Drug Allergy

UNTOWARD reactions to drugs are an important medical problem. It was recently estimated that as many as 5 per cent of medical hospital admissions are due to drug reactions and that a minimum of 15 per cent of hospitalized patients experience at least one adverse drug reaction.1 The term allergic is applied to reactions that are immunologically mediated as opposed to reactions due to pharmacologic idiosyncrasy, direct toxicity, overdosage, side effects or interactions between drugs. Although allergy is not the most common cause of untoward drug symptoms it is often involved in the more serious reactions. . . .