Variation in drug efficacy and toxicity remains an important clinical concern. Presently, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) only explain a portion of this problem, even in situations where the pharmacological trait is clearly heritable. The Human CNV Project identified copy number variations (CNVs) across approximately 12% of the human genome, and these CNVs were considered causes of diseases. Although the contribution of CNVs to the pathogenesis of many common diseases is questionable, CNVs play a clear role in drug related genes by altering drug metabolizing and drug response. Here we provide a comprehensive review of the clinical relevance of CNVs to drug efficacy, toxicity, disease prevalence in world populations and discuss the implication of using CNVs as diagnosis in clinical intervention
