Patent ID: 7141018

Claim:
A method for treating a patient having a disease or condition which is responsive to thalidomide while restricting access to thalidomide for patients for whom thalidomide may be contraindicated, the method comprising permitting prescriptions for thalidomide to be filled by a pharmacy only after the pharmacy has become aware of the generation of a prescription approval code for thalidomide for the patient from a computer readable storage medium, the generation of said prescription approval code comprising the following steps: a. defining a plurality of patient risk groups based upon a predefined set of risk parameters for thalidomide; b. defining a set of information to be obtained from the patient, said set of information comprising the result of a determination of the ability of the patient to become pregnant and optionally comprising a determination that the patient is either (1) not currently pregnant or (2) currently pregnant; c. in response to said information set, assigning the patient to at least one of said risk groups and entering the patient, the information and the patient's risk group assignment into the medium; d. based upon the information and the risk group assignment, determining whether the risk that the adverse side effect is likely to occur is acceptable; and e. upon a determination that the risk is acceptable, generating the prescription approval code before the prescription is filled.