Published: 5 December 2024

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Test your knowledge: the Prescriber Update quiz 2024

Prescriber Update 45(4): 88–89
December 2024

Have you been reading Prescriber Update in 2024?

Have you kept up to date with emerging safety signals?

Test your knowledge with the end-of-year Prescriber Update quiz.

1. Pseudoephedrine must not be used in patients:
   1. with uncontrolled hypertension or severe coronary artery disease
   2. taking monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) or who have taken MAOIs within the previous 14 days
   3. with known hypersensitivity or idiosyncratic reaction to pseudoephedrine and any other ingredients in the medicine
   4. all of the above
2. Drug-induced tendinopathy is most commonly associated with which four classes of medicines?
3. Which of the following statements is false?
   1. Sodium-glucose co-transporter-2 (SGLT-2) inhibitors predispose patients to ketoacidosis by multiple mechanisms that favour ketogenesis and lipolysis.
   2. Some risk factors for ketoacidosis include acute infection, surgery, pancreatic disorders, high carbohydrate diet, heavy alcohol use, severe dehydration.
   3. Monitor ketones and temporarily discontinue SGLT-2 inhibitors in clinical situations known to predispose patients to ketoacidosis.
   4. Patients with ketoacidosis secondary to SGLT-2 inhibitors may have normal blood glucose levels.
4. Approximately what percentage of long-term glucocorticoid users develop secondary osteoporosis?
   1. 30 to 50 percent
   2. 20 to 40 percent
   3. 10 to 20 percent
   4. 5 to 10 percent
5. Antihistamines and leukotriene receptor antagonists are associated with psychiatric side effects. List three other medicine classes (excluding psychotropics) that can cause psychiatric side effects.
6. Topiramate inhibits which enzyme in the kidneys, thereby lowering serum bicarbonate levels?
7. Plasma levels of certain antiepileptic medicines (AEM) may decrease during pregnancy. Which of the following are possible pharmacokinetic mechanisms for the decreases?
   1. altered protein binding, decreased hepatic metabolism, increased renal clearance, increased gastrointestinal absorption
   2. increased gastrointestinal absorption, altered protein binding, enhanced hepatic metabolism, decreased renal clearance
   3. enhanced hepatic metabolism, increased renal clearance, reduced gastrointestinal absorption, altered protein binding
   4. reduced renal clearance, reduced gastrointestinal absorption, altered protein binding, reduced hepatic metabolism
8. True or false: Bioequivalence studies are designed to investigate switchability.
9. A principal histological feature of __________ is the accumulation of phospholipids and the inducing medicine/metabolite in affected cells.
10. The risk of hypophosphataemia with parenteral iron infusions is highest with [iron polymaltose / ferric carboxymaltose].

Bonus question

In which year was the 100^th Medicines Adverse Reactions Committee (MARC) meeting held?

1. 1981
2. 1999
3. 2010
4. 2024

Click here for quiz answers.