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INTRODUCTION Introduced in the early 1960s, diazepam remains among the most frequently prescribed benzodiazepine-type sedatives and hypnotics. Patients with chronic use of short-acting benzodiazepines are frequently switched to diazepam because the accumulating, long-acting metabolite, N-desmethyl-diazepam, prevents benzodiazepine-associated withdrawal symptoms, which can occur during trough pl...

OBJECTIVE This study was designed to evaluate the impact of long-term benzodiazepine use on the subsequent risk of benign brain tumor (BBT) or malignant brain tumor (MBT) development. METHOD We used data from the National Health Insurance System of Taiwan. For the study cohort, we identified 62,186 patients who had been prescribed benzodiazepine for at least 2 months between January 1, 2000 a...

BACKGROUND Benzodiazepine use is common among patients in opioid agonist therapy; this puts patients at an increased risk of overdose and death. In this study, we examine the impact of baseline and ongoing benzodiazepine use, and whether patients are more likely to terminate treatment with increasing proportion of benzodiazepine positive urine samples. We also study whether benzodiazepine use d...

The purpose of the present study was to study gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)-A receptor function in alcohol-dependent subjects during withdrawal, using the benzodiazepine antagonist flumazenil. In particular, we wanted to examine the hypotheses that an endogenous inverse agonist ligand at the GABA-A benzodiazepine receptor (GBzR) is active during withdrawal (in which case flumazenil should be a...

The anticonvulsant activity of Astragalus squarrosus total extract was assessed in pentylenetetrazole (PTZ)-induced convulsion in mice, with diazepam as the standard drug, while mechanistic studies were also conducted using flumazenil, a GABA A-benzodiazepine receptor complex site antagonist. The extract produced protection against convulsion at 400 mg/kg, comparable with protection of...

intrathecal administration of midazolam has been reported to have antinociceptive action, and to be an effective analgesic agent. in this prospective double-blind study we aimed to evaluate the postoperative effects of intrathecal midazolam with lidocaine following perineal operation. forty patients were randomly allocated to two groups: 20 patients in the control group received 2 ml of 5% heav...

The effect on interictal electroencephalographic epileptic activity of intravenous flumazenil (Ro 15-1788), a benzodiazepine antagonist and potential antiepileptic drug, was studied in 10 patients. Comparison was made with intravenous diazepam (10 mg) and placebo using a single-blind, single-dose, cross-over design. A dose of 3 mg flumazenil was well tolerated and produced a significantly great...