Student Researchers' Society Topics

Co-supervisor: Dr. KRUCSÓNÉ DR. HORNYÁK, Judit

A hopsital formulary is a continually updated list of medications and related information, representing the clinical judgment of pharmacists, physicians and other experts in the health care team. A formulary includes,  a list of medications and medication-associated products, medication-use policies and decision-support tools, or guidelines.

Polymorphisms in the genes coding drug-metabolising enzymes, transporters, receptors, and ion channels can alter the efficacy of drug treatment. Genetic polymorphisms of drug metabolism produce different phenotypes and theese individuals make up a substantial proportion of the population. Pharmacogenomic techniques allow efficient analysis of  risk factors, while genotyping tests have the potential to optimise drug therapy.

Co-supervisor: Dr. ASHRAF, Amir Reza

Artificial Intelligence (AI) opens up new possibilities for the development and optimisation of various healthcare services. Drug related problems, including drug-drug and drug-health product interactions, are a constant challenge for healthcare professionals.

Therefore, we aim to investigate the applicability and accuracy of AI chatbots (ChatGPT-3.5, ChatGPT-4) for screening selected clinically relevant drug-drug and drug-disease interactions. The development of our methodology is also complicated by the ever-changing and restrictive regulatory environment for the applicability of AI chatbots and large language models for healthcare questions.

The challenges of our preliminary findings and methodological development highlight the potential of AI tools in patient care, but understanding the applicability of these tools is necessary to integrate them into already available pharmacist interventions (pharmacutical care, medication review) for patient safety in both direct-to-patient medication management and hospital-clinical care.

The online pharmaceutical market is dominated by perpetrators engaged in illicit acts that endanger patient safety. Unfortunately, despite this evident danger, participants in the health care system are seemly indifferent to this widespread international phenomenon as research in this area has been lacking resulting in limited real-world data on patient harm associated with illegal internet pharmacies and falsified medications. Consequently, deployment of counter measures has been ineffective, enabling illegal pharmacies to operate unchecked in Hungary, EU and globally posing a serious threat to the population. Previous projects and publications of our research group focused on the evaluation of website characteristics for risk assessment. In the current new project, bring together academics and PhD students in our research group, we aim to step forward to document previously unpublished real-world data on market share, service and product quality of illegitimate online pharmacies. Online market intelligence insights based on traffic analytics will be used to analyze website traffic, visitor behavior and intention, and market share of online vendors. The quality of online pharmacy information and consultation service will be assessed by using simulated patient profiles with high patient safety risks. Finally, test purchases with qualitative and quantitative analysis will provide valuable evidence on product related potential hazards of purchasing from unauthorized websites.

Co-supervisor: Dr. VIDA, Róbert György

Internet pharmacies are trending in most countries and have become popular participants in the pharmaceutical supply chain, especially for consumer healthcare products. The global market size is estimated to be more than US$50 billion and is growing at an impressive rate. Depending on national regulations majority of legitimate and verified websites offer non-prescription, herbal products, dietary supplements, cosmetics, etc., meanwhile, in some countries, prescription-only medicines are also available via distant selling. Unfortunately, benefits are hindered by patient safety concerns due to illegal vendors overwhelming the online pharmacy landscape. The student research project is focused on the better understanding of online vendors and e-pharmacy shoppers, aiming to maximize benefits and limit potential harms associated with online medicinal product purchases.

Co-supervisor: Dr. FITTLER, András

Internet has revolutionised our communication, everyday life, commerce and also healthcare during the past decades. Now majority of European households have access to the internet and millions can reach online services on their mobile devices even away from home or work. One of the most popular uses of the internet is to find medical information and many rely on it as a basic health information resource. Internet-based commerce provides the opportunity to purchase various goods, and even medicines are not an exception. Internet-, or online pharmacies sell pharmaceuticals, including prescription medications on the internet. According to a recent systematic review and our previous studies it is estimated that nearly 6% of the general population is buying drugs online. Unfortunately the majority of online drug sellers violate safe pharmaceutical practices and laws. Numerous websites sell medicines without valid medical prescription and possibly distribute substandard, illegal, unapproved or counterfeit drugs. It is most likely that a a customer/patient will encounter such a potentially dangerous website as the number of illegally operating online pharmacies are enormous, far outnumbering legitimate sellers.

How much can improving medication adherence be considered as a priority for health policy in Hungary at present?

Typical treatment pathways at the Univeristy of Pécs among patients diagnosed with prostate cancer