Publications by authors named "D F LeGatt"
Objectives: To investigate the rates and causality of adverse event(s) (AE) associated with natural health product (NHP) use, prescription drug use and concurrent NHP-drug use through active surveillance in community pharmacies.
Design: Cross-sectional study of screened patients.
Setting: 10 community pharmacies across Alberta and British Columbia, Canada from 14 January to 30 July 2011.
Objective: To describe 2 recent cases of suspected immunoglobulin-mediated interference with the Beckman Coulter particle-enhanced turbidimetric inhibition immunoassay (PETINIA) used to measure vancomycin serum or plasma concentrations and to review the existing literature.
Case Summary: A 64-year-old woman with a history of multiple immune-related comorbidities received vancomycin for treatment of a prosthetic joint infection growing coagulase-negative Staphylococcus spp. A 33-year-old man with a history of Felty syndrome received vancomycin for the treatment of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus pneumonia.
Article Synopsis
- - Many consumers take natural health products (NHPs) alongside prescription medications, but the safety of this combination is unclear due to underreported adverse events.
- - Pharmacists in a study actively screened patients for concurrent use of NHPs and prescription drugs, identifying that 39.7% of those surveyed used both, with a reported adverse event rate of 2.94%.
- - The study highlights that active surveillance is effective in discovering adverse events linked to NHP use, showing that it can yield valuable data for assessing safety, despite some challenges.