- More than 10,000 patients a year may be dying after adverse
drug reactions to medicines including aspirin and anti-depressants.
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- Researchers, writing in the British Medical Journal,
found that ADRs accounted for one in 16 hospital admissions, costing the
NHS £466 million a year.
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- They called for urgent measures to reduce the burden
on the NHS and improve prescribing practices. The researchers, from the
University of Liverpool, studied 18,820 patients, aged over 16, who were
admitted to two NHS hospitals in Merseyside during a six-month period in
2001-02.
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- The patients were assessed to find out whether their
admission to hospital was due to a reaction to their drugs. The team found
that 1,225 admissions (6.5 per cent) were related to adverse drugs reactions,
with an average stay of eight days, accounting for four per cent of hospital
bed capacity.
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- Most of the patients recovered, but 28 (2.3 per cent)
died because of the reaction - most from gastrointestinal bleeding caused
by aspirin or aspirin reacting with another drug.
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- Aspirin, which is often prescribed to patients to avoid
heart disease, was most commonly implicated - accounting for 18 per cent
of the admissions.
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- Other drugs which caused a bad reaction included the
anti-clotting drug warfarin, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs)
and diuretics, used to treat fluid retention, given to people with kidney
and heart disorders and used to treat high blood pressure.
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- But the researchers estimated that 72 per cent of the
ADRs were "definitely" or "possibly" avoidable with
better prescribing patterns.
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