Where and How Drug Interaction Occurs?
It is usual for patients to receive a number of drugs at the same time. There are reports of getting 36 different drugs in one admission at John Hopkins Hospital in the United States. A researcher described this as a carrier bag syndrome. When a drug is administered, a response is obtained; if a second drug is given and the response to the first drug is altered, a drug interaction is said to have occurred. Thus, drug interaction is a phenomenon which occurs when the effects of one drug are modified by the prior or concurrent administration of another drug(s). A drug interaction may result in beneficial or harmful effects. However, harmful effects are usually predominated. Drugs can interact with one another at any point from their being mixed in a pharmaceutical formulation up to their final elimination from the body.
