COVID-19 treatment that contains ritonavir may interact with other drugs: a plain language summary

What is this summary about?Different medications can affect each other; this is known as a drug-drug interaction.When a drug interacts with another drug, it may become less effective, stop working altogether, or may increase the amount of drug that is circulating in the body which may cause side effects.Ritonavir has been studied for drug-drug interactions with many drugs.Drug-drug interactions with ritonavir can be minor or moderate, meaning that medical interventions may not be needed, but others could be serious and cause harm.A serious interaction can cause a life-threatening event such as irregular heartbeat, a drop in blood pressure, or breathing problems.COVID-19 treatment that contains ritonavir may need to be avoided by patients taking certain medications to prevent serious drug-drug interactions.In these situations, different medications should be considered for these patients when treating COVID-19.The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and drug interaction databases have listed medications that have drug-drug interactions with ritonavir-containing COVID-19 therapy.In two real-world studies, we wanted to understand 1) the percentage (%) of the general population of adults in the United States that could have potential drug-drug interactions if they are prescribed a COVID -19 treatment that contains ritonavir, and 2) the percentage of adults who have COVID-19 that are at risk of potential drug-drug interactions if they are prescribed a COVID 19 treatment that contains ritonavir.