During the past decade, many high-alert medications have been developed for use in clinical practice. High-alert medications are defined by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices as drugs that bear a heightened risk of causing significant patient harm when used in error. In these situations, prescribers tend to be underdose to avoid the adverse events. Prompt pharmacotherapy, ideally without overdose and underdose, are required. Particularly, in the pharmacotherapy of high-alert medications with large individual differences, more attention is needed. It is a major mission of clinical pharmacology to determine what factors are responsible for individual differences, and how to translate the findings into clinical practice. In this symposium, we would like to introduce the research we have been engaged in and discuss how safe and secure pharmacotherapy should be practiced.
(1) Noda S., Morita S. and Terada T. Dose individualization of oral multi-kinase inhibitors for the implementation of therapeutic drug monitoring. Biol Pharm Bull 45, 814-823 (2022)
(2) Hira D. and Terada T. BCRP/ABCG2 and high-alert medications: biochemical, pharmacokinetic, pharmacogenetic and clinical implications. Biochem Pharmacol, 147, 201-210 (2018)