Prevalence of polypharmacy and risk of potential drug-drug interactions among hospitalized patients with emphasis on the pharmacokinetics

Background: Both polypharmacy and potential drug-drug interactions (pDDIs), especially those at the pharmacokinetic level, are common in hospitalized patients and are associated with adverse effects and failure of therapy; Objective: The aim of the present study is to investigate retrospectively the prevalence of polypharmacy and the risk of potential pharmacokinetic drug-drug interaction among hospitalized patients; Methods: The medical documentation of hospitalized patients in the unit of internal diseases at the hospital “St Marina” in Varna, Bulgaria for a period of six months (January–July 2016) was retrospectively reviewed. Lexicomp® Drug Interaction software was used for the detection of pDDI. Descriptive statistic and logistic regression were used for data analysis; Results: In this study, 294 patients out of 510 (57%) were selected with polypharmacy. The number of detected potential pharmacokinetic DDIs (pPKDDIs) was only 216 (or 12,4%), but almost 40% of patients with polypharmacy were exposed to at least one pPKDDIs. The most common pPKDDIs occur at the biotransformation level – 78 (36,1%), and the most common enzyme form that is involved in these interactions is cytochrome 3A4 (44 or 20,4%). The number of prescribed medications (>7) was found to increase the possibility of having pDDIs (OR 25.535, 95% CI 12.529 to 52.042; p = <0.001) and pPKDDIs (OR 5.165, 95% CI 3.430 to 7.779; p = <0.001) as well; Conclusion and Relevance: Caution should be taken in patients taking more than seven drugs and careful assessment of the pPKDDIs should be made. When such interactions are detected, they need to be properly evaluated and managed.