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Shotgun Hematinic Therapy
Fred Rosner, MD
Arch Intern Med. 1978;138(7):1129.
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| Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings. |
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Among the numerous throw-aways that the mailman delivers to my door are advertisements from pharmaceutical companies concerning drugs and related products.
I recently received a set of complimentary starter prescriptions for a certain drug for the treatment of "iron deficiency anemia and megaloblastic anemia." The drug is composed of ferrous fumarate, ascorbic acid, cyanocobalamin, and folic acid. This "shotgun" approach for the treatment of anemia aroused me to share my concerns and frustrations with my colleagues.
Shotgun therapy is the "indiscriminate use of several therapeutic agents simultaneously, each of which is effective individually in specific types of anemia, without first determining their applicability to the case at hand."1 Why should a patient with pernicious anemia be given iron, folic acid, or ascorbic acid? If the patient has a concomitant deficiency of one or more of these factors, specific replacement is indicated, not shotgun therapy.
If a patient with a
. . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]
Author Affiliations
From the Division of Hematology, Queens Hospital Center Affiliation of the Long Island Jewish-Hillside Medical Center, and the Department of Medicine, Health Sciences Center, State University of New York at Stony Brook.
Footnotes
Accepted for publication Feb 22, 1978.
Reprint requests to Division of Hematology, Queens Hospital Center Affiliation of Long Island Jewish-Hillside Medical Center, Queens, NY 11432 (Dr Rosner).
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