Pentavalent antimonials: old drugs for new diseases

Pentavalent antimonials: new perspectives for old drugs.

Pentavalent antimonials, including meglumine antimoniate and sodium stibogluconate, have been used for more than half a century in the therapy of the parasitic disease leishmaniasis. Even though antimonials are still the first-line drugs, they exhibit several limitations, including severe side effects, the need for daily parenteral administration and drug resistance. The molecular structure of ...

Drugs old and new.

Old drugs - old people - new insights.

Dr. Dan Sitar was the recipient of the 2004 CSCP Senior Investigator Award at the First Canadian Therapeutics Congress held in June 2004. He presented a lecture highlighting some of the studies he participated in that have contributed to an increased understanding of the role of aging on drug disposition and effect.

Immunological determinants of clinical outcome in Peruvian patients with tegumentary leishmaniasis treated with pentavalent antimonials.

The mechanisms linking the immune response to cutaneous and mucosal leishmaniasis (CL and ML, respectively) lesions and the response to treatment are incompletely understood. Our aims were to prospectively assess, by quantitative reverse transcription-PCR, the levels of mRNA for gamma interferon, tumor necrosis factor alpha, interleukin-10 (IL-10), IL-4, and IL-13, as well as the presence of T ...

New Ideas About Old Drugs

The nitrovasodilators are a diverse group of pharmacological agents that produce vascular relaxation by releasing nitric oxide. The mechanisms by which these compounds release nitric oxide vary, depending on their chemical structure. Compounds with lower oxidation states of nitrogen such as nitroprusside, nitrosamines, and nitrosothiols release nitric oxide nonenzymatically. In the case of nitr...