Correspondence

Prozac or Prilosec for Gastric Ulcer?

N Engl J Med 1996; 335:600August 22, 1996

Article

To the Editor:

Six years ago, Fine et al. reported two instances in which Lasix (furosemide) was confused with Losec, the trade name for omeprazole at that time.1 Later that year, Merck Sharp & Dohme announced that to prevent further confusion, the name Losec had been replaced by Prilosec.2 We report an incident in which a patient mistakenly received fluoxetine instead of omeprazole.

A patient was admitted to the hospital and treated by endoscopy for a bleeding gastric ulcer. At the time of discharge, the patient was given samples of Prilosec (20 mg), as well as a prescription for the same drug. During a follow-up visit, the patient mentioned that the pills he had received from the pharmacy differed from those given to him as samples. On inspection, it was discovered that the bottle was correctly labeled Prilosec, 20 mg, but contained 20-mg Prozac capsules instead. The patient noted no ill effects (and no benefit). No doubt, the similarities in the spelling of Prilosec and Prozac led to this error. Each drug is available in capsule form and at the 20-mg dose, which may contribute to the confusion. Currently, there are no medications with a name likely to be confused with omeprazole. Given the potential problem, we reiterate the recommendation by Fine et al. that physicians refer to Prilosec as omeprazole when prescribing this drug.

John M. Costable, Jr., M.D.
Matthew J. McKinley, M.D.
North Shore University Hospital, Manhasset, NY 11030

2 References

1. 1

   Fine SN, Eisdorfer RM, Miskovitz PF, Jacobson IM. Losec or Lasix? N Engl J Med 1990;322:1674-1674
   Web of Science | Medline

2. 2

   Hoffman JP. More on “Losec or Lasix?“ N Engl J Med 1990;323:1428-1428
   Web of Science | Medline

Citing Articles (3)

Citing Articles

1. 1

   Orna Diav-Citrin, Savithiri Ratnapalan, Masoud Grouhi, Chaim Roifman, Gideon Koren. (2000) Medication Errors in Paediatrics. Paediatric Drugs 2:3, 239-242
   CrossRef

2. 2

   John Raffalli, John Nowakowski, Gary P Wormser. (1997) “Vira something”: a taste of the wrong medicine. The Lancet 350:9081, 887
   CrossRef

3. 3

   &NA;. (1996) Physicians should refer to 'Prilosec' as omeprazole when writing a prescription,. Reactions Weekly &NA;:616, 2
   CrossRef