Author Question: A nurse is preparing to care for a patient who is receiving digoxin. To help minimize the potential ... (Read 53 times)

lindiwe · **on:** Jul 23, 2018

A nurse is preparing to care for a patient who is receiving digoxin. To help minimize the potential for adverse effects from this drug, the nurse will review which of this patient's laboratory results?

a. Albumin
b. Blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and creatinine
c. Hepatic enzymes
d. Serum electrolytes

Question 2

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommends genetic testing of patients receiving certain medications. Genetic testing helps prescribers:

a. better establish a drug's therapeutic index.
b. determine whether a patient is a rapid or slow metabolizer of the drug.
c. identify racial characteristics that affect psychosocial variation in drug response.
d. produce a drug that is tailored to an individual patient's genetic makeup.

randomguy133 · **Reply #1 on:** Jul 23, 2018

Answer to Question 1

ANS: D
Patients with low serum potassium are at risk for fatal cardiac dysrhythmias when taking digoxin, and it is essential to know this level before this medication is administered. Knowing a patient's albumin level would be important when giving drugs that are protein bound. The BUN and creatinine levels are indicators of renal function. Hepatic enzymes are important to know when drugs are metabolized by the liver.

Answer to Question 2

ANS: B
Pharmacogenomics is the study of the ways genetic variations affect individual responses to drugs through alterations in genes that code for drug-metabolizing enzymes and drug receptors. For some drugs, the FDA requires genetic testing and for others, this testing is recommended but not required. Genetic testing does not determine a drug's therapeutic index; this is a measure of a drug's safety based on statistics of the drug's use in the general population (see Chapter 5). Any distinct physiological differences in drug response among various racial populations are related to genetic differences and do not affect psychosocial differences in drug responses. Genetic testing is recommended to identify how a patient will respond to a drug and not to design a drug specific to an individual.