A ny new medication or therapy that has been approved for market authorization after extensive tests and trials is supposed to be efficient and, more importantly, safe. Yet, drug safety is not guaranteed: Many medications can still cause unexpected side effects that only come to light after approval. One of the worst examples is thalidomide, which caused severe birth defects and malformations i...

It is unclear the extent to which best practices for phenotyping disease states from electronic medical records (EMRs) translate to phenotyping adverse drug events. Here we use statin-induced myotoxicity as a case study to identify best practices in this area. We compared multiple phenotyping algorithms using administrative codes, laboratory measurements, and full-text keyword matching to ident...

BACKGROUND There is no publicly available resource that provides the relative severity of adverse drug reactions (ADRs). Such a resource would be useful for several applications, including assessment of the risks and benefits of drugs and improvement of patient-centered care. It could also be used to triage predictions of drug adverse events. OBJECTIVE The intent of the study was to rank ADRs...

When contemplating antibiotic use, intensivists must consider possible beneficial and harmful drug interactions. After antibiotics are instituted, adverse reactions must be anticipated. Acute illness, comorbidities, and concurrent medications affect the presentation and management of antibiotic-related adverse events. Intensivists should use the fewest possible antibiotics, carefully choosing a...

Adverse drug reactions are a common and important complication of drug therapy in children. Over the past decade it has become increasingly apparent that genetically controlled variations in drug disposition and response are important determinants of adverse events for many important adverse events associated with drug therapy in children. While this research has been difficult to conduct over ...

Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) remain a common and major problem in healthcare. Severe cutaneous adverse drug reactions (SCARs), such as Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS)/toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN) with mortality rate ranges from 10% to more than 30%, can be life threatening. A number of recent studies demonstrated that ADRs possess strong genetic predisposition. ADRs induced by several drugs...

Drug therapy is an essential part of health care and has become a universally accepted form of medical treatment, both by health professionals and society at large. It is not an exaggeration to say that almost every human being has had an experience with drug therapy, even newborn infants are now exposed to immunisations on the day they are born. What does society want from drug therapy? Walley...

Drug treatment is an important part of managing chronic disease, but people often choose not to start or continue with recommended treatments. As the efficacy of a drug is central to the decision to start or continue treatment, accurate and succinct communication of the benefits of treatment is emphasised in clinical practice. But the disadvantages and adverse effects of drugs are also importan...

We define an adverse drug reaction as "an appreciably harmful or unpleasant reaction, resulting from an intervention related to the use of a medicinal product, which predicts hazard from future administration and warrants prevention or specific treatment, or alteration of the dosage regimen, or withdrawal of the product." Such reactions are currently reported by use of WHO's Adverse Reaction Te...

Idiosyncratic drug reactions are a significant cause of morbidity and mortality for patients; they also markedly increase the uncertainty of drug development. The major targets are skin, liver, and bone marrow. Clinical characteristics suggest that IDRs are immune mediated, and there is substantive evidence that most, but not all, IDRs are caused by chemically reactive species. However, rigorou...