Description

Adverse reactions to medicines continue to present a burden on healthcare, causing considerable morbidity, and mortality. As well as knowing about the benefits of medicines, healthcare professionals need to understand the problem of adverse drug reactions, and be aware of how they can be prevented and managed. This book provides the current state of knowledge of basic mechanisms of adverse drug reactions (ADRs). Not only is the subject matter covered comprehensively but the material is presented in a very user-friendly manner. The main focus is on drug reactions because they are the most difficult to deal with. There is also a description of several examples of ADRs that serve to illustrate specific aspects of ADR mechanisms. Eventually, this book shows that ultimately better methods are needed to predict which drug candidates are likely to cause ADRs and which patients are at increased risk. But at present research seems to be far from this goal.