[Pulmonary arterial hypertension in Health District 11: a patient-oriented drug utilization analysis]. / Terapia per ipertensione arteriosa polmonare nella USL 11 di Empoli: una analisi di farmaco-utilizzazione.

ABSTRACT

Dispensing medication at the discharge of patients is an activity that allows to the Pharmacy Department to have a privileged point of view about prescribing new drugs and therapies. During last year we met several prescriptions for new drugs utilized in the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), These prescriptions are the mirror of the avalaibility of new specific drugs. PAH is a rare and fatal disease; current disease-specific therapeutic interventions in PAH established pathways in disease treatment prostacyclin, endothelin receptors antagonist. Several studies indicate that sildenafil, an oral phosphodiesterase type-5 inhibitor, may also offer benefits in the pharmacological management of PAH as well as tadalafil or vardenafil too. We collected data from our Pharmacy patient's database to evaluate the impact of this rare disease on our setting, to analyse the patterns of prescription of our physicians and to think specific health policy or pathways for the patients suffering from this disease.