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Pharmaceutical expiration dating advice given by retail pharmacists
1Department of Pediatrics, New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, Port Chester.
Background:
There is presently no uniform legislation requiring or standardizing the expiration labeling of prescription drug containers dispensed to patients by retail pharmacies, and most communities in the United States do not require such labeling. Expired medications can suffer changes in toxicity, potency, or palatability. Inadvertent use because of incomplete labeling can impact negatively on good patient care.
Methods:
A telephone survey of 124 retail pharmacists in a community suburban to New York City was conducted using a prepared script.
Results:
When a caller requested "do not use later than" advice for 10-mg propranolol tablets said to have been purchased 6 months earlier, responses ranged from 3 to 60 months. Most pharmacists recommended discarding medications 1 year (31 percent) or 2 years (27 percent) following purchase, but fewer than one-fourth of those responding attempted to verify expiration dates before answering.
Conclusions:
Physicians counseling patients to use prescription medicines within 1 year of purchase are giving advice consistent with that offered by 85 percent of the responding pharmacists, but physicians should be aware of the limitations of this recommendation. In the absence of uniform expiration-dating policies, physicians can minimize potential risks to patients by printing the instruction "label expiration date" on prescription blanks.