Pneumotox

BY PHILIPPE CAMUS MD, PROFESSOR AND EMERITUS OF PULMONARY MEDICINE – DIJON - FRANCE

Pneumotox is an aid to the investigation and diagnosis of respiratory and cardiac diseases/reactions suspected of being drug-induced/iatrogenic. Ultimately, exact diagnosis and causality assessment remain full users’ responsibility.

Patients should be reassured and realize that such incidents are rare. If needed, ask your treating Doctor.

Pneumotox is designed to provide information and bibliography more quickly and extensively than a manual search on conventional databases may do. However, double-checking is recommended.

Pneumotox is a repository built from over 35,000 published bibliographic references (mainly indexed in PubMed) individually reviewed and rearranged by causative drugs (n>1,500) including chemicals and substances of abuse, be they administered buccally, parenterally, topically or via inhalation (e.g. e-cigarettes, vaping, inhalants, gases), and by patterns of respiratory involvement (n>650).

You may access Pneumotox by drug names (International Nonproprietary Names or INN, alphabetical) or patterns grouped by families. Please examine what INN are exactly contained in any suspected proprietary drug, including excipients.

If a drug reaction is listed in Pneumotox, this does not equate diagnosis in the patient. Conversely, lack of description in the literature or in Pneumotox does not rule out the diagnosis. There may be unpublished reports, or you may be seeing the first case, or we may have missed some information. Pneumotox cannot be held responsible in such situations.

In any patient, particularly when severe respiratory failure, ARDS or acute asthma is present, survey of exposure to drugs, substances, and/or chemicals must be done carefully with patient, family, health professionals, and/or pharmacy. This can be life-saving.

Early sampling of body fluids for drug and metabolites is indicated when appropriate shortly upon admission, particularly in the severely ill.

Please rate the likelihood for drug causality in every case, using the ‘Diagnosing DIRD’ prompt/button and the Naranjo scale to decide whether to withdraw or prudently continue the drug.

Where in doubt, consider double-checking PubMed, your affiliated Safety for Medicines Department/Agency and the Pharmacovigilance Department of drug companies. They may host more/undisclosed useful information compared to literature.

You may contact Pneumotox 24/7 through the contact window.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Pneumotox V2.2 Mobile is an application developed by Cactus Mobile, Paris

Thanks to a generous Grant from the ERS 2019