Jason's Story

A Life-Threatening Reaction to a Medication

Soon after he started college Jason was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, an auto-immune condition resulting in episodic inflammation of the colon. At the time of his diagnosis he was given a medication called 6-MP as treatment. Jason was instructed by his doctor to return to the clinic every week for the next several weeks for blood tests to make sure he wasn't having a very bad reaction to the medication: in less than 1% of people who take it 6-MP causes bone marrow suppression, a life-threatening condition if left untreated.

Jason took 6-MP for over a week and began to feel better. He was relieved to be able to catch up on the class assignments he had missed. Unfortunately, he forgot to return to the clinic for the blood tests.

After about 14 days Jason slowly began to feel weak. He assumed he had a cold and tried to rest. When Jason collapsed on his bathroom floor his roomate brought him to the emergency department where a blood test indicated bone marrow suppression. He stayed in the hospital for over a month and required tremendous amounts of medications and transfusions.

While he was recovering, one of his doctors ordered a pharmacogenetic test. The results explained Jason's bad reaction to 6-MP: He did not have a functional version of the gene necessary for metabolizing the medication; therefore, it had built up in his body to a toxic level, eventually causing bone marrow suppression. While regular blood tests, as prescribed, would have detected the start of bone marrow suppression, the pharmacogenetic test is an additional tool that would have prompted Jason's doctor to give him a different, safer medication.