Applied and Clinical Pharmacology
Applied and Clinical Pharmacology

Drug interactions

Let's start this week's topic with a question, resp. several related questions. Try to answer them together with us:

Are drug interactions always a problem in the patient's pharmacotherapy? Or are there situations where we can take advantage of drug interactions? Can the simultaneous administration of sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim be considered a drug interaction?

Physicians deal with drug interactions in practice every day, and not always in a negative context. On the contrary! There are perhaps more positive interactions than negative ones. 

Examples include the use of the synergy of two drugs - for example, the combination of two antiplatelet agents in the treatment of acute coronary syndrome, the combination of analgesics, or perhaps just the combination of sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim to achieve a bactericidal effect. We can also use antagonism, for example, when using specific antidotes.

From the introductory question, you have easily deduced the main topic of this week - yes, it will be drug interactions.

Before we dive fully into the issue of drug interactions, listen to the video lecture on the drug interaction of meropenem and valproate. This lecture will show us the completely different management of one drug interaction. Thus, you may see the next chapter of the pre-class reading from an even different perspective. The video lecture is only 13 minutes long and the handout can be found below:

Management of different types of drug interactions

Handouts for the video lecture can be found here:

Management of the drug interaction in different ways

Now, let's look together at the relevant chapter of the pre-class reading on Drug interactions, which can be found below (chapter 3 of the book):

Drug interactions

Test your knowledge after studying the pre-class reading chapter and listening to the complementary lecture. 

Try taking the ROPOT test here:

Drug interactions

And now you can look forward to the TBL lesson where we will focus on the identification, evaluation, and management of drug-drug interaction in a virtual patient.

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