Safety advice on particular drugs or classes of drugs
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| Australia: Concomitant use of protease inhibitors for HIV or hepatitis C and certain statin drugs can increase the risk of muscle injury |
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The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) updates the safety of statins in relation to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announcements on 28 February and 1 March 2012. US FDA’s safety-related information included information on memory loss, increased blood sugar levels, liver monitoring, lovastatin interactions and muscle injury associated with the interactions with HIV and hepatitis C drugs. TGA informed that this type of information about a medicine is normally placed in the Product Information document. The TGA is currently reviewing the evidence for these safety-related changes to label information made by the FDA and will update the Product Information for these medicines where necessary. TGA advised that patients taking statins should not stop taking their medication without expert advice from their treating clinician, and if they have questions or concerns they should speak to their doctor or other appropriate health professional.
Please refer to the following website in Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration for details:http://www.tga.gov.au/safety/alerts-medicines-statins-120302.htm
In Hong Kong, there are 241 and 21 registered pharmaceutical products which belong to the classes of statins and protease inhibitors respectively. All are prescription-only medicines. The news has been released by the FDA and was posted on the website of Drug Office on 2 March 2012 and 29 February 2012 respectively. Letters to inform healthcare professionals had been issued and the matters will be discussed in the meeting of the Registration Committee of the Pharmacy and Poisons Board.
Ends/ Saturday, March 3, 2012
Issued at HKT 12:00 |
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