Publication:

Cutaneous drug reactions notified by ADR monitoring centre in a tertiary care hospital of Bihar

Background Cutaneous drug reactions are most frequent drug related adverse events which lead to early treatment discontinuations, high treatment cost and leading cause of morbidity and mortality. The aim of this study is to analyze the clinical patterns and offending drugs as well as their causality, severity and preventive strategies.

Methods All adverse drug reactions (ADRs) forms filled from May 2015 to April 2016 were scrutinized and forms with cutaneous drug reactions were analyzed and assessed for causality, severity and preventability.

Results Out of 300 ADR forms, 160 (53.34%) included cutaneous drug reactions. 68 (42.50%) patients were male and 92 (57.50%) were female. Maculopapular rash 58 (36.25%), fixed drug eruption (FDE) 31 (19.37), pruritus 27 (16.87%) and urticaria 19 (11.87%) were the common clinical patterns of cutaneous drug reactions. Most common offending drug classes included antibiotics, anti-inflammatory and steroidal agents. Causality assessment was done by using Naranjo’s algorithm. The result showed that out of 160 cutaneous drug reactions 141 (88.12%) ADRs were probable, 15 (9.37%) were classified as possible; 2 (1.25) doubtful and 2 (1.25%) were definitely related to the drug.

Conclusions The present study shows cutaneous drug reactions are commonly reported at ADR monitoring centre of this tertiary care hospital. Our study suggests that there is a need of intensive monitoring for ADRs in tertiary care hospital for early detection and to ensure the patient safety.