Genetic Risk Not Better for Predicting Schizophrenia Outcomes

Polygenic risk scores did not improve performance of predictive models relative to clinical features obtained from standard psychiatric interview

TUESDAY, Sept. 7, 2021 (HealthDay News) — For adults with schizophrenia (SCZ) and related psychotic disorders, the polygenic risk score (PRS) does not improve the performance of predictive models for outcomes, according to a study published online Sept. 6 in Nature Medicine.

Noting that the predictive power of the SCZ PRS exceeds that of most other common diseases, Isotta Landi, Ph.D., from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, and colleagues used data from two multiethnic cohorts, totaling 8,541 adults with SCZ and related psychotic disorders, to compare outcome prediction to SCZ PRS and/or clinical features captured in a standard psychiatric interview. Data were included from 762 SCZ patients from the Mount Sinai Health System BioMe BioBank program and for 7,779 patients in the Genomic Psychiatry Cohort.

The researchers found that the SCZ PRS did not improve the performance of predictive models for all outcomes investigated. This observation was robust to divergent case definitions and ancestral backgrounds of the participants.

“Our results suggest that more work needs to be done to harness the potential that genetics has to improve the treatment of schizophrenia patients,” a coauthor said in a statement. “The results also suggest that the detailed medical reports that doctors write may contain much more valuable and predictive information than we originally anticipated.”