Examples of Malfunction Occurred by Interactions between Pharmaceutical Products and Medical Devices That Pharmacists Should Be Aware of

Abstract

There have been a number of reports of medical device materials becoming denatured or damaged by interactions with pharmaceutical products. For example, the polycarbonate (PC) resin that is widely used in medical devices has the shortcoming of weak chemical resistance, and in more than one case, three-way stopcocks made of PC resin have been damaged when drugs like propofol are used. There have also been reports where concomitant use of pharmaceutical products prevented medical devices from exerting their effect properly. For example, owing to the heart-slowing action of amiodarone hydrochloride, a dose increase in a patient with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator caused the device to fail to detect a sustained tachycardia attack, as a consequence of which defibrillation therapy was not administered. These are but a few of the numerous and varied interactions between pharmaceutical products and medical devices. We introduce the drug-medical device interactions that have been reported to Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA) thus far.