The low therapeutic index of established antiepileptic drugs coupled with a better understanding of the pathophysiology of seizure production has led to the development of a range of new therapeutic agents for the treatment of epilepsy. In this review, the three drugs recently licensed in the UK (vigabatrin, lamotrigine and gabapentin) are profiled, together with several of the more promising u...

BACKGROUND The disproportionate surgical indication in patients with diabetic foot, as well as the large number of major amputations of the pelvic limb have created the necessity of conceiving a therapeutic-prognostic index to guide the physician in establishing the adequate surgical indication. The aim of this analysis is to extend a former research published in 2014, regarding the new prognos...

Ecological communities are structured by both deterministic and stochastic processes. We investigated phylogenetic patterns at regional and local scales to understand the influences of seasonal processes in shaping the structure of anuran communities in the southern Pantanal wetland, Brazil. We assessed the phylogenetic structure at different scales, using the Net Relatedness Index (NRI), the N...

This study investigated whether ulcer prevention would be greater with the combined use of an acid-inhibiting agent, ranitidine, given together with a mucosal-protective agent, sucralphate. Duodenal ulcers were induced in rats with the secretagogues pentagastrin and bethanechol. Subtherapeutic doses of ranitidine (5 mg/kg/6 hours) and sucralphate (50 mg/6 hour) yielded an ulcer index of 4.0 and...

Immunosuppressants require therapeutic drug monitoring because of their narrow therapeutic index and significant inter-individual variability in blood concentrations. This variability can be because of factors like drug-nutrient interactions, drug-disease interactions, renal-insufficiency, inflammation and infection, gender, age, polymorphism and liver mass. Drug monitoring is widely practiced ...

........................................................................................................ v Author’s contribution to the papers from this Thesis ......................... vi List of papers .............................................................................................. vii

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Therapeutic drug monitoring is applied to a range of drugs. To predict an appropriate dosing regimen, models based on Bayesian techniques have been used. However, this approach requires a well trained professional and sophisticated software. The objectives of this study were first to develop kinetic nomograms as a useful tool to achieve individual drug blood concentrat...

Here, we synthesize research behind the emerging hypothesis that inflammation--which can result, for example, from viral infections--can initiate and propagate chronic neuronal dysfunction, an event that precedes the clinical onset of many neurodegenerative diseases. Therapeutic approaches that target immunological pathways in the prodromal phase of diseases might decrease the incidence of neur...

nalogue development is an intensively pursued goal. e rationale behind this is the selection of agents with cn "^proved therapeutic index with respect to the parent ^Pound but with an enhanced spectrum of activity, reduced toxicity. Sj P'^ubicin is a new anthracycline antibiotic, syntheed in an effort to find a cytotoxic agent with a better Cjr0raPeutic index than that of Adriamycin the parent ...

PURPOSE To highlight the potential errors that may occur with insulin use in the inpatient setting and to describe how pharmacists can be part of the solution by implementing practices that reduce the likelihood of insulin-related medication errors. SUMMARY Insulin is a drug with a low therapeutic index, and it bears a heightened risk of causing significant patient harm when used in error, ma...