pharmacovigilance

English

WOTD – 7 April 2018

Etymology

A chemist from the United States Food and Drug Administration using a high-performance liquid chromatograph (HPLC) to test drug samples to ensure pharmacovigilance

From pharmaco- +‎ vigilance.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌfɑːməkəʊˈvɪd͡ʒɪl(ə)ns/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌfɑɹməkoʊˈvɪd͡ʒɪl(ə)ns/
• Hyphenation: phar‧ma‧co‧vi‧gi‧lance

Noun

pharmacovigilance (uncountable)

1. (medicine, pharmacology) The detection, assessment, understanding and prevention of adverse effects of medicines. [from 1970s]
   • 1987, Veterinary Drug Registration Newsletter, Paris: Office International des Epizooties, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 23:

     In our experience, a request concerning suspected drug toxicity (or an adverse effect) needs to be dealt with in greater detail than other chemical agents, to obtain information on the animals affected (species, breed, age, physiological and pathological status) and on the suspect product (conformity, dose administered, storage conditions, etc.). These led us to introduce a specific request form for drugs, called a ‘pharmacovigilance form’, used since October 1988.

   • 2009 August 19, Seema Singh, “NovaLead shows drug repositioning works”, in LiveMint‎^[1], archived from the original on 6 February 2016:

     But it appears repurposing is possible in another crucial phase of drug development—post-marketing surveillance or pharmacovigilance, which essentially identifies adverse side effects of drugs. Experts say “repurposed” pharmacovigilance would look for and understand beneficial side effects of drugs that may surface during their development or use.

   • 2017, Michael Kaeding, Julia Schmälter, Christoph Klika, “The EU Pharmacovigilance System”, in Pharmacovigilance in the European Union: Practical Implementation across Member States, Wiesbaden, Germany: Springer Nature, →DOI, →ISBN, page 22:

     Since it [the European Medicines Agency] began operating in 1995, the agency has become a central actor regarding various aspects of pharmaceuticals regulation and has a crucial role in providing the infrastructure for EU [European Union] pharmacovigilance.

Synonyms

• abbreviation: PV, PhV
• drug safety

Related terms

• pharmacovigilant

Translations

detection, assessment, understanding and prevention of adverse effects of medicines

• Arabic: صيدلة احتراسية, اليَقَظةُ الدَّوائِيَّة (al-yaqaẓatu d-dawāʔiyya)
• Catalan: farmacovigilància (ca) f
• Dutch: medicatiebewaking f
• French: pharmacovigilance (fr) f
• German: Pharmakovigilanz f
• Italian: farmacovigilanza (it) f
• Latvian: farmakovigilance
• Macedonian: фармаковигиланца (farmakovigilanca)
• Persian: مراقبت‌های دارویی
• Portuguese: farmacovigilância f
• Slovene: fármakovigilánca
• Spanish: farmacovigilancia f
• Swedish: farmakovigilans
• Tamil: மருந்தாக்கியல் கண்காணிப்பு (maruntākkiyal kaṇkāṇippu)
• Vietnamese: cảnh giác dược

Further reading

• pharmacovigilance on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

French

Noun

pharmacovigilance f (plural pharmacovigilances)

1. pharmacovigilance

Further reading

• “pharmacovigilance”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.