Diabetes drugs among those causing most hospitalisations in the US

Mon, 28 Nov 2011
New research by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has revealed that only a small amount of drug types cause most of the emergency hospital admissions in the United States.

The study, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that just four drug types were mostly responsible, including insulins to treat diabetes, and claimed that improved control of anti-diabetic drugs could reduce the amount of such emergency admissions.

The report found that almost 100,000 hospitalisations each year in the US are associated with two important issues for both doctors and patients, that of unintentional overdoses and adverse reactions to drug treatments. It was also argued that just under half of the hospital admissions concerned patients who were 80 years old or older.

Lead author Daniel Budnitz, commented "These data suggest that focusing safety initiatives on a few medicines that commonly cause serious, measurable harms can improve care for many older Americans."

He added "Of the thousands of medications available to older patients, a small group of blood thinners and diabetes medications caused a high proportion of emergency hospitalizations for adverse drug events among elderly Americans."

The findings come after a recent healthcare law in the US that it is hoped will reduce the amount of emergency admissions by more than 20 per cent.

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