Adverse Effects of Co-trimoxazole

Abstract

Although there is a large body of information available on the subject of adverse drug reactions, much of it is based on anecdotal case reports or uncontrolled studies of drug recipients. These studies often come to unwarranted conclusions or at least to conclusions which are difficult to interpret fully, resulting in considerable differences of opinion even amongst acknowledged experts (Koch-Weser et al. 1977). In an attempt to circumvent some of the ambiguities inherent in many of the reports of adverse drug effects Feinstein and his colleagues have proposed using a stepwise decision process for their operational assessment (Kramer et al. 1979; Hutchinson et al. 1979; Leventhal et al. 1979). Unfortunately such developments have little bearing on the present report since it is not possible using this technique to assess retrospectively the validity of most published studies of adverse reactions. Nevertheless it is to be hoped that approaches such as advocated by this group will be adopted in the future, so as to render interpretation of case reports of adverse reactions a much easier task.