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Potentially Deadly Drug Interactions Found Mining FDA Complaint Bin (arstechnica.com)
Thousands of people are sent to the hospital each year from adverse drug-drug interactions that are difficult to predict and even trickier to track. To get around the problem, a team of researchers (working with the journalists at The Chicago Tribune) created a computer model to create side-effect profiles for prescription drugs. Then, they mined a massive database of drug-reaction complaints sent to the Food and Drug Administration, as well as 380,000 electronic health records. The results of the analysis so far suggest that four drug combinations "including the combination of the common antibiotic, ceftriaxone, with the over-the-counter heartburn medication, Prevacid (lansoprazole) may cause a potentially fatal heart rhythm.
First po.... urg... heart attack!
http://arstechnica.com/science... "The results of the analysis so far suggest that four drug combinations—including the combination of the common antibiotic, ceftriaxone, with the over-the-counter heartburn medication, Prevacid (lansoprazole)—may cause a potentially fatal heart rhythm." "The other problematic drug combinations that the data flagged as possibly producing the same heart problem are: cefazolin, an antibiotic, and meperidine, a pain medicine; meperidine and vancomycin, another antibiotic; and metoprolol, a blood pressure medication, and fosphenytoin, a seizure medication." Paywalled original story: http://www.chicagotribune.com/...
"The results suggest that four common drug combinations may cause a potentially fatal heart rhythm." ... Um, which are? May be important in here.
I wouldn't get your panties in a twist just yet. Even though the methodology is interesting there is ** NO ** statistical analysis of the data so I'm presuming that non exists and this is one of those many, many "associative" studies that don't pan out in practice. To their credit, they try to correlate the drugs with some sort of plausible biochemical pathway but without any sort of kinetic data, it is impossible to determine if these things actually do happen and if they do, to what frequency.
The combination of ceftriaxone (an antibiotic) and lanzaprole (a Prilosec clone for acid reduction) is extremely common in a hospitalized setting. If there was any reasonable clinical correlation we would likely have seen something by now.
It is food for thought, good for a bunch of grants but I'd still buckle my seatbelt and stay away from errant meteors.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Dear FDA,
I have been prescribed this combination of drugs which I believe to be .... [Eeep! Aaack! Gurgle ........ Thud!]
Have gnu, will travel.