Lecture 1 - Introduction Flashcards
What is pharmacy? What type of services does is provide?
Profession charged with ensuring safe and optimal use of medication
Traditionally compounded and dispensed but now can provide clinical practises, medication reviews and drug information
What are the three main disciplines of pharmacy
Industrial
Pharmaceutical sciences
Pharmacy practice
What is pharmacodynamics (PD)?
The study of biochemical and physiological effects of drugs on the body, mechanisms of drug action and relationship between drug concentration and effect (what the drug does to the body)
What is the foundation concept of PD? Why is it important?
Receptor binding
Used to determine the equilibrium concentration (not too little, not too much)
What is pharmacokinetics (PK)?
The study of what the body does to the drug. It’s dedicated to determine the movement and fate of administered drugs
What does ADME stand for? What does it describe?
ADME: absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion
It describes the disposition of a drug
What is pharmaceutics?
Science of dosage form design and deals with the formulation of pure drug substance into dosage form
What are some examples of different dosage forms (6)?
Tablets, capsules, syrups, solutions for injection, suppositories, transdermal patches
What is pharmacology?
Deal with how drugs interact within biological systems to affect function or how drugs interact with living organisms to produce a change in function
What are the many sub-disciplines of pharmacology (7)?
Clinical pharmacology Pharmacogenomics Toxicology PK-PD Pharmacogenetics Pharmacoepidemiology Pharmcognosy (plant drugs)
What is clinical pharmacology? What is it’s main objective?
Science of drugs and their clinical use. It connects the gaps between medical practise and laboratory science. It’s main objective is to promote safety and efficacy of prescribed medication
What are some of the responsibilities of clinical pharmacologists (4)?
Analyzing adverse drug effects
Therapeutics and toxicology
Perioperative drug management
Psychopharmacology
What is pharmacogenomics?
Deals with the influence of genetic variation drug response by correlating gene expression with a drug’s efficacy or toxicity. It aims to develop rational means to optimize drug therapy with respect to the patients’ genotype
What is pharmacogenetics?
It examines single gene interactions with drugs
What is toxicology?
Study of the adverse effects of chemicals and drugs on living organisms.
Study of symptoms, mechanisms, treatments and detection of poisoning.
Study of the relationship between dose and its effects on the exposed organism
What is the LD50
Refers to the dose of toxic substance that kills 50% of a test population
What is pharmacognosy?
Study of medicines derived from natural sources (ex. quinine, physostigmine, tubocurare, pilocarpine, digoxin)
What is medicinal chemistry?
Involves the identification, synthesis and development of new chemical entities suitable for therapeutic use. Also includes the study of existing drugs, their biological properties, and their quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR)
What are adverse effects?
A harmful and undesired effect resulting from a medication. It may be termed “side-effect” when judged to be secondary to a main or therapeutic effect. They can include drug interactions. They can lead to non-compliance with a treatment regimen
What is an iatrogenic adverse effect?
An adverse effect generated by a care-giver or treatment (ex. unsuitable or incorrect dosage)
What is pharmacovigilance?
Pharmacological science relating to the detection, assessment, understanding and prevention of adverse effects (particularly long term side effects)
What is evidence-based medicine (EBM)?
EBM aims to apply evidence gained from the scientific method to parts of the medical practice
What is pharmaceutical care? What are the outcomes of it?
The responsible provision of drug therapy for the purpose of achieving definite outcomes that improve a patient’s quality of life. That outcomes include: cure of a disease, elimination or reduction of patient’s symptoms, arresting or slowing of a disease process, preventing disease, etc.
