversos que se estudian o contemplan al lanzar un nuevo medicamento, o bien, al darle un nuevo uso (Carrasco et al, 2022). A pesar de que se ha demostrado que la respuesta a fármacos es distinta en hombres y mujeres, no se han establecido diferencias en el uso o dosificación de medicamentos, lo cual, en ocasiones se traduce en poco efecto terapéutico y mayores efectos adversos en mujeres (Alcalde-Rubio et al, 2020).…”