Trends in the patterns of correlation between speech and music perception suggest that music patterns are differentially accessible to CI users. New processing strategies may improve this.

AimsThere is evidence that different methods used to identify and quantify adverse drug reactions (ADR) in hospitals are not exhaustive (spontaneous repor ting or computerized medical databases). The combination of these different sources of data could improve knowledge about ADR frequency in hospitals. The aim of this study was to estimate the incidence of serious ADRs handled in medical wards of a French university hospital using data from the Programme de Medicalization des Systemes d'Information (PMSI) and spontaneous reports recorded in the French Pharmacovigilance Database. MethodsThe study period was the first semester of 2001. From PMSI, all hospitalization summaries including an ICD-10th code related to a potential ADR were selected. From the French Pharmacovigilance Database, all serious ADRs which occurred during the study period and were reported by physicians working in the University Hospital were collected. After identification of common cases, the capture-recapture method was applied in order to estimate the real number of ADRs occurring during the fi rst semester of 2001. ResultsFrom PMSI, we identified 274 different hospital stays related to an ADR. Out of 241 reports selected from the French Pharmacovigilance Database, we retained 151 ADRs for analysis. Fifty-two ADRs were common in the two databases, g iving an estimated number of serious ADRs of 796 [95% confidence interval (CI) 638, 954], corresponding to 2.9% of inpatients (95% CI 2.3, 3.5).

The proportion of patients showing an overuse of triptans (more than 15 DDD for 30 days) reached 12% in this cohort of new users of triptans. However, we did not find any relationship between the overuse of triptans and cardiac outcomes. This study also shows that some patients with cardiovascular risk factors are actually treated by triptans. These patients are more likely to present a cardiac outcome potentially related to an ischemic event after the introduction of triptan.