Clinical-pharmacist intervention reduces clinically relevant drug-drug interactions in patients with heart failure: A randomized, double-blind, controlled trial.
Int J Cardiol. 2015 Oct 28;203:647-652
Authors: Roblek T, Deticek A, Leskovar B, Suskovic S, Horvat M, Belic A, Mrhar A, Lainscak M
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Incidence of drug-drug interactions (DDIs) increases with complexity of treatment and comorbidities, as in heart failure (HF). This randomized, double-blind study evaluated the intervention of the pharmacist on prevalence of clinically relevant DDIs (NCT01855165).
METHODS: Patients admitted with HF were screened for clinically relevant DDIs, and randomized to control or intervention. All attending physicians received standard advice about pharmacological therapy; those in the intervention group also received alerts about clinically relevant DDIs. Primary endpoint was DDI at discharge and secondary were re-hospitalization or death during follow-up.
RESULTS: Of 213 patients, 51 (mean age, 79±6years; male, 47%) showed 66 clinically relevant DDIs and were randomized. For intervention (n=26) versus control (n=25), the number of patients with and the number of DDIs were significantly lower at discharge: 8 vs. 18 and 10 vs. 31; p=0.003 and 0.0049, respectively. Over a 6month follow-up period, 11 control and 9 intervention patients were re-hospitalized or died (p>0.2 for all). No significant differences were seen between control and intervention for patients with eGFR <60mL/min/1.73m(2) (78%) for re-hospitalization or death (10 vs. 7; p=0.74).
CONCLUSIONS: Pharmacist intervention significantly reduces the number of patients with clinically relevant DDIs, but not clinical endpoints 6months from discharge.
PMID: 26580349 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]