Bouvenot Gilles, Sassard Jean, Montastruc Jean-Louis
Service de médecine interne, gériatrie et thérapeutique, hôpital Sainte-Marguerite, faculté de médecine de Marseille, 270, boulevard de Sainte-Marguerite, 13009 Marseille, France.
Faculté de pharmacie de Lyon, 69000 Lyon, France.
Therapie. 2017 Dec;72(6):665-668. doi: 10.1016/j.therap.2017.07.003. Epub 2017 Aug 3.
Due to the increasing use of fixed-dose combination therapy (FC) for treating several pathological conditions, the authors discuss their advantages (simplification of drug intakes and thus possible better compliance, rationale of pharmacological associations and drug dosages) and their disadvantages (limited dosage flexibility, possible misunderstanding of the co-administered drugs due to non-utilization of International nonproprietary name…) versus advantages and disadvantages of free drug combinations. Several recommendations are proposed. If FC is not in fact a problem in young adults with stable diseases, it should be cautiously prescribed for all the other patients, especially in elderly suffering from several diseases. FC should be only proposed after prescribing separately the different components, and should be regularly reassessed.
