Frequency and Levels of Potential Drug-Drug Interactions in Tuberculosis Patients of a Teaching Hospital in Pakistan

Polypharmacy in tuberculosis is used to prevent occurrence of resistance to mycobacteria. However, drug-drug interaction is one of the undesirable consequences of polypharmacy, that may lead to ineffective medication or change in therapeutic response. The objective of the study was to identify prevalence, types and nature of potential drug-drug interactions in tuberculosis patients at Khyber Teaching Hospital, Peshawar Pakistan. Medical records of 409 randomly-selected patients were reviewed for pDDIs using Micromedex Database. Results show that total 304 interacting-combinations lead to 1437 potential drug-drug interactions. 87.5% of the these potential drug-drug interactions were of moderate and major severity (i.e., 65.6% and 44.3% respectively). With regards to scientific-evidence, almost 50% of the potential drug-drug interactions were good documented while 34.7% had fair level of documentation. Furthermore, we have listed some of the interacting drug combinations, particularly most frequent major and moderate interactions, will help health care professionals to review their established therapeutic strategy for tuberculosis patients in their clinical settings.