Prescrição Off-Label no Brasil e nos EUA: aspectos legais e paradoxos

Thalidomide control and use: are these appropriate to extend the use and mitigate the risk of teratogenicity in Brazil?

Drug utilization research to describe the control of thalidomide in Brazil and its use in Minas Gerais state. An online questionnaire was sent to the Brazilian federative units to collect data concerning distribution, dispensation, user registration, and thalidomide adverse events. Distribution (2011-2018) and dispensing (2015-2018) data in Minas Gerais were obtained through the pharmaceutical care management system. Analysis of variance and Tukey test were used for data comparisons. Of the 16 participating federative units, 100% and 50% used electronic distribution and dispensing systems, respectively, and about 43% registered users. Adverse event reporting systems were scarce. A 44% reduction was observed in the distribution in Minas Gerais for the period. Dispensing remained constant (mean 0.0004 DDD/1,000 inhabitants/day) and occurred mainly for erythema nodosum leprosum and multiple myeloma. Off-label use (2.2%) was increasing. Most users were male (mean age 56 years) and thirty percent of women were of childbearing age. Thalidomide surveillance is a public health challenge. Despite the increased use and mandatory control, there is no national standardization, and adverse event reporting is incipient.

[This elusive unknown quantity: reflections on the prescription of psychotropic drugs in early childhood]

The scope of this article is to study aspects related to prescription habits and the use of psychoactive drugs in early childhood. It takes as a starting point the bibliographical survey carried out on the BVS and Scielo databases on epidemiological and clinical research in Brazil regarding the use of psychotropic drugs in children under six years of age. Based on international literature, it highlights the increase in the number of children diagnosed with mental and behavioral disorders, as well as the respective prescription of psychotropic drugs. It discusses the predominantly off-label character of psychoactive drugs for children under six years of age, the heterogeneous use of prescriptions and polypharmacology, pointing to an ethical paradox regarding clinical research in this age group. It concludes that the use of psychotropic drugs in early childhood is as yet not well known in Brazil, and epidemiological studies are urgently needed in this area.

Brand names of Portuguese medication: understanding the importance of their linguistic structure and regulatory issues

Among other regulatory requirements, medicine brands should be composed of single names without abbreviations to prevent errors in prescription of medication. The purposes of the study were to investigate the compliance of a sam ple of Portuguese medicine brand names with Portuguese pharmaceutical regulations. This includes identifying their basic linguistic characteristics and comparing these features and their frequency of occurrence with benchmark values of the colloquial or informal language. A sample of 474 brand names was selected. Names were analyzed using manual (visual analyses) and computer methods (FreP - Frequency Patterns of Phonological Objects in Portuguese and MS word). A significant number of names (61.3%) failed to comply with the Portuguese phonologic system (related to the sound of words) and/or the spelling system (related to the written form of words) contained more than one word, comprised a high proportion of infrequent syllable types or stress patterns and included abbreviations. The results suggest that some of the brand names of Portuguese medication should be reevaluated, and that regulation on this issue should be enforced and updated, taking into consideration specific linguistic and spelling codes.

Uso racional de medicamentos, farmaceuticalização e usos do metilfenidato

Resumo O uso racional de medicamentos (URM) é considerado um dos elementos-chave recomendados pela Organização Mundial de Saúde (OMS) para as políticas de medicamentos. O crescimento excessivo no uso de medicamentos em muitos países tem sido apontado como uma importante barreira para o alcance do URM e faz parte de um fenômeno denominado ´farmaceuticalização´ da sociedade. Desta forma, o presente artigo objetiva apresentar movimentos para racionalizar o uso do metilfenidato no Brasil e discutir os limites impostos tendo como referência o conceito de farmaceuticalização da sociedade. Trata-se de estudo exploratório, realizado por meio de narrativa da literatura científica. As controvérsias acerca dos usos do metilfenidato o torna um bom exemplo deste fenômeno podendo auxiliar na reflexão e na construção de novos caminhos para os limites encontrados pelo conceito de uso racional de medicamentos.