Cutaneous adverse drug reactions: A four-year audit from a district hospital in Johor, Malaysia

Cutaneous adverse drug reactions (cADR) are common. However, only very few audits reported the clinical characteristics of cADR captured at district hospitals. We performed a 4-year audit on cADR reported to the Department of Pharmacy in Hospital Pakar Sultanah Fatimah between May 2012 and March 2016. It showed that the main adverse drug reaction (ADR) reporters were pharmacists (84.9%) where the majority of the reactions were clinical descriptions without dermatological diagnosis. Antibiotics (46.4%) were the commonest culprit drug followed by NSAIDs (22%). The most common reactions were immediate reactions, i.e. urticaria and angioedema contributing 55.7% of the cases; followed by maculopapular eruptions (41.8%). There were only six cases (1%) of severe cADR reported in this cohort. Reporting bias and the incomplete dermatological diagnosis were the main limitation of the reports.