A recent article (Gastroenterol & Endoscopy News, October 2017; 64-66) described an effort to reduce the problem of “polypharmacy.”  While this is clearly a problem for adult medicine, increasingly, this is an issue with pediatrics as well.

Key points:

• In 2015, 35.8% of adults were taking at least 5 medications (JAMA 2016; 176: 473-82)
• More medications increase the risk of adverse events, drug interactions, and costs
• The deprescribing initiative (http://deprescribing.org/) encourages active review of medications and removing those with questionable risk-benefit trade-off
• If stopping medicines, generally remove one at a time