Adverse Drug Reactions, Iatrogenic Diseases, Drug Safety, and Pharmacovigilance: Importance and Interest for Patients and Their Physicians

Drug monitoring and safety is a daily challenge for clinicians. Pharmacovigilance is the study of adverse-drug reactions and iatrogenic diseases. If not always life-threatening, these reactions can impair patient’s overall and oral well-being and quality of life. Methods for quantifying the risk of drug use are numerous, ranging from experimental pharmacology and toxicology observations to the results of clinical trials and pharmacoepidemiology data. This chapter also underlines the importance of pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics approaches.