USA: Look/sound-alike drugs lead to medical errors

The 8th annual national MEDMARX Data Report just released by the US Pharmacopeia reveals that more than 1,400 commonly-used drugs are involved in errors linked to drug names that either look or sound alike. According to findings in this latest analysis, 1.4% of the mistakes resulted in patient harm, including seven that may have caused or contributed to consumers deaths. However, as a result of widespread underreporting of incidents, the study's authors believe that the number of adverse events resulting from look-alike/sound-alike errors is actually understated.

For its latest report, the USP says it reviewed more than 26,000 records submitted to the MEDMARX database from 2003 to 2006. These revealed that 1,470 different drugs are implicated in medication errors due to brand and/or generic names that looked or sounded similar. From this data, the USP compiled a list of 3,170 pairs of names that look and/or sound alike, which was nearly double the 1,750 that were identified in its previous report on this topic in 2004.

Indication should be shown on script