For the ninth consecutive year, Prescrire unveils its assessment of drugs to be discarded for better treatment. Published on Thursday, November 26, 2020, the results should help choose quality care and avoid disproportionate damage to patients. Passeport Santé provides an update on the new drugs added to the list.
A review of drugs to be discarded for better treatment
As every year for nine years, the journal ‘Prescrire’ published, on November 26, a report on the drugs to be discarded for better treatment. As we can read on the 2021 edition, “ this report identifies documented cases of drugs that are more dangerous than useful, with the aim of helping to choose quality care, not harming patients and avoiding disproportionate damage. These are drugs (sometimes a particular form or dosage) to be excluded from care in all clinical situations in which they are authorized in France or in the European Union. “.
The balance sheet is made up of all the drugs analyzed by specialists from 2010 to today. In total, the review identified 112 drugs, including 93 marketed in France, which has an unfavorable benefit-risk barnacle.
New drugs added to the list of drugs to be discarded
Among the new drugs on the balance sheet, two of them were added to the list ” because the undesirable effects to which they expose are disproportionate compared to their low effectiveness or the benignity of the clinical situation in which they are authorized “. This is finasteride 1 mg (Propecia® or other), prescribed as part of a treatment for androgenic alopecia (against hair loss) in men and piracetam (Nootropyl® or other). The second drug concerned is a ‘vasodilator’ authorized in various clinical situations including dizziness and cognitive deficits.
At the same time, five other drugs were added to the list because, despite some effectiveness, “ their side effects are disproportionate or other less dangerous options exist As explained in the magazine ‘Prescrire’. These are esketamine solution for nasal spray (Spravato®) in so-called resistant depression, pimecrolimus (Elidel®) indicated for atopic eczema and romosozumab (Evenity®) used to treat severe postmenopausal osteoporosis . Finally, meloxicam (Mobic® or other), a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) from the group of oxicams and tenoxicam (Tilcotil®) were also added to the list of drugs to be discarded. These drugs should already appear in the 8th edition of the Prescription report but have been forgotten.
Finally, other drugs, which have already appeared on the 2019 balance sheet list before being withdrawn in 2020, are making a comeback. This concerns gliflozins, treatments used against diabetes and in particular canagliflozin, dapagliflozin and ertugliflozin (see all the modalities on the balance sheet in the references).
