Response: Use of Drug Sample Medications

Many sample closet medications are expired.

INTRODUCTION Samples are widely used in office practice. It is not known how many sample medications are expired and therefore not useful to patients. METHODS We inventoried 10 sample closets in primary care offices to quantify the number of expired medications. RESULTS Of the 12,581 drug packages and boxes we inventoried in 10 sample closets, 14% of medications were expired. Sample closets...

Response: Anticipating New Medications

Lawrence DeMarzo: My agency, House of the Crossroads, like other drug-free com­ munity-based agencies, has historically cho­ sen not to use medications in its treatment regimens. That is changing now, through our involvement in NIDA’s Clinical Trials Network and our acquaintance with litera­ ture like Dr. Kampman’s article (Kampman, 2008). Much has changed since we started Cross­ roads. We know...

Student drug use and driving: a university sample.

Therapeutic Drug Monitoring of Antiepileptic Medications

Medications used to treat and prevent seizures (antiepileptic medications, AEMs) have been commonly managed by therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) to optimize efficacy and avoid toxicity (Neels et al., 2004; Patsalos et al., 2008). TDM has been applied mostly to the firstgeneration AEMs that have been used clinically in the United States and Europe for several decades, namely carbamazepine, ethos...

Evidence of Drug–Nutrient Interactions with Chronic Use of Commonly Prescribed Medications: An Update

The long-term use of prescription and over-the-counter drugs can induce subclinical and clinically relevant micronutrient deficiencies, which may develop gradually over months or even years. Given the large number of medications currently available, the number of research studies examining potential drug-nutrient interactions is quite limited. A comprehensive, updated review of the potential dr...