Monitoring of adverse drug reactions by means of autopsy tissue examination.

Morphologic examination of autopsy tissue specimens was undertaken to establish the incidence of adverse drug reactions in a population of hospitalised patients. By removal of subjective bias recording of adverse reactions, the incidence of toxic tissue manifestations was 33%. In those reactions classified as definitely linked to a specific causative agent males between the ages of 41 and 60 displayed the highest frequency of adverse effects. In the probable and possible categories the incidence of toxic manifestations was equal amongst both sexes and highest in patients over 40 y. Regardless of the type of adverse reaction the most common causative agent identified was alcohol and hepatic tissue was primarily altered morphologically. Unlike the conventional mechanism used to monitor adverse drug reactions, autopsy tissue examination provides a system of measurement of toxic manifestations to both prescription as well as non-prescription compounds.