Book Review: Martindale’s Drugs Restricted in Sport

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Martindale’s Drugs Restricted in Sport, Pocket Companion, 2008
Sean C. Sweetman (editor)
Publisher: Pharmaceutical Press, 2008
ISBN 978-0-85369-825-8
416 pages

“Martindale’s Drugs Restricted in Sport” is unique in its kind. It is the first pharmacopia that lists all the drugs that are on the WADA list of prohibited substances, drawing on the wealth of information and clinical expertise in the full reference work: “Martindale, the complete drug refeerence”. This is a great resource for sports medicine physicians, general practitioners and all other health care professionals working with athletes. It contains over 450 monograhs pertaining to individual drug substances that may be restricted in some or all sports, either in or out of competition.

The book is arranged alphabetically by drug substance. The international nonproprietary name or generic name is used, where one exists.

Other synonyms listed include British approved names, the French, Latin, Spanish, and Russian variants of generic names, names used in other European, Baltic, and Scandinavian countries, comon synonyms, and maufacturer codes.

The clinical profile is based on the full text of “Martindale: the complete drug reference” and describes the basis action and uses of the substance.

The WADA status indicates whether the substance is prohobited in or out of competition.

The WADA class gives an indication of the reason for the prohibition and gives more information about the range of substances covered in that class, plus any special circumstances. It is a great asset of the book that this is repeated with every substance, so you don’t need to go somewhere else to read all the information of the particular substances you are interested in. All the information is given right there where you need it.

A comprehensive index of over 15200 entries is to be found at the back of the book, and includes all names, synonyms, and proprietary (trade) names found in he tex. Even Cyrillic names are listed!

This is a great book for those of us who have been in the awkward situation where our athlete phones us, while away on a trip in Norway, Egypt or Russia, have gotten sick and are not sure of the medication the doctor has given him, and can only provide you, let’s say, the Russian trade name. What do you do?

The player is “strictly liable”, but is depending on you. And it is your name who will appear in the court case on internet for many years to go when you make a mistake. And there is no way you will find that Russian trade name on the WADA doping list!

So now there is a solution to all of these problems: Martindale’s Drugs Restricted in Sport Pocket Companion! The only thing missing is a short summary of the categories of the WADA list of prohibited substances and methods – it would be really helpful is that would be included at the front of the book as well.

Babette Pluim,
Sports physician

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