Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a relatively common and often disabling disorder with high morbidity and mortality. Both psychotropic medication and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) are considered first-line treatments for BDD, and medication treatment is often essential for more severely ill and suicidal patients. In this practical overview of the pharmacotherapy of BDD, we briefly describ...

PURPOSE Most patients with depression are treated by general practitioners, and most of those prefer psychotherapy over pharmacotherapy. No network meta-analyses have examined the effects compared pharmacotherapy, combined treatment, care as usual, other control conditions among in primary care. METHODS We conducted systematic searches bibliographic databases to identify rando...

OBJECTIVE This paper reviews the published literature on the pharmacologic management of somatoform disorders. METHODS Using Medline, the author identified all articles published between 1970 and 2003 on this topic, selecting the best-designed studies for inclusion. RESULTS The review reveals that patients with the obsessional cluster of somatoform disorders (hypochondriasis and body dysmor...

Preterm labor is defined as the onset of uterine contractions in a woman who has completed less than 37 weeks of pregnancy. It may be due to maternal, placental, fetal, or idiopathic causes, and it is associated with a number of risk factors. Nondrug measures such as bedrest and hydration have been used alone or in combination with drug therapy to treat the disorder. Pharmacologic (tocolytic) a...

This text, published in late 2009, presents an excellent guide to herbal pharmacotherapies and is well laid out. Evidence is graded from A (Strong scientific), B (good), C (unclear or conflicting), through to D (fair negative). A series of chapters on relevant organs and diseases including Parkinson's disease, insomnia, and pain, are very comprehensive. Several diseases had some commendable and...

The manifestations of drug-induced pulmonary diseases span the entire spectrum of pathophysiologic conditions of the respiratory tract. As with most drug-induced diseases, the pathologic changes are nonspecific. Therefore, the diagnosis is often difficult and, in most cases, is based on exclusion of all other possible causes. In addition, the true incidence of drug-induced pulmonary disease is ...

PURPOSE The most important articles on infectious diseases (ID) pharmacotherapy published in the peer-reviewed literature in 2015, as nominated and selected by panels of pharmacists and others with ID expertise, are summarized. SUMMARY Members of the Houston Infectious Diseases Network were asked to nominate articles published in prominent peer-reviewed journals in 2015 that were thought to h...

Chronic noncancer pain is a significant and growing public health challenge in the United States. Lacking effective alternative interventions for effective chronic noncancer pain management, many physicians have turned to opioid pharmacotherapy. Increased opioid prescribing brings not only gains in therapeutic benefit but also a higher incidence of adverse drug events including increased medica...

Over the next decade an increasing number of new "pharmacotherapy" medications will become available with the potential to tremendously impact the use and abuse of illegal drugs and the overall direction of national and international drug policy. These pharmacotherapy medications are designed to block or significantly reduce the "highs" elicited by illegal drugs. Used as part of a drug treatmen...

Atrial septostomy (AS) is a palliative treatment for right ventricular failure from severe pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). We sought to investigate the effect of AS, alone or combined with PAH-specific pharmacotherapy, on the survival of patients with PAH. We performed a retrospective analysis of the functional and haemodynamic changes in patients with PAH following AS, and long-term sur...