Evaluation of drug and poison information center in Saudi Arabia during the period 2000-2002.

Objective: To evaluate the profile of the requestors, the number and content of questions which were received during the period of May 2000 - December 2002.

Methods: A total of 1967 requests were evaluated. The questions were sorted according to source of callers, caller identification, the content of the questions, search data and time required to answer the questions.

Drug-induced pulmonary fibrosis.

Pulmonary fibrosis is characterized by the accumulation of excessive connective tissue in the lungs. Its causes include chronic administration of some drugs for example bleomycin, cyclophosphamide, amiodarone, procainamide, penicillamine, gold and nitrofurantoin; exposure to certain environmental factors such as gases, asbestos and silica and bacterial or fungal infections. Some systemic diseases also predispose to the disease for example rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus.

Comparative study of Saudi-marketed products and US drug labeling.

Drug package inserts from ten nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs marketed in Saudi Arabia were compared with their corresponding US labels to determine possible differences in their information content. These variations were assessed with special regard to the number of words used and the type of the information provided. The study showed that inserts of Saudi-marketed products generally conveyed limited and incomplete information.