E-drug: Guide to drug interactions (cont'd)
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On Azhar Hussain's message:
Please suggest web address, reference book or journals.
1. Drug to drug interaction chart
2. Drug to food interaction chart
3. Drug to Laboratory interaction chart
I have found these, particularly the first item, to be common requests
when visiting hospitals in some developing countries. Pharmacy
departments sometimes have the old charts produced in the 1980s
still stuck up on the wall and are wanting an updated version.
However, with the plethora of medicines these days it is difficult to
derive such a chart without making extensive generalisations even if
one limits it to those medicines on an EDL - the WHO model list
covers about 300 medicines and a comprehensive and
comprehensible summary chart would be challenging to produce. I
have found it more useful to direct attention to the BNF drug
interaction appendix (there is usually a BNF available even if some
years out of date else one can be sourced) and hopefully the WHO
model formulary will provide a similar resource once paper copies
become more widely available and/or ready computer access in
health institutions is more commonplace (either for accessing the
electronic WMF or printing out copies of the relevant appendix).
However, a chart would be one way of overcoming limited access to
BNF/WMF or computers and it will be interesting to see the chart
mentioned by Joel Lexchin to determine if it is suitable for such
requests.
Regards
Douglas Ball
Dept. of Pharmacy Practice
Faculty of Pharmacy, Health Sciences Center
University of Kuwait, PO Box 24923 Safat 13110
Kuwait
Tel: (965)531-2300 ext. 6048
Fax: (965)534-2807
E-mail: dball@hsc.kuniv.edu.kw
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