This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related article  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Patient Safety/ Medical Error  • Adverse Effects  • Alert me on articles by topic

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

The relatively small number of claims for adverse events attributed to corticosteroids cited in the 10-year survey from Boston, Mass,¹ may require amplification. Among the nearly 40 cases I have reviewed (either on behalf of defendants or plaintiffs) as an "expert witness" over the past 30 plus years,² there were 21 malpractice claims for irreversible bone destruction, or avascular necrosis, following the administration of high doses of oral or parenteral corticosteroids for variable periods of time. Two of these were from the Boston area and may not have been included in the published survey that ended in 1999. Practically all the cases brought to my attention by legal counsels in several locations (only 1 from my own state of Colorado) could be considered what the authors label "preventable." Dosages exceeded 40 to 60 mg of prednisone, or the equivalent, per day—in some instances 250 to 500 mg of intravenous methylprednisolone—for . . . [Full Text of this Article]

RELATED ARTICLE

Malpractice Claims Regarding Corticosteroids—Reply
Jeffrey M. Rothschild, Frank A. Federico, Tejal K. Gandhi, Deborah H. Williams, and David W. Bates
Arch Intern Med. 2003;163(9):1113.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT