PURPOSE The estimated microbial contamination rate for complex, multiple-step, medium-risk-level compounding was studied. METHODS The results of evaluations of the aseptic technique of pharmacists and technicians in compounding complex USP medium-risk-level sterile preparations were compiled to estimate the microbial contamination rate. The testing took place in 2002 and 2003 at a single inst...

BACKGROUND The accuracy, safety and feasibility of, the compounding robot APOTECAchemo were evaluated in the clinical practice of Japan. METHODS Accuracy and precision of robotic preparations by APOTECAchemo was evaluated in 20 preparations of fluorouracil (FU) and cyclophosphamide (CPA) infusions by four pharmacists. Environmental and product contaminations with FU and CPA were evaluated by ...

A benchmark contamination rate for prefilled syringe compounding was determined by using a medium-fill-simulation method. One thousand thirty-five 1-mL tuberculin syringes were aseptically filled with 0.9 mL of sterile soybean-casein digest medium and capped. These syringes were placed into clear nonsterile plastic bags and incubated at 35 degrees C for seven days, then inspected for cloudiness...

Temporal compounding can be used to suppress acoustic noise in transthoracic cardiac ultrasound by spatially averaging partially decorrelated images acquired over consecutive cardiac cycles. However, the reliable spatial and temporal alignment of the corresponding frames in consecutive cardiac cycles is vital for effective implementation of temporal compounding. This study introduces a novel, e...

OBJECTIVES To design, implement, and assess the effectiveness of using a live video teleconferencing system to connect the main campus and a satellite campus during laboratory compounding exercises in a doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) program. DESIGN A new laboratory facility with identical equipment and supplies to the main campus was built at the satellite campus and teleconferencing equipment ...

Webster's dictionary defines cancer as a "pernicious, spreading evil...", a definition that is hard to debate. Cancer is a life-changing disease for both the patient with cancer and the family members. Compounding pharmacists have the resources to assist patients in reducing their pain, nausea, and other symptoms of cancer and the side effects of their cancer treatments. By providing a glossary...

Multi-look processing is a well known technique for reducing speckle in coherent imagery. This paper investigates the use of multi-look processing in range (frequency-compounding) on SAS images. The coherence between sub-images produced by frequency compounding is determined and a coherence model proposed. This is used to calculate the level of speckle reduction for a given number of looks and ...

OBJECTIVE This retrospective study investigated the impact of a required vs an optional remake requirement on student performance in a compounding laboratory course in which students' compounded preparations were analyzed. METHODS The analysis data for several preparations made by students over a 3-year period were compared for differences in the analyzed content of the active principal ingre...

INTRODUCTION Considerations in the extemporaneous compounding of prescriptions include stability and “beyond-use” dating. It should be noted that "Expiration Dates" are placed on commercially manufactured products and "Beyond-Use Dates" are used for compounded preparations. Prescriptions requiring extemporaneous compounding by the pharmacist generally do not require the extended shelf-life that...

The Chemical Formulation Problem (Compounding Problem) consists in modifying the chemical formulation of a compound in order to obtain a new compound showing a set of desired performances. This paper presents a computational model for the Compounding Problem based on the interpretation of transformation actions on the compound structures as ABox updates. Possible transformations of the compound...