Adverse drug reactions

What you need to know: Prescribers need to balance the possibility of causing harm against the probability of benefit; Some drugs cause characteristic adverse reactions, whereas others cause non-specific or bizarre effects; Some adverse drug reactions occur within minutes of administration, whereas...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:BMJ (Online) 2018-11, Vol.363, p.k4051-k4051
Main Authors: Ferner, Robin E, McGettigan, Patricia
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Clinical trials
Drug therapy
Lymphoma
Patients
Penicillin
Pharmacovigilance
Prescription drugs
Product safety
Side effects
Sleep disorders
Statins
Systematic review
Vaccines
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Summary:What you need to know: Prescribers need to balance the possibility of causing harm against the probability of benefit; Some drugs cause characteristic adverse reactions, whereas others cause non-specific or bizarre effects; Some adverse drug reactions occur within minutes of administration, whereas others can present years after treatment; The dose of the drug, time since starting treatment, and potential susceptibility of the patient can help determine if adverse drug reactions enter the differential diagnosis; Report suspected serious or unusual adverse drug reactions to the national medicines regulator; you don’t have to be certain in order to report. No medicine is entirely safe, so the therapeutic benefit needs to be balanced against the risk of an adverse drug reaction. The pharmacovigilance environment has changed in the past two decades, with biological therapies, complex multidrug regimens, genetic testing, “big data,” and new regulation for drug safety.1 In this clinical update we describe some principles that guide prevention, recognition, and response to adverse drug reactions.
ISSN:0959-8138
1756-1833
DOI:10.1136/bmj.k4051