The randomized controlled trial (RCT) methodology is often considered to reveal the most accurate data on a product’s safety and effectiveness. However, the value of an RCT post-approval is limited as clinical trial cohorts rarely represent the general patient population in real-life settings. Observational studies on the other hand yield better evaluations for safety and effectiveness in routi...

Case-studies are vehicles for implementing problem-based learning in the curriculum. The main objectives of problembased learning as achieved through case studies are to instill in students principles of self-learning and critical thinking. Pharmacotherapeutic case studies are also used to integrate knowledge from different pharmaceutical disciplines (medicinal chemistry) and illustrate their c...

Immortal time is a span of cohort follow-up during which, because of exposure definition, the outcome under study could not occur. Bias from immortal time was first identified in the 1970s in epidemiology in the context of cohort studies of the survival benefit of heart transplantation. It recently resurfaced in pharmacoepidemiology, with several observational studies reporting that various med...

In this article we aim to give researchers and other users of drug utilization data a current overview the twonationwide Norwegian databases located at Institute Public Health (NIPH), withreference some historical background. The first database, “The Drug Wholesales Statistics”,dating back 1974, provides total sale figures all medicines on market. second “TheNorwegian Prescription Database” (No...

Iona Heath panel chair and past president, Royal College of General Practitioners, Stephen Evans professor of pharmacoepidemiology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Curt Furberg professor emeritus of public health sciences, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Julia Hippisley-Cox professor of epidemiology and general practice, University of Nottingham, Harlan Krumholz Harol...