Hello everyone,

The pass rate for this pharmacology June 2024 paper was 45%, which is around average for this topic.

The questions were not exactly repeated, but a lot of the topics have come up in previous past papers. The questions were very classic pharmacology, with a lot going over receptor activity.

There were two cardiovascular questions this time, as well as one CV question in the PP paper. CVD is a core topic, whilst it may not come up every time it does come up a lot, so make sure you are very familiar with atleast the main CVD guidelines such as hypertension, ischemic heart disease and diabetes. CVD has also been covered a lot in previous questions. Question 1a) the part on clopidogrel pharmacogenetics was difficult because this is a new topic, but the parts on clopidogrel interactions and alternatives were fair. Question 3 on hypertension I thought was mostly very classic and fair questions, just the last part f) on resistant HT may have been more difficult.

Question 2 on allergic rhinitis, the drugs asked about were touched on before, but it was more in depth this time on azelastine and montelukast.

Question 4 was a chemotherapy question on the R-CHOP regimen for Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, a similar question came up previously in 2016. There was more focus on doxorubicin this time, and I have also updated the answer for the Doxorubicin MOA this time round.

Chemotherapy questions occasionally come up from time to time. I have put down a suggested strategy to study chemotherapy drugs in the index

Question 5 was on anti-psychotics. This was an overlapping topic with this June's pharmacy practice paper which had a question on clozapine, so make sure you go over the PP one as well. I made some recommendations there including going over the CNS chart and familiarising yourself with the neurotransmitters. I also included a useful chart from an NHS website in question 5c) which goes over the standard side effects of anti-psychotics which is clear and well laid out.

You can go through the index to go through the tutorial contents according to topic: https://www.pharmacyexamquestions.com/courses/enrolled/876615

Hope this helps!

Sharon