What underlies comments that Adverse Drug Reactions may in some patients be preventable within approaches available from current medical knowledge and practice?
The published comments about preventable ADRs appear to fall within 3 broad categories, all relevant to current medical knowledge and practice – failure to record and act on previous history of adverse response to the medicine in question, whether this is immune-mediated or predictable from current knowledge e.g. penicillin allergy, NSAID dyspepsia … – failure to ‘personalise’ medicines within current medical knowledge e.g. to recognize that B-blockers exacerbate COAD, that there is need for caution in renal and liver impairment, prescribing in pregnancy, drug interactions … – failure to communicate effectively risks to the patient so that if adverse effects do occur the patient is prompted to seek medical attention early so that risk of progression to serious ADRs is minimised e.g. aspirin and dyspepsia Pharmacogenetics (PG) is now impinging on clinical practice as a way to reduce risk of ADRs with clinical licensing of suitable tests and clinical application of PG testing to high
What underlies comments that Adverse Drug Reactions may in some patients be preventable within approaches available from current medical knowledge and practice?