Introduction - Uppsala Monitoring Centre

have expected that it would have been replaced by other anti-cancer drugs
starting in the main research countries. Its demise was drawn out over a long
period without any apparent reason.
Figure 11 Phenacetin
Source: American Medical
Association ©1909
1887 Phenacetin (APC)
Use: analgesic. It was usually
combined with other drugs,
e.g. Aspirin and caffeine,
hence Aspirin, Phenacetin
and Caffeine tablets (APC)
and was also in Tabs
Codeine. Co. Phenacetin was
removed from these two
products in 1968.
ADR: the Therapeutic
Committee of the British
Medical Association
conducted ‘an inquiry regarding the importance of ill-effects following the use
of antipyrin, antifebrin, & Phenacetin’ in 1894 (Leech & Hunter, 1894) and the
US Department of Agriculture a similar study in 1909 (Kebler et al., 1909). No
indication of Phenacetin nephropathy was found, the latter study quoted the
literature and mentioned two cases of haematuria and nephritis and one of
uraemic syndrome.
Methaemoglobinaemia was first described in 1909 as ‘occurring in an elderly
patient as the result of taking phenacetin to excess’ (Jacob, 1909).
1915 Seifert mentions haemoglobinuria and haemorraghic nephritis (Seifert,