Current Drug Safety - Volume 1, Issue 3, 2006

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease with limited pharmacologic therapies. Recent animal studies and one large retrospective study have found NSAIDs to be protective against the development of PD. We decided to test this hypothesis by conducting a nested case-control study using the Saskatchewan drug plan database. Entry to the cohort was defined as the first prescription of an antihypertensive agent Read More

Schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder are prevalent in 1% of the adult population. The condition was thought to predominantly affect the young however recent studies have shown that the condition occurs in individuals throughout the life-span. The aim of this review is to discuss the role of atypical antipsychotics in treating schizoaffective disorder and schizophrenia in the elderly. The advent of atypical antipsychotics Read More

All chemotherapy agents can cause hypersensitivity reactions, which have limited the used of critical drugs in very sick patients for fear of inducing a more severe reaction and possibly death. The choice of an alternative chemotherapy regimen is often limited by tumor sensitivity and, because of the increasing number of cancer survivors, exposure to multiple courses of the same or similar chemotherapy agents. Increased exp Read More

Despite of more than 500 gene therapy trials worldwide very little systematic safety information is available from gene therapy. Safety information was collected from 146 consecutive patients who participated in three randomized, controlled phase II gene therapy trials in cardiovascular diseases and malignant glioma using adenoviruses, plasmid/ liposomes and retrovirus packaging cells. Total follow-up time of the patient Read More

Etanercept is an anti-TNF drug with marked efficacy in inflammatory arthritis. This review addresses dermatological side effects that have been encountered in our 85 patients on the drug for rheumatoid arthritis, and reviews other reported cutaneous adverse events. Injection site reactions are common and usually self-limiting. We and others have encountered patients with recall site reactions where the four rotated injectio Read More

Inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) are recommended first-line therapy for patients with asthma of all severities. Prolonged exposure to high-dose ICS can cause systemic and oropharyngeal adverse events. Minimizing ICS-related adverse events by selecting an ICS with an improved safety profile may increase patients' adherence to their asthma treatment. Ciclesonide, a novel ICS currently under development, is a parent compound th Read More

In the last two decades or so the intramuscular administration of botulinum toxin type A, and more recently type B, has become an established first line treatment of many neurological and other medical disorders. So far, the toxin has been used mainly by experienced researchers and clinicians with extensive knowledge of its mode of action and potential adverse effects. However, in the foreseeable future it is likely that this treat Read More

Introduction: Patients requiring major cardiovascular surgery are likely to be prescribed antiplatelet agents either alone or in combination. By virtue of antiplatelet agent effect, they can potentially increase bleeding complications, especially if used in combination. This article aims to review the evidence and make appropriate recommendations regarding these agents. Aspirin: 16 papers are reviewed which concern surgery whils Read More

Host dependent idiosyncratic drug reactions, otherwise known as unpredictable type B reactions, are of a major concern in clinical practice and drug development. Hypersensitivity syndrome reactions are idiosyncratic in nature and may be induced by a variety of agents including antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). The AEDs hypersensitivity syndrome is a rare but potentially life-threatening syndrome that occurs after expo Read More

Drugs may induce hair loss, stimulate hair growth or, more rarely, induce changes in the hair shape and colour. Drug-induced hair loss is usually completely reversible and is, in most cases, a consequence of a toxic effect of the drug on the hair follicle matrix. In rare cases alopecia may be permanent. Depending on type of drug, dosage and patient susceptibility, hair loss presents as telogen effluvium, anagen effluvium or b Read More

The safety of the use of medications in adolescents and children to treat bipolar disorder has not been extensively studied. The prevalence of bipolar disorder in children and adolescents is unknown due to the lack of completed large-scale epidemiological studies. In addition, the diagnosis of this disorder is still questionable in this age group because the same explicit diagnostic criteria used in adults potentially cannot be ap Read More