Introduction:

The pharmacodermias are a health problem with increasing annual incidence, especially due to the growing craze for self-medication and polypharmacy. Drug-associated skin reactions present degrees of severity and despite representing a latent health risk, there is little information on the Mexican population, which makes necessary their epidemiological characterization.

Material and methods:

Observational, descriptive, retrospective, and cross-sectional study. Hospitalized patients at Hospital Ángeles Pedregal, older than 15 years, with clinical suspicion of adverse effects to systemic drugs with mucocutaneous manifestations, were included in a period from January 2016 to December 2018.

Results:

35,592 individuals were studied, a cumulative incidence of 5.28 cases per 1,000 hospitalized patients was identified, most of them female sex (63%) with an average age of 49.1 (± 17) years. The most frequent symptom was pruritus, associated to maculopapular rash, angioedema, urticaria and anaphylactic shock. With antibiotics identified as the main cause (40.4%).

Conclusions:

The results obtained agree with what has been stated internationally pointing to antibiotics, as part of the drugs most frequently associated with the presence of adverse events. The incidence in the presentation of these manifestations reached up to 0.49% of the hospitalized population and 1 in 62 patients with an adverse event will suffer from a life-threatening drug reaction.