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Spotlight

Every month, the subjects in Prescrire’s Spotlight.

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Proper evaluation, for patients' sake

EDITORIALProper drug evaluation, based on trials designed to provide sufficiently high-level evidence and conclusive results, using patient-relevant clinical outcomes, is the best way of ensuring that drugs are used judiciously, without causing unnecessary harm.
1 July 2020

Pulmonary arterial hypertension: sometimes drug-induced

Many drugs can cause pulmonary arterial hypertension, which sometimes improves when treatment is halted.
1 July 2020

Prescrire's annual drug packaging review: slow progress and dangers

The drug packaging market is improving, but there are also still many examples as of 2020 that pose a danger to patients, in particular children and pregnant women. These flaws affect prescribers, pharmacists and nurses through the complications they cause.
1 July 2020

Illustrated examples of dangerous drug packaging, from Prescrire's annual packaging review

A drug’s packaging (box, bottle, leaflet, etc.) is crucial in preventing administration errors. Three examples from Prescrire's annual drug packaging review illustrate the types of packaging flaws we identified as dangerous in 2019, flaws which have long been known to health authorities.
1 July 2020

Intra-articular hyaluronic acid injection for knee osteoarthritis: efficacy and adverse effects underestimated?

Queries and Comments Prescrire concluded in 2016 that the harm-benefit balance of hyaluronic acid by intra-articular injection seemed unfavourable. Several readers have since expressed their profound disagreement, citing the effects noted in their daily practice. How can such a difference be explained? Could the clinical data available in 2020 potentially call Prescrire's conclusions into question?
1 July 2020

Increased risk of skin cancer with hydrochlorothiazide: what are the practical consequences?

Queries and Comments In 2018, Prescrire reported the findings of two case-control studies that showed an increased risk of non-melanoma skin cancers in patients treated with hydrochlorothiazide, a first-choice antihypertensive drug. Does the evidence available in 2020 affect this drug's harm-benefit balance in hypertension?
1 July 2020

Lack of access to drug evaluation data: a recurrent problem, not confined to covid-19

 NEWS UPDATE  An article reporting the results of pharmacoepidemiological studies on the use of hydroxychloroquine in covid-19 has been retracted. The reasons given centre on the fact that access to the raw data was only granted to certain authors. This is a recurrent problem, not confined to evaluations of drugs for covid-19.
08 June 2020

Dabrafenib (Tafinlar°) and trametinib (Mekinist°) combined, as adjuvant therapy for stage III melanoma with a BRAF V600 mutation

FEATURED REVIEW This combination has now been authorised in the European Union for the adjuvant treatment of patients with melanoma and lymph node involvement but no other metastases, when the tumour cells express a BRAF V600 mutation. Does this combination extend survival in this situation? Does it reduce the incidence of recurrence? What more is known about its adverse effects?
Full review (3 pages) available for download by subscribers.
1 June 2020

In the June issue of Prescrire International: Antispasmodics during pregnancy, in brief

FREE DOWNLOAD Various drugs termed antispasmodics are offered to treat pain of gastrointestinal, urinary or gynaecological origin, often despite unconvincing evaluation. What are the risks to the mother and the unborn child when taken during pregnancy?
Full article available for free download.
1 June 2020

Curiosity is an admirable quality

Editorial How is it that the link between benfluorex (formerly marketed under the brand name Mediator°) and heart valve disease was unrecognised for decades by most French cardiologists? Despite the drug’s widespread use, the frequency of these valve disorders, and constant advances in echocardiography?
1 June 2020

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