Why Should I Worry About Adverse Drug Interactions?

Adverse Drug Interactions is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States!

http://researchyourmedication.cancer.im 

Interactions Can Lead to Death

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has reported a 68% increase in the number of deaths due to drug interactions from 1999 to 2004, a five year period.  This continued a trend that began in at the beginning of the 1990s.  Tens of thousands of people die each year from misuse of prescription drugs, including drug interactions.  In 2006, the CDC reported over 700,000 emergency room visits due to unintentional poisoning, and over 2 million cases altogether reported to poison control centers across the United States.

 (http://www.cdc.gov/HomeandRecreationalSafety/Poisoning/poisoning-factsheet.htm)

These figures should be of particular interest to cancer patients.  It is estimated that the average cancer patient may be, at one time or another, taking over 40 different types of medications.  Of the over half a million people a year who succumb to their cancer, almost 100,000 have drug adversity listed as the cause of death.  That makes drug interactions the 4^th highest cause of death among cancer patients.

Interactions Can Lead To Ineffectiveness

What makes consideration of drug interactions so important to cancer patients is not just the sheer quantity of drugs being taken at any given time. There is also the question of their potency.  The medicines used in chemotherapy are meant to be highly toxic – they are, after all, designed to kill cancer cells en-masse.  Their efficacy is tied closely to their potency.  Interactions with other drugs or agents, even some foods, can cause enough of a change in the way they function to significantly reduce their effectiveness. (From Nature Reviews Cancer, Drug Interactions in Cancer Therapy,  Charity D. Scripture; William D. Figg, Authors and Disclosures, Published: 07/25/2006)

There are two ways that drug interactions can reduce the ability of cancer drugs to do their job.  One is through what’s known as pharmacokinetics, or by altering the way a drug is absorbed, distributed, metabolized, or eliminated from your body.  For example, suppose a drug interacts a specific way with a cancerous cell, and another drug is taken which interacts the exact same way.  The end result could be that neither drug interacts as fully as it should, and so neither is completely effective.

Drug interactions can also be pharmacodynamic.  In this type of reaction, the effects of both drugs can either be additive or can cancel each other out.  This is especially important when it comes to side effects.  Two drugs may be administered, for example, to perform different functions or purposes.  But both drugs may nonetheless induce the same side effects.  Taken together, the side effect may become far more noticeable.  It is reported that 20-30% of all adverse reactions to drugs are caused by interactions between drugs.  (From Nature Reviews Cancer, Drug Interactions in Cancer Therapy,  Charity D. Scripture; William D. Figg, Authors and Disclosures, Published: 07/25/2006)