A Study of Cutaneous Adverse Drug Reactions in A Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital

Adverse drug reactions (ADR’s) are the major cause of morbidity and mortality and most of the adverse drug reactions become evident only when the drug enters into the market, as clinical trials conducted on drugs involve only a limited number of subjects. Cutaneous manifestations of ADR’s occur more frequently, hence this study was conducted to detect the morphological pattern, the common drugs causing cutaneous ADR’s and to assess the severity of the same using Naranjo’s algorithm. This was a prospective study conducted over a period of one year in the department of Dermatology and the department of Pharmacology. All the ADR’s reported during the study period were confirmed by a dermatologist and assessed using Naranjo’s algorithm. A total of 90 Cutaneous Adverse Drug Reactions (CADR’s) were reported during the study period. Fixed drug eruption was the most common morphological pattern of ADR. Antibiotics were the most common drugs involved in causing CADR’s. Most of the CADR’s belonged to Probable category. Hence this study showed that CADR’s are common to the drugs widely used, and the detection of the same will enable the treating physician to withdraw the use of the suspected drug. Also spontaneous reporting of ADR’s will strengthen the Indian Pharmacovigilance database.