Potential drug–drug interactions (pDDIs) are critical issues in the management of
the elderly. The development of multiple diseases with increasing age leads to therapies
based upon many concomitant drugs, a risk factor for severe pDDIs [
[1]
]. Pharmacological interactions may affect patient health by leading to adverse drug
reactions and more hospitalisations [
2
,
3
,
4
], so that they also represent a cost for the healthcare systems [
[5]
]. In order to minimise pDDIs and assist clinicians with information readily available
at the time of prescription, the computerised prescription support system (CPSS) INTERCheck®
was developed by the IRCCS Istituto di Ricerche Mario Negri of Milan. This software
provides a list of pDDIs associated to drug therapies, classifying them according
to their clinical relevance: D means contraindicated (drug combinations should be
avoided); C, major DDIs (drug combinations requiring close monitoring for potentially
serious clinical consequences, such as severe adverse effects or lack of clinical
efficacy); B, moderate (drug combinations requiring dose adjustment and/or drug concentration
monitoring); A, minor (drug combinations with no known clinical relevance). INTERCheck®
was already validated in the frame of clinical practice [
[6]
], confirming its effectiveness in reducing potentially severe pDDIs. However, the
correlation between the clinical relevance of pDDIs as detected by this software and
clinician's personal judgement was not investigated until now.Keywords
To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
Purchase one-time access:
Academic & Personal: 24 hour online accessCorporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online accessOne-time access price info
- For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal'
- For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'
Subscribe:
Subscribe to European Journal of Internal MedicineAlready a print subscriber? Claim online access
Already an online subscriber? Sign in
Register: Create an account
Institutional Access: Sign in to ScienceDirect
References
- Potentially severe drug interactions in elderly outpatients: results of an observational study of an administrative prescription database.J Clin Pharm Ther. 2009; 34: 377-386
- Hospitalisations and emergency department visits due to drug–drug interactions: a literature review.Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf. 2007; 16: 641-651
- Frequency of hospitalization after exposure to known drug–drug interactions in a Medicaid population.Pharmacotherapy. 1998; 18: 1112-1120
- Understanding adverse drug reactions in older adults through drug–drug interactions.Eur J Intern Med. 2014; 25: 843-846
- Drug–drug interactions associated with length of stay and cost of hospitalization.J Pharm Pharm Sci. 2009; 12: 266-272
- Prevention of inappropriate prescribing in hospitalized older patients using a computerized prescription support system (INTERcheck(®)).Drugs Aging. 2013; 30: 821-828
- Il processo di ricognizione-riconciliazione terapeutica in un campione di pazienti ricoverati: analisi retrospettiva.XXXV Congresso Nazionale SIFO: Giornale Italiano di Farmacia Clinica. 2014; 28: 97
- Inappropriate prescribing criteria, detection and prevention.Drugs Aging. 2012; 29: 437-452
Article info
Publication history
Published online: July 20, 2015
Accepted:
July 6,
2015
Received:
July 3,
2015
Footnotes
☆Source of funding: none declared.
Identification
Copyright
© 2015 European Federation of Internal Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
