A comparison of drug product information in four national compendia.

Four widely used compendia of prescribing information have been received to examine the way in which some drug companies recommend uses for several anti-inflammatory products and describe the major dangers in their use. The Physician's Desk Reference (PDR) cites the greatest absolute number of indications for steroids with systemic action, as well as the greatest number of contraindications, warnings and precautions, and adverse effects. The total number of precautions appearing in the PDR is three times the mean for the other compendia, and the number of adverse effects is four times the mean of the others. Together, these other compendia contain 70.5% of the number of words in the PDR. The PDR contains statements that are strongly directive for the physician and that do not appear in the other compendia. Regulatory and social differences may at least partially explain these discrepancies.