Drug Interactions Newsletter

Volume 1, Issue 30, 08/11/2009

Question

What drug characteristics predispose it to be significantly elevated in the body in the presence of an inhibitor of metabolism?

Answer

Periodically, the editorial board will release an issue related to explaining principles or terms that all clinicians should be familiar with as many times these will come up in clinical practice.  These principles are also concepts built upon in many of the newsletters.

Clinicians now have access to a number of clinical tools that help to screen and identify drug-drug interactions.  This can now be done at the point of electronic prescribing by the physician and medication order verification and dispensing by the pharmacist. Outside of these programs, clinicians may have to rely on their own knowledge, experience, other colleagues, and/or other information sources to help them identify drug interactions.  However, when these resources lack current information, drug interactions can certainly be missed, but may also require the clinician to draw on other factors that can be used to predict the likelihood of an interaction.  This scenario is likely to occur in the absence of pharmacokinetic studies documenting any interactions between two coadministered medications.  While clinically relevant drug interactions can occur as a result of induction and inhibition of metabolism and/or distribution of a medication, the focus of this newsletter will be drug interactions that occur as a result of inhibition....

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