Pharmacology 2060A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Vasodilation, Blood Test, Decimal Mark

• School: Western University
• Department: Pharmacology
• Course: Pharmacology 2060A/B
• Professor: Andrea Di Sebastiano

Document Summary

Adverse drug reactions (adrs) are the unintended and undesired responses from drugs. Adverse drug reactions are an enormous societal health problem. Canadian research suggests that 7. 5% of hospital admissions in canada are attributed to adverse drug reactions. Adverse drug reactions can include: side effects, drug toxicity, allergic reaction. Idiosyncratic reaction: carcinogenic effects, mutagenic effects, teratogenic effects. Side effects are secondary to the main therapeutic effect of the drug and are expected. Side effects occur at normal therapeutic doses and are often unavoidable. Side effects are often due to poor specificity or selectivity of the drug. Example: antihistamines act by blocking h1 histamine receptors to prevent the symptoms of allergy (i. e. runny nose, watery eyes). Side effects include drowsiness, dry mouth and urinary retention. In the figure you can see that histamine binding to the histamine receptor in sinuses causes vasodilation which results in runny nose and watery eyes. Antihistamines act by blocking the effect of histamine.