We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Off-label prescribing in older patients.
- Authors
Jackson, Stephen H D; Jansen, Paul A F; Mangoni, Arduino A
- Abstract
The practice of off-label prescribing, i.e. prescribing drugs either for unregistered/unapproved therapeutic indications and age groups or using unregistered/unapproved doses or methods of administration, is common in older patients. This may be due to the poor representation of this group in pre-marketing clinical trials assessing therapeutic efficacy and safety of novel therapies or merely to the fact that trials in a particular indication have not been undertaken. Off-label prescribing should not be viewed as scientifically or ethically unsound when there are good clinical data to support a particular therapeutic indication. However, a number of steps should be followed in order to ensure therapeutic efficacy, reducing, at the same time, the risk of adverse drug reactions and/or medical litigation. This article discusses the current epidemiology and trends in off-label prescribing in older patients, the scientific and ethical justification of this practice, medico-legal implications, and proposed strategies for risk mitigation.
- Publication
Drugs & aging, 2012, Vol 29, Issue 6, p427
- ISSN
1179-1969
- Publication type
Journal Article
- DOI
10.2165/11633520-000000000-00000