British usage and American awareness of some new therapeutic drugs

Abstract

British experts were surveyed to determine their use of, and attitudes toward, certain newer drugs available in Britain but not in the United States. The survey was conducted by mail at 20 British teachillg hospitals and covered 5 therapeutic areas: angina, hypertension, asthma, pyelonephritis, and gastric ulcer. Responses concerning the newer drugs were compared with those cOllcerning older dmgs mutually available in both Britain and the United States. A second survey was conducted at an American university medical center to determine the level of knowledge American physicians possess about these and other drugs currently unavailable to them. In the therapeutic areas described, certain dmgs unavailable in the United States had made large impacts on the prescribing habits of British experts, whose therapy was likely to be substantially different from that which could be prescribed by Americans. This included use of salbutamol in asthma, the beta blockers in angina, co‐trimoxazole in pyelonephritis, carbenoxolone in gastric ulcer, and, to a lesser but still important degree, beta blockers and bethanidine in hypertension. By contrast, most of the American physicians surveyed had a very low level of knowledge about these and other new drugs. Those Americans who were aware of a drug's properties usually wished to have that drug available in the United States.