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Potential drug-laboratory test interactions in patients hospitalized in an intensive care unit

Abstract:

Introduction: Patients hospitalized in an intensive care unit are under treatment with multiple drugs, which can interfere with the results of laboratory tests, and lead to misdiagnosis, incorrect treatment and unnecessary additional tests. Objective: Identify potential drug-laboratory test interactions in patients hospitalized in the intensive care unit of ¨Dr. Verdi Cevallos Balda¨ Regional Hospital. Methods: A descriptive and retrospective study was conducted. The medical records of patients hospitalized in the intensive care unit were reviewed, in the period January 2018 to September 2019. Once the data were obtained, a literature search was carried out for the drugs that may cause alterations in the results of the laboratory tests and the frequency of the potential interactions between the laboratory tests and the most used drugs was determined. Results: In total, 1585 tests were registered and 1485 potential drug-laboratory interactions related to the biological effect of the drugs were detected. It was appreciated that the same test may be subject to interference from several drugs or the same drug may affect several determinations. Furosemide was the most involved drug in potential interactions and the omeprazole-transaminase glutamic oxalacetic and metoclopramide-serum glucose pairs were the most frequent. Conclusions: In patients hospitalized in the intensive care unit, there is a high prevalence of potential interactions between laboratory tests and administered drugs, either due to the amount prescribed or due to the high frequency of tests in which they interfere. The possibility of an interaction appearing does not mean that it does so constantly, but it is important that they are taken into account in the interpretations of laboratory results.