Simple clinical pharmacology can improve prescribing

UBC Faculty Research and Publications

Simple clinical pharmacology can improve prescribing Therapeutics Initiative (University of British Columbia)

Description

Therapeutics Letter 142 explores pharmacokinetics principles that can help clinicians prescribe efficiently and avoid common problems. Conclusions: Knowing Tmax can suggest when to assess symptomatic effects of a drug (good or bad). Allowing 4 to 5 half-lives predicts steady state effects of drugs taken for symptoms. When a drug is stopped, expect effects to dissipate or potential withdrawal symptoms to emerge after a similar interval. Some half-lives reported as means have significant inter-individual ranges. Patients who report shorter or longer duration of effects than expected may have different elimination kinetics. “Steady state” seldom applies in sick people. Acute decline in kidney function or saturated liver metabolism can cause dangerous toxicity: e.g., K+, lithium, gabapentin, pregabalin, acetaminophen, phenytoin, alcohol.

Item Metadata

Title	Simple clinical pharmacology can improve prescribing
Alternate Title	Therapeutics Letter 142
Creator	Therapeutics Initiative (University of British Columbia)
Date Issued	2023-04
Description	Therapeutics Letter 142 explores pharmacokinetics principles that can help clinicians prescribe efficiently and avoid common problems. Conclusions: Knowing Tmax can suggest when to assess symptomatic effects of a drug (good or bad). Allowing 4 to 5 half-lives predicts steady state effects of drugs taken for symptoms. When a drug is stopped, expect effects to dissipate or potential withdrawal symptoms to emerge after a similar interval. Some half-lives reported as means have significant inter-individual ranges. Patients who report shorter or longer duration of effects than expected may have different elimination kinetics. “Steady state” seldom applies in sick people. Acute decline in kidney function or saturated liver metabolism can cause dangerous toxicity: e.g., K+, lithium, gabapentin, pregabalin, acetaminophen, phenytoin, alcohol.
Subject	Half-Life; Pharmacokinetics; Substance Withdrawal Syndrome
Genre	Other
Type	Text
Language	eng
Notes	The UBC TI is funded by the BC Ministry of Health to provide evidence-based information about drug therapy. We neither formulate nor adjudicate provincial drug policies.
Date Available	2023-06-20
Provider	Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Rights	Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
DOI	10.14288/1.0433716
URI	http://hdl.handle.net/2429/85126
Affiliation	Medicine, Faculty of; Anesthesiology, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Department of
Peer Review Status	Reviewed
Scholarly Level	Faculty; Researcher
Rights URI	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Aggregated Source Repository	DSpace

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