Recommendations for safe medication use in liver impairment: importance of transparency and reflections on analgesics, hypnotics and anti-emetics

Wilcock et al make the point that evaluation of medication is important in patients with severe hepatic impairment and a limited life expectancy.[1] We agree with the authors that more attention is needed to safe prescribing in these patients, and would like to share our experiences in the assessment of safe medication use in patients with cirrhosis. Over the last years, we developed a methodology to assess the safety of medication in cirrhosis based on literature review and expert opinion.[2] We evaluated over 209 medications[2], and although many recommendations of Wilcock were comparable to ours, we found significant differences for some medication classes.
Source: Journal of Pain and Symptom Management - Category: Palliative Care Authors: Source Type: research