GENERAL POPULATION IS A BELL SHAPED CURVE
When dealing with any individual patient, you cannot predict in advance how much or how little anesthesia that person will require. The general population is a bell-shaped curve; some people require a lot more than others and some people require a lot less. In addition, things like what medications a patient has been taking, their daily level of alcohol intake, etc. all influence the amount of anesthesia that might be required. Anesthesiologists are trained to recognize the signs that a patient needs more anesthesia - this is usually not a significant issue.

Certainly it is helpful to have some inclination from the start as to whether a patient will need more than the "average" patient. Note that the term "average" has really no clear meaning in this context - we don't treat patients as an overall populatoin, rather we treat each individual as a unique situation. So again, the conclusion is that this scientific finding does very little in terms of changin the way anesthesiologists practice from day to day.

So why exactly do we care? Certainly the media has made a big deal about this because it is an "interesting" finding and makes for good press. However, the media would not have picked up on the story if the researchers did not do the study, release the results, etc. Clearly there is something of interest here for the anesthesia community.

IT'S ALL ABOUT GENETICS
In the end, the reason that this study is interesting is that it is a clear example of the concept that genetics influences the response to anesthesia. This is something that has been known, or at least strongly suspected, for some time - but these results "prove the point" in a sense. Future research in this area will allow us to choose an anesthetic plan, decide on which exact medications and doses to use, avoid certain options, etc. based on a individual's genetic makeup.

Genetics has been all the rage lately in terms of cutting edge medical research. The promose of the Human Genome Project and the research that surrounds it is that drugs and therapies will be more specifically designed as we find out more about the actual proteins and such that come from a person's genetic makeup. Hence the term "designer drugs" that you hear used frequently.

The concept of specifically targeting medical treatment to an individual based on what we know about their genetic makeup is now one of the hottest topics in medicine - and it is no different in anesthesia. While this article makes an interesting soundbite on the evening news or headline in the local paper, it does point the way to the future. Exciting times are ahead and the practice of anesthesia is sure to change as we pursue these issues.