[Prevalence of potential drug-drug interactions in ambulatory patients with statin therapy].
OBJECTIVE
To asses the prevalence of potentially critical drug-drug interactions (DDIs) in outpatients treated with a statin.


METHODS
Data of patients (e.g. age, sex, comorbidities, individual statin, number of drugs, number of diagnoses) were collected from 242 Swiss practitioners. The medication was screened electronically for potentially critical DDIs.


RESULTS
We included 2742 statin-treated patients (mean age 65.1 +/- 11.2 [SD] years, 3.2 +/- 1.6 diagnoses, 4.9 +/- 2.4 drugs prescribed) from the German (53.3%), French (36%) or Italian speaking (10.7%) part of Switzerland. Of those, 401 (14.6%) had a total of 591 potentially severe DDIs; 190 patients (6.9%) had potential statin DDIs, 288 (10.5%) potential non-statin DDIs, mainly due to pharmacodynamic mechanisms. The prevalence of potential DDIs was similar between regions, except for a trend for a higher prevalence of drug-statin interactions in the French-speaking part. The number of drugs per patient and a diagnosis of arrhythmia or heart failure were identified as risk factors for DDIs.


CONCLUSIONS
Drug combinations with potentially severe DDIs are common in patients treated with statins due to pharmacotherapy of their co-morbidities. Special attention in this specific population should be drawn on patients with polypharmacy and those with drug treatments for arrhythmia or heart failure.
Rätz Bravo
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AE
Klinische Pharmakologie & Toxikologie, Bereich Medizin, Universitätsspital Basel.
Tchambaz
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L
Krähenbuhl-Melcher
A
A
Hess
L
L
Schlienger
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RG
Krähenbühl
S
S
D016907:Adverse Drug Reaction Reporting Systems; D000368:Aged; D000553:Ambulatory Care; D015897:Comorbidity; D016208:Databases, Factual; D004347:Drug Interactions; D004359:Drug Therapy, Combination; D005060:Europe; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D019161:Hydroxymethylglutaryl-CoA Reductase Inhibitors / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D006937:Hypercholesterolemia / Q000188:drug therapy; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged
D019161:Hydroxymethylglutaryl-CoA Reductase Inhibitors