Pharmacology Flashcards
What is a good book to have for reference for pahrmacology?
Australian Medicines handbook
Why do we need to know about drugs?
- We prescribe them
- For the one we dont prescribe - patient may want to have info about them or drugs they are taking may affect your approach to their dental treatment
What is a pharmacopoeia?
It is a reference book containing direction for identification and purity standard of medicines
What is pharmacology?
It is a scientific discipline dealing with the interaction between living systems & drugs
What are the four right for drug prescribing?
- Right drug
- Right dose
- Right frequency
- Right duration and deprescribing
What does drug therapy hope to achieve?
- Prevent diseases
- Cure a disease
- Decrease mortality
- Decrease sickness
- Decrease symptoms of illness
What is a xenobiotic?
It is a substance that is not synthesized in the body but must be introduced into the body from outside.
How would you try to explain the relationships between substrates and their target molecules/active sites?
Lock & key relationship
What is pharmacodynamics?
It is the effect of drug on bod. Like paracetamol relieves pain and is antipyretic (lower body temp)
What is pharamacokinetics?
Effects of body on the drug. Like absorption and distribution and elimination. It looks at the how it is done and the rate at which it is done
What is the important of pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics?
It is the integration between those two key concepts that results in creation of appropriate drugs.
How can we classify drugs?
- Chemical makeup
- Function
- Target molecules
- International Nonproprietary names - i.e. the endings of similar drugs of function need to be simiar i.e. mevipicaine and lignocaine
What do we need to remember about drug nomenclature?
Always use the GENERIC NAME. Because that way when prescription is getting fulfilled - it is not dependent on the supply of a certain brand name.
What is a drug/medicine?
A drug is a substance that when introduced into the body alters the body’s function
Whatis the interaction between cliclosporin and Saint John’s wort?
Ciclosporin is an immunosupresant that is able to aid in organ transplants.
St John’s Wort is a over the counter herb that cna aid in depression.
St John’s Wort is able to trigger an increase production of an enzyme that metabolises ciclosporin.
Thus decreasing long term plasma concentration leading to transplant organ rejetion by the body.
What determines the osing regiment?
Pharmacokinetics control the dosage regiment.
What is the theraoetuic concentration range?
It is when the optimal concentration is reached, meaning the concentration of a medication is not too low to be ineffective and not too high to cause toxicity.
What is a therapeutic index?
The ratio of the dose that produces toxicity to the dose that produces a clinically desired or effective response.
Essentially drugs with a large therapeutic index are more safe and harder to get an overdose on.
Example of low therapeutic index - morphine 70:1 index
Example of high therapeutic index - remifantanil 33000:1
What is toxicology?
It is the discipline dealing with undesirable effects of xenobiotics.
What are some of the targets for drugs?
- Non-specific targets
- Proteins - the most common
- RNA/DNA
- Lipid cell membranes
What are some of the receptors that are targeted by medications?
- Ligand-gated ion channels (ionotropic receptors
- G-protein-coupled receptors (metabotropic)
- Hinase-linked receptors
- Nuclear receptors
How long does it take for ligand-gates ion channels to respond?
Miliseconds
What are some of the examples of ligand-gated ions channels? What are some of the drugs that bind to them?
Nicotinic receptors and ACh receptors.
Benzodiasapine like xanax
How long does it take for G-protein-coupled receptors (metabotropic) to respond?
Seconds
What are some of the examples of G-protein-coupied receptors (metabotropic)? What are some of the drugs that bind to them?
Muscarinic receptors, ACh receptors
Opiod agonists like morphine
How long does it take for Kinase-linked receptors to respond?
Hours
What are some of the examples of Kinase-linked receptors? What are some of the drugs that bind to them?
Cytokine receptors
Methotrexate
How long does it take for Nuclear receptors to respond?
Hours
What are some of the examples of Nuclear receptors? What are some of the drugs that bind to them?
Oestrogen receptors
Where are the targeted proteins usually found?
- Cell surface - membrane receptors, ion channels and carrier proteins
- Intracellular - enzymes, RNA/DNA and Proteins
What is affinity?
It is essentially the ability of the drug to be efficient in it’s function and it is highly dependent on the structure of said drug
What is a bad outcome of a drug having an affinity effect on 2 different receptors?
It increase the potential side effects that may occur from that drug
What kind of drugs do we use for reflux & indigestion?
Proton pump inhibitors
What doe NSAIDs target?
They inhibit the enzyme by the name of cyclooxygenase I and II
What are the two types of inhibition?
- Competitive inhibitor
- Irreversible inhibitor
What are the potential clinical consequences of this difference in inhibition for a patient requiring 3rd molar extraction?
Due to affect on platelets by aspirin, by irreversible inhibition of platelets, there needs to be extra caution in planing and use of extra tools such as mucoperiosteal flap use due to increase risk of inability to achieve adequate haemostasis.
Please ensure use of local haemostatic measures and remember that temporary interruption is not required.
Where in the body is ligand dated ion channel located?
Skeletal muscle. It’s blockage can result in inability to breath. This receptor is very very very quick.
What is the significance of the G Protein-Coupled receptors or the 2nd messengers receptors?
They have a very quick onset - basically minutes. And many drugs such as the opiods or anihistamines bind to them.
What is the significance of nuclear receptors?
It takes hours to reach them and the main objective of binding to them is to alter gene transcription stimulation.
What are the two types of asthma therapy medication?
- Relievers - slabutamol - quick effect by binding to beta-2 receptors
- Preventers - beclomenthasone - slow effect due to being a nuclear receptor
What are some of the side effects of salbutamol?
Due to an effect on beta-1 receptors aswell - they may cause heart palpatations.
What are the two functional types of meidctions?
- Agonists - drugs that elicit response
- Antagonist - drugs that bind but do not elicit response - essentially just occupy the space on the receptor by being competetive
What is potency?
It is the comparison between efficacy of different drugs and their dossages.
E.g. Drug A can reach the target of 30 units within 2mg and drug B can reach the target of 30 units within 10 mg. Therefore, drug A is 5 time more potent than drug B
How do you determine a full agonist on a logarithmic graph?
If the effect scale reaches 100% or max - it is a full agonist, if not it is a partial agonist.
What is the therapeutic index?
Difference between the minimal dose to achieve the 50% effect and toxicity of a substance.
It is a measure of drug safety!
An example of a drug with a wide therapeutic index - paracetamol only 500mg may need for in effect but the toxicity is around 15 grams (30 tablets)
Why are pharamacokinetics important?
- Adverse harmful effect to a medicine in people oftent due to altered pharmacokinetics - e.g. kidney disease
- Patient does not get better or gets worse on a medicine often due to altered pharamacokinetics 0 e.g due to genetic factor or taking other medicines
What is the important aspects of pharmacokinetics in prescription?
Same does does not suit all patient. There is a difference in doses due to age, weight, pregnancy, environment, diet and use of other medications.
Your prescribe the antibiotic metronidazole 200 mg twice a day for a spreading odontogenic infection and it has no effect. WHat could be a pharmacokinetic reason?
- Not dosing properly
- The drug is broken down too fast and it can not reach appropriate blood levels
- The drug is not being absorbed properly due to nausea and vomiting
Your prescribe the antibiotic metronidazole 200 mg twice a day for a spreading odontogenic infection and it has no effect. What could be a pharamacodynamic reason?
- Metronidozale can not affect the bacteria that is responsible for the odontogenic infection
- Bacterial resistance
How do we decide how to give medicine?
- Speed of response
- Chronic dosing of the drug
What are some of the ways we can introduce the drug to the organism?
- Enteral - through the intestine - oral, sublingual and rectal
- Parentral - everything else due to them being sensative to gastric juices or we need a quick effect - injections basically - intravenous, intramuscular or subcutaneous
- Other routes - inhalation, tranasal, topical, transdermal patches and other other like eyes, nose, ears drops
Why cant you give warfarin and miconazole together?
Miconazole can potentiate the actions of warfarin thus increasing International Normal Rate.
Thus make a patient more likely to bleed.
Miconazole is inhibiting hepatic microsomal cytochrome P-450 enzymes. increasing concentration of warfarin.
What are common routes of drug absorption?
- Gastrointestinal absorption - most common - from the lumen of the stomach through the enterocytes and into portal vein for systemic circulation - could be done through passive diffusion or though different transporters
2.
What are some of the factors that effect the gastrointestinal absorption?
- Blood flow
- Surface area of the intestines - remember stomach does not matter intestine is due to increased surface area of the intestine - microvilli and villi.
- Gastric emptying - e.g. codeine slows down the emptying of the stomach thus may increase the time that the drug may take to the site of absorption - water pormmotes stomach emptying 200ML OF WATER IS GOOD
Why do some medicine should be taken with food?
- To reduce side effects
- To reduce side-effects of stomach upset
- To treat heartburn/indigestion
- To ensure the medicine is absorbed into the blood stream: like very water soluble drugs
- To help process the meal - like for diabetes medication