Abstract
It is said that many drugs are used in combination more frequently in Japan than the foreign countries.
The purpose of these studies, therefore, is to investigate the status of combined use of drugs in Japan, especially in tuberculosis patients.
Investigation was made on 5, 296 tuberculosis patients and 175 doctors in twelve national sanatoria. All drugs including those for internal and external application and injection which were prescribed for tuberculosis who had been in these sanatoria for a week since April 9. 1973 and medicated with antituberculous drugs were investigated. Incidentally, the names of symptoms and diseases for which the doctors prescribed and the reasons for the prescriptions were also investigated.
The results are as follows:
The frequency of use of antituberculous drugs in these sanatoria is shown in Fig. 4. INH, EB, SM and RFP were most frequently used, among which 75% of tuberculosis were medicated with INH as an antituberculous drug.
The frequency of combined use of antituberculous drugs in these sanatoria is shown in Fig. 5. Three drugs in combination were used in 56, 6 % of tuberculosis investigated. Four, five or six drugs were sometimes used in combination. Figs. 7 and 8 show the frequency of prescriptions for combined use of antituberculous durgs in these sanatoria.
Combined use of INH-SM-PAS was prescribed in 9.8% of tuberculosis investigated. Next to this use, INH-SM-AI· PAS, INH-SF, INH, INH-EB, and INH-EB-RFP were prescribed frequently in turn. Especially, increase of the use of EB and RFP was remarkable.·Fig. 9 shows the number of durgs used per patient except antituberculous drugs. The maximum number was 37.
There were much difference in occurrence of symptoms for which the doctors prescribed among the sanatoria where investigation was carried out. For example, the difference of occurrence of functional disorder of liver is shown in Fig. 14
