ABSTRACT
The body of knowledge regarding pharmaceutical products is dynamic and growing. Physicians have available to them a number of information sources for drug-related decision making in their practice. Historical and recent publications present medical literature and conferences as sources for information on pharmaceutical products. While historical reports have detailed large volumes of information being disseminated through these sources, no recent work has evaluated the level of information for top-selling drugs provided through these outlets. This study quantified the amount of publications and conference presentations for the 25 top-selling pharmaceutical products and poses questions about practitioners' ability to keep abreast of the changing knowledge base. We found that for each of the top 25 branded outpatient drugs in each year studied an average of 214 scholarly articles were published in literature indexed in Medline® and International Pharmaceutical Abstracts and 158 papers or posters were presented at medical and pharmacy conferences. The ability of a practicing prescriber to stay abreast of the new information is limited, as it would require a physician to read an average of nearly 15 articles each day to stay fully informed about just the 25 most prescribed drugs.