The Danish website interaktionsdatabasen.dk, where you can find information about interactions between various medicines, has been improved significantly. The Drug Interaction Database is in Danish only.
Among the improvements is a general overview of how two different categories of medicinal product groups interact (class effect), the hospital pharmacies' SAD products have been included, and finally, you can search on both active substance and product names for herbal remedies as well as vitamins.
The changes to the Drug Interaction Database have been based on requests from healthcare professionals, and have to some extent also been implemented in the Danish website medicinkombination.dk, which is a lighter version for consumers.
Compare interactions between substance groups
In cases where interactions between two medicines used concurrently are unknown, the Drug Interaction Database now provides the possibility to read general information on the so-called class effect via the link "vis information" (show information).
An example is the combination of enalapril and naproxen, where there are no studies of how these two medicines interact. In such cases, the Drug Interaction Database now gives insight into the interactions between the groups of substances that the medicines belong to. In this case, the class effect between the groups ACE inhibitors and NSAIDs.
Furthermore, you can also read descriptions of interactions between other similar medicines.
Medicines from hospital pharmacies now also included
Medicines from hospital pharmacies in Denmark labelled "SAD" are also included in the Drug Interaction Database.
One example is the medicinal vitamin thiamine which is sold under many various product names. It is now also included in the Drug Interaction Database precisely as it is written by the hospital pharmacies, namely "Tiamin SAD" (Thiamine SAD).
Less confusion regarding herbal remedies
Finally, information about herbal remedies has been fully integrated into the Drug Interaction Database, so instead of only being able to search on a herbal remedy's active substance, you can also search on the product's actual brand name.
This is relevant, because some herbal remedies are referred to by different names e.g. St. John's Wort which is also known as hypericum and hypericum perforatum. But with this change in the Drug Interaction Database, you can just search directly on e.g. Modigen, which is one of the brand names for hypericum, and see how it interacts with other medicines.
It can be highly relevant to check if herbal remedies affect other products, because with e.g. hypericum, contraceptive pills may become ineffective.
