Adverse drug reactions in SARS-CoV-2 hospitalised patients: a case-series with a focus on drug–drug interactions-reply

Abstract

We read with great interest the comment written by Pardo-Cabello and colleagues [1], replying to our original article entitled "Adverse drug reactions in SARS-COV-2 hospitalised patients: a case series with a focus on drug-drug interactions" [2] and we would like to make some comments regarding their considerations. As the authors correctly point out, data on the overall number of patients hospitalised for COVID-19 during the study period were not available at the time of writing. For this reason, only those patients for whom a pharmacological and toxicological counselling was requested by clinicians working in COVID-19 Units were considered. Of course, knowing the overall number of patients treated, and consequently, the prevalence rate of adverse drug reactions, could improve the assessment of burden due to pharmacological treatments in COVID-19 inpatients. Currently, we are able to retrieve the total number of patients hospitalised in the COVID-19 Units during the different phases of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, from the last Smart Consensus Conference organised by Careggi University Hospital, Florence (Italy) available online [3]. In particular, during the first wave (I semester 2020), a total of 472 patients were hospitalised, with a mean age of 72 years and an average hospital stay of 14.2 days. Of them, 27% (n = 127) were managed in the intensive care units, with an overall mortality of 25.6% (mean age of 77 years) [3]. Considering that all

Pharmacovigilance and Pharmacoepidemiology as a Guarantee of Patient Safety: The Role of the Clinical Pharmacologist

“…In Italy, the main healthcare professionals that are involved in pharmacovigilance are hospital pharmacists. However, while the hospital pharmacist is directly involved in the management of pharmacovigilance report forms, including all activities related to the proper functioning of the national pharmacovigilance system, clinical pharmacologists have a unique insight into the possible mechanism of the putative adverse reaction, the underlying or concomitant diseases, and the possibility of drug–drug, drug–CAM or drug–disease interactions [ 1 , 24 ]. Thus, more recently, hospital pharmacists have been supported by one or more clinical pharmacologists, and their cooperation at both hospital and territorial level enhance the knowledge of drug safety in the pre- and post-marketing settings.…”