Avances en Farmacoepidemiología y Seguridad de Medicamentos

Abstracto

Medicine Withdrawal and Recall: Needs Proper Evaluation

Chetna Patel and Shashank Deoghare

Currently, withdrawal and recall of medicines become a hot topic of discussion. This issue does not follow a uniform pattern all over the world. Few medicines continue to remain in the market despite reported adverse effects. This is understandable because:
• They may be the only available options for a few sets of patients e.g. felbamate (anti-epileptic)
• Drug remains in the market until better options are available in terms of safety and efficacy e.g. terfenadine approved in 1985 was found to cause cardiac arrhythmias but it continued to be in the market till the arrival of newer analogue fexofenadine in 1997.
• Withdrawal may also become the last option to choose if all other risk management techniques fail as was observed in the case of heartburn treatment with cisapride