This year once more – and according to a rigorous methodology – Prescrire is publishing its list of drugs to avoid. Find out which ones.
For the eleventh consecutive year, the journal Prescrire has documented the number of drugs that are more dangerous than useful. In this year’s report, it is specified that these are drugs to be excluded from care in all clinical situations in which they are authorized in France or in the European Union.
For the year 2023, Prescrire recommends avoiding 107 medications currently authorized but more dangerous than useful. Specifically, 88 drugs are marketed in France. “Some drugs are added, others are withdrawn, either because their marketing has been stopped by decision of the company or a health authority, or until Prescrire has re-examined their benefit-risk balance, likely to ‘be modified by new data being analyzed“, underlines the review.
Compared to last year’s balance sheet, three new drugs have made their entrance because the undesirable effects to which they expose are disproportionate to the efficiency gain they bring. Starting with a peanut seed powder containing peanut protein (Palforzia°). Prescrire explains that this drug reduced the frequency and intensity of allergic reactions to peanuts in a test carried out at the hospital “but it increases the frequency of allergic reactions in the daily life of patients, including those motivating the administration of adrenaline“.
Two drugs withdrawn from the balance sheet
Another drug to avoid: roxadustat (Evrenzo°). He is authorized in anemia linked to chronic renal failure. The scientific journal issues a warning and assures that this drug “appears to increase mortality in some patients and has a higher adverse effect profile“. Third arrival in the report of Prescrire: the tincture of opium (Dropizal°). This drug authorized in the treatment of severe diarrhea does not seem to bring more benefits than loperamide.
Disappeared from the list of drugs to avoid in 2020, nintedanib, authorized in certain non-small cell lung cancers (under the name Vargatef°) and in certain chronic lung conditions (under the name Ofev°). After a new expertise, Prescrire points to an unfavorable benefit-risk balance.
Finally, among the novelties for 2023, two drugs are no longer among those that must be avoided. This is the idebenone which Prescrire has reassessed”its benefit-risk balance in Leber’s optic neuropathy“. Another withdrawal, that of teriflunomide (Aubagio°), an immunosuppressant authorized in multiple sclerosis.
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