Identification and reduction of adverse drug reactions

Southwestern Oklahoma

State University, Weatherford, Oklahoma, USA

Abstract: Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are a significant challenge to health care leaders. Serious ADRs increase the morbidity and mortality of patients and create a significant financial impact on health care costs. There are a number of challenges in identifying and reducing the incidence of ADRs. Worldwide, developed countries primarily utilize voluntary systems to identify ADRs and assess their risk to specific populations of patients. All of these systems have significant limitations. The explosion of biomedical research also challenges the clinician to uncover all the literature available concerning particular ADRs. Once identified, assessing causality in a specific patient-drug scenario can be problematic despite the number of scales, algorithms, and nomograms available. Finally, pharmacogenomics is discussed and the implications of personalized genomic medicine on ADRs are described. Pharmacogenomics promises the best possible hope for a significant reduction of clinically important ADRs in the future, although hurdles remain for its’ widespread clinical application.

Keywords: adverse drug reactions, surveillance, pharmacogenomics