…Long-acting dihydropyridine calcium channel blocker A cornerstone drug for hypertension and stable angina, and the easiest calcium channel blocker to use: once-daily dosing…

…quickly, which is an advantage: the drug suits as-needed use and can be discontinued with rapid recovery of renal function and platelet function. The…

Jardiance Synjardy Glyxambi SGLT2 inhibitor A diabetes drug now used mostly for reasons other than glucose control. Empagliflozin reduced cardiovascular death in type 2 diabetes…

Adrenalin Stragen EpiPen Jext α- and β-agonist The only drug that reverses all components of anaphylaxis, and the cornerstone of cardiac arrest treatment. The…

Procoralan Ivabradine Accord Selective If-channel inhibitor in the sinus node The only drug that reduces heart rate without affecting contractility, blood pressure, or conduction…

…selective alpha-blocker with onset within minutes and duration under half an hour. A niche drug: catecholamine-induced hypertensive crisis — phaeochromocytoma, cocaine and amphetamine intoxication…

…and the first months require flare prophylaxis because falling urate levels themselves trigger attacks. Two features make this drug dangerous: the hypersensitivity syndrome and the…

Atropin Viatris Atropin Abboxia Atropine Accord Muscarinic receptor antagonist (vagolytic) First-line treatment for symptomatic bradycardia, but only when the bradycardia is vagally mediated or…

…in patients who may need emergency surgery. The price is that approximately 80 % of absorbed drug is eliminated renally, so renal function governs treatment entirely…

…in structurally normal hearts. The CAST trial showed increased mortality after myocardial infarction — that boundary remains the most important fact in the drug's history.

Haldol Haldol Depot High-potency first-generation antipsychotic (butyrophenone) The most widely used dopamine antagonist in acute agitation and delirium in Swedish emergency departments and…

…making the drug unsuitable as first-line treatment in hypertensive crisis — but useful in pre-eclampsia and as afterload relief in combination with a nitrate…

…while systemic vascular resistance and diastolic blood pressure fall, so the drug raises rate but not pressure. Used where rate itself is the problem: bradycardia…

…sodium-channel-mediated modulation, not on antidepressant action. What limits treatment is anticholinergic side effects, and what makes the drug dangerous is cardiotoxicity in overdose.

…maintenance-and-reliever therapy in the same inhaler. The two regimens must never be confused — this is the most common prescribing error with this drug.

…heparin, dalteparin is eliminated renally, so at eGFR below 30 ml/min the effect accumulates and the dose must be adjusted or the drug changed.

…with albuminuria, with or without diabetes. The dose is the same — 10 mg once daily — for all indications, making this drug unusually straightforward to manage.

…V2 receptor means it lacks the vasoconstrictive effect of vasopressin. The danger is not the drug itself but the fluid the patient drinks with it.

…placebo. IMPROVE-IT showed that the additional LDL lowering also translates into fewer cardiovascular events, making ezetimibe the first non-statin drug with outcome data.

GlucaGen HypoKit Glucagon Novo Nordisk Baqsimi Ogluo Pancreatic hormone, glycogenolytic agent and inotrope Two entirely different drugs in the same ampoule. In severe hypoglycaemia, 1…

…anaesthetic The only anaesthetic that both sedates and stabilises the circulation — the indirect sympathetic stimulation makes ketamine the first choice for induction in the bleeding…