Pulmonary Embolism Support Group
By far the most common form of pulmonary embolism is a thromboembolism, which occurs when a blood clot, generally a venous thrombus, becomes dislodged from its site of formation and embolizes to the arterial blood supply of one of the lungs. Symptoms may include difficulty breathing, pain during breathing, and more rarely circulatory instability and death.
Scientists discover multitude of drug side effects, interactions using new computer algorithm
http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2012/march/offsides.html
Interesting article. Now maybe our physcians will believe people who say Coumadin produces fatigue. Or maybe they won't.
"Although the FDA has its Adverse Event Reporting System for doctors, patients and drug manufacturers to use after the agency has approved a drug, many of the more than 4 million reports in the database are little more than anecdotal theres no way to tell whether the fever, rash, dizziness, seizure or other unwanted reaction was a true side effect of the drug, a result of a combination of medications or even a simple fluke of circumstance (maybe the patient had a cold or other undiagnosed medical condition at the time of the event)."
"Tatonetti developed a way to run a kind of case control study within the data, matching up groups of people who were as alike as possible, with the exception of one drug variable say, a hypertension medication. If significantly more of the people on the drug reported an adverse event, such as headaches or vomiting, than did those who were not taking the drug, it is likely that the medication was indeed the culprit. A similar method can be used to analyze the effects of pairs of drugs.
It sounds obvious, but its a nifty statistical way to eliminate bias, said Altman. And we found that the more things you can match between the groups, like other drugs the people have in common, the more likely you are to also unintentionally match for variables you may not have even thought about but that may affect the result.
http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2012/march/offsides.html
Interesting article. Now maybe our physcians will believe people who say Coumadin produces fatigue. Or maybe they won't.
"Although the FDA has its Adverse Event Reporting System for doctors, patients and drug manufacturers to use after the agency has approved a drug, many of the more than 4 million reports in the database are little more than anecdotal theres no way to tell whether the fever, rash, dizziness, seizure or other unwanted reaction was a true side effect of the drug, a result of a combination of medications or even a simple fluke of circumstance (maybe the patient had a cold or other undiagnosed medical condition at the time of the event)."
"Tatonetti developed a way to run a kind of case control study within the data, matching up groups of people who were as alike as possible, with the exception of one drug variable say, a hypertension medication. If significantly more of the people on the drug reported an adverse event, such as headaches or vomiting, than did those who were not taking the drug, it is likely that the medication was indeed the culprit. A similar method can be used to analyze the effects of pairs of drugs.
It sounds obvious, but its a nifty statistical way to eliminate bias, said Altman. And we found that the more things you can match between the groups, like other drugs the people have in common, the more likely you are to also unintentionally match for variables you may not have even thought about but that may affect the result.
*** I love computers, don't you? :)***
Is it that obvious? :)
Here's something in that article that raised my hackles!
"If they are on an antidepressant, you know they are more likely to be female, explained Tatonetti."
ARGHH!
Here's another factoid that hits me personally
" In particular, patients receiving both an SSRI and a class of blood pressure medication called thiazides were more likely (9.3 percent) to exhibit prolonged QT intervals on an electrocardiogram than patients taking either medication alone (4.8 percent vs. 6.5 percent, respectively). Prolonged QT intervals are associated with increased incidences of spontaneous arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death."
I take a small dose of Paxil (don't ask or you'll get me started!!!!) and just recently was rx'd a new blood pressure med that (ta da!) has a thiazide in it!!! I'm pretty sure my prolonged QT interval is still fine---- but time for a check on it and a change of HBP med.
"The researchers have created two publicly available databases of their work, named OFFSIDES and TWOSIDES, respectively."
I haven't found those, yet, but haven't looked on the FDA or Stanford websites.
Were interested in understanding the biological effects of drugs in the body, said Tatonetti. "
Much needed---- that and pharmacogenetics.