DermHelpCentral

Drug Reactions

Netherlands Pharmacovigilance Centre, Lareb, is a network organisation and has close contacts both on a national and international basis.

Lareb collects and analyses reports of suspected adverse drug reactions reported by health care professionals, patients and market authorisation holders. Lareb informs both government and health professionals about important new signals. Moreover, Lareb tries to increase health professionals’ involvement in pharmacovigilance, so they will be motivated to report adverse drug reactions in daily practice. Each year Lareb receives about 4500 reports of adverse drug reactions. In 20% of these reports, a serious adverse drug reaction is reported. Approximately 30 articles are published annually in national and international journals.

Note:  This is an important resource for patients, their families and all care givers.

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Blink Power

BLINK is a checklist devised by Dr. Peter Bourne, an Australian skin cancer expert, to help patients and doctors  more easily decide what skin lesions need to be biopsied and which ones can be observed.  This posting is intended to inform patients so that they can be real partners in the process.  The handout has been created by Yoon Cohen, a medical student who plans a career in dermatology.  Please contact her with questions, comments and suggestions.  Email Y.C.

See the BLINK pdf: Download BLINK Patient Handout

BLINK Checklist

B (Benign): Is the lesion immediately recognizable as a common benign lesion?

If the answer is ‘yes’, no further action is required.

If the answer is ‘no’, then proceed to the following:

L (Lonely): Is the lesion the only one of its type on that region of the body?

 ‘Yes’ scores 1

I (Irregular): Is the lesion dermatoscopically irregular? An asymmetrical pigmentation pattern and more than one color?

‘Yes’ scores 1

N (Nervous and/or Change): Is the patient nervous that lesion may be a skin cancer? Does the patient, or another observer, feel that the lesion is changing?

‘Yes’ scores 1

K (Known clues): Does the lesion have any dermatoscopic clues to malignancy?

‘Yes’ scores 1

If the lesion scores 2 or more out of 4, it is recommended to be biopsied.

Yoon Cohen, a 4th year medical student from Maine produced this document