Prevalence of Drug Prescriptions and Potential Safety in Patients with Cirrhosis: A Retrospective Real-World Study

Rianne A. Weersink (), Katja Taxis, Joost P. H. Drenth, Eline Houben, Herold J. Metselaar and Sander D. Borgsteede
Additional contact information
Rianne A. Weersink: Health Base Foundation
Katja Taxis: University of Groningen
Joost P. H. Drenth: Radboud University Medical Center
Eline Houben: PHARMO Institute for Drug Outcomes Research
Herold J. Metselaar: Erasmus University Medical Center
Sander D. Borgsteede: Health Base Foundation

Drug Safety, 2019, vol. 42, issue 4, No 6, 539-546

Abstract: Abstract Introduction Patients with cirrhosis are at risk for adverse drug reactions (ADRs) due to altered pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. We aimed to determine the prevalence of drug prescriptions and the potential safety of these prescriptions in a real-world cohort of patients with cirrhosis. Methods This was a retrospective cohort study based on linked real-world data from the Out-patient Pharmacy Database and the Hospitalisation Database of the PHARMO Database Network. Patients with a diagnosis of cirrhosis between January 1998 and December 2015 were included. Follow-up ended when the patient underwent a liver transplant, died, transferred out of the database, or on 31 December 2015. Prescription data were derived from a community pharmacy database and were compared with our previously developed safety recommendations for 209 drugs. Results In total, 5618 patients were included and followed for a median of 3 years (interquartile range [IQR] 1–7). In the first year after the diagnosis, patients used a median of nine drugs (IQR 5–14), with proton pump inhibitors (prevalence 53.9%), aldosterone antagonists (43.6%), and sulfonamide diuretics (41.3%) being the most commonly used drug groups. Almost half (48.3%) of 102,927 prescriptions consisted of drugs with a safety recommendation. The prevalence of potentially unsafe drug use was 60.0% during the total follow-up. Three nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) were among the five most commonly used potentially unsafe drugs. Conclusions Patients with cirrhosis use a large number of drugs. Almost two-thirds of patients in our cohort used potentially unsafe drugs. To prevent ADRs in these frail patients, personalised pharmacotherapy is necessary.

Date: 2019
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40264-018-0744-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:drugsa:v:42:y:2019:i:4:d:10.1007_s40264-018-0744-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/adis/journal/40264

DOI: 10.1007/s40264-018-0744-1

Access Statistics for this article

Drug Safety is currently edited by Nitin Joshi

More articles in Drug Safety from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().