Textbook of Adverse Drug Reactions.

Adverse drug reactions represent a common problem for those of us who work in general internal medicine.Previous surveys have suggested that between 10 and 18% of patients admitted to general medical wards will suffer an adverse reaction to therapy prescribed while an inpatient.Thus, drug therapy is a main cause of iatrogenic illness.It is, therefore, important for doc- tors to have a reliable source of reference about adverse drug reactions.In order to test how far this work fulfilled the need, I used it for a period of a month to check on drug-related problems in patients referred to me.I used it also when writing a chapter on cardiovascular drug therapy in the elderly.By so doing, I was able to assess 17 of the 30 chapters, whose authors were mostly based in or had previously worked at Newcastle-upon-Tyne.For the most part the book satisfied my needs.It has an excellent index and is well referenced.I found it particularly helpful in the management of a patient with liver disease due to therapy for tuberculosis.Simi- larly, it was useful for another patient thought to have the neuroleptic malignant syndrome.Other 'success- es' included drug-induced convulsions, purpura and drug interactions with digoxin, as well as those between non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and B- adrenoceptor antagonists or diuretics.The sections on antibiotic associated diarrhoea and renal dysfunction due to ACE inhibitors were well referenced, as were those on drug-induced hypotension.