Kapidex Gets a Name Change
The Food and Drug Administration decided today to change the name of Kapidex in order to avoid confusion of the drug with several other drugs that have simular names.
Kapidex, a heartburn drug, has a similar name to the prostate cancer drug Casodex and the pain medication Kadian. The FDA said the confusion has resulted in multiple “dispensing errors” since the drug was approved early 2009.
The FDA Director of Surveillance and Epidemiology Dr. Gerald Dal Pan said, “Today’s near miss, today’s medication error that doesn’t cause harm to somebody could cause harm to someone tomorrow.”
The new name for Kapidex will be Dexilant, and is the first in a list of drugs the FDA plans to rename in order to remove any confusion and remedy dispensing errors.
A report from ABC.com talked about a woman from Canton, NC who had experienced a similar problem first hand. She was supposed to get a prescription of a anti-depressant prescribed as a sleeping aid, Trazodone, for her foster daughter. Instead, the pharmacy gave her something with the same first three letters – Tramadol, a pain killer.
Hopefully the renaming will cut down on the amount of prescribing errors. Remember to always double check your prescriptions to make sure that you are taking the correct medication and avoid a potential disaster.
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October 4th, 2010 at 8:25 am
Such errors shouldn’t persist. Not only is it dangerous to patients who would make the mistake, pharmacies would also set up an ugly reputation.