Ironically, pharmacotherapy can harm the very patients it is intended to help if clinically significant drug interactions occur. However, knowledge of the role of the hepatic cytochrome P-450 isoenzyme system in drug interactions has expanded greatly with advances in gene-mapping technologies, and an understanding of the system can aid physicians in preventing or minimizing complications from drug interactions mediated through that system. The authors summarize the role of important isoenzymes and drugs that induce and inhibit the P-450 system. They also discuss serious drug interactions mediated through the P-450 system and ways to predict and avoid them. As a special aid, they provide a reference guide which, when used faithfully in prescribing, should result in better drug therapy.

Speculoscopy, when combined with the Papanicolaou smear as a screening test, yields a higher percentage of women with biopsy-confirmed cervical pathology than the use of the Papanicolaou smear as a sole screening test.

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