Cough medicine link to lethal allergic reaction during surgery trends now
A cough medicine taken by millions of Britons could trigger a lethal allergic reaction in those undergoing operations.
Experts suspect that when pholcodine, a cough suppressant that is found in popular products such as Day Nurse and some Covonia syrups, is combined with certain anaesthesia drugs, it sets off a life-threatening anaphylactic shock. This causes a patient’s blood pressure to drop and their airways to narrow, blocking breathing.
Such is the concern over the safety of pholcodine that UK drug watchdog, the Medicines And Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), has launched an investigation and advises patients to inform anaesthetists if they’ve taken the drug in the year before going under the knife.
Last year, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) recommended a ban on the drug. It was also previously withdrawn from sale in France. The move was sparked by a series of French and Australian studies which showed that patients who’d taken pholcodine within a year were more likely to suffer a specific reaction to two of the most common anaesthetics, rocuronium and suxamethonium, which are used in roughly a quarter of operations.
Experts suspect that when pholcodine, a cough suppressant that is found in popular products such as Day Nurse and some Covonia syrups, is combined with certain anaesthesia drugs, it sets off a life-threatening anaphylactic shock
Patients are being warned to advise their doctor if they have taken cough medicines such as Night Nurse in the year before they undergo surgery (picture posed by models)
Pholcodine is a non-sedating opiate – which is why it is not found in the sleep-inducing Night Nurse.
It suppresses cough reflexes by reducing the nerve signals sent from the brain to the muscles involved in coughing. Experts believe that as its chemical composition is similar to that of the anaesthetic drugs, this can cause some people’s immune system to overreact, triggering the anaphylactic shock.
The link with anaphylaxis was identified in 2007 when health authorities in Norway realised they had ten times the rate of deaths from anaesthesia than neighbouring Sweden – where pholcodine wasn’t available in over-the- counter medications.
Health chiefs in Norway then withdrew pholcodine from sale, and allergy-related deaths during surgery dropped from roughly five per year to zero.
In 2014, the results of a French study of more than 500 patients who suffered allergic
