Effect of cimetidine on quinidine bioavailability

Cardiovascular drug-drug interactions

The drug-drug interactions discussed in this article have either documented or suspected clinical relevance for patients with cardiovascular disease and the clinician involved in the care of these patients. Oftentimes, drug-drug interactions are difficult, if not impossible, to predict because of the high degree of interpatient variability in drug disposition. Certain drug-drug interactions, however, may be avoided through knowledge and sound clinical judgment. Every clinician should maintain a working knowledge of reported drug-drug interactions and an understanding of basic pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic principles to help predict and minimize the incidence and severity of drug-drug interactions.

Clinical relevance of cimetidine drug interactions

The excellent efficacy and tolerability profiles of H2-antagonists have established these agents as the leading class of antiulcer drugs. Attention has been focused on drug interactions with H2-antagonists as a means of product differentiation and because many patients are receiving multiple drug therapy. The main mechanism of most drug interactions involving cimetidine appears to be inhibition of the hepatic microsomal enzyme cytochrome P450, an effect which may be related to the different structures of H2-antagonists. Ranitidine appears to have less affinity than cimetidine for this system. There have been many published case reports and studies of drug interactions with cimetidine, but many of these have provided pharmacokinetic data only, with little information concerning the clinical significance of these findings. Nevertheless, the coadministration of cimetidine with drugs that have a narrow therapeutic margin (such as theophylline) may potentially result in clinically significant adverse effects. The monitoring of serum concentrations of drugs coadministered with cimetidine may reduce the risk of adverse events but does not abolish the problem. However, for most patients, concomitant administration of cimetidine with drugs possessing a wide therapeutic margin is unlikely to pose a significant problem.

Quinidine single dose pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics are unaltered by omeprazole

Omeprazole has been shown in previous studies to inhibit the hepatic metabolism of selected drugs. Quinidine is an antiarrhythmic and antimalarial agent with a low therapeutic index. We therefore examined the effect of 40 mg omeprazole daily for one week or placebo on the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of a single 400 mg dose of quinidine in 8 healthy volunteers in a double-blind crossover study. During placebo and omeprazole treatment, there was no significant difference in area under the time-plasma quinidine concentration curve, (17.0 +/- 4.83 micrograms.h/ml, 18.6 +/- 4.43 micrograms.h/ml, respectively; P greater than 0.2) or renal clearance of quinidine (56.2 +/- 26.0 ml/min, 55.6 +/- 12.7 ml/min, respectively; P greater than 0.5). Quinidine unbound fraction in plasma (0.170 +/- 0.041 vs. 0.166 +/- 0.041 in the presence of omeprazole; P greater than 0.5) was not altered by omeprazole. Peak plasma quinidine concentration and the time this occurred did not differ. Omeprazole also had no effect on these parameters for the metabolite 3-hydroxyquinidine. There was no significant difference in the change in the corrected Q-T interval on the electrocardiogram due to quinidine (mean area under the time versus delta Q-Tc curve = 351 +/- 192 ms.h, placebo; 414 +/- 303 ms.h, omeprazole) showing that quinidine pharmacodynamics were unaltered by omeprazole. We conclude that omeprazole does not affect the pharmacokinetics of quinidine.