Fluticasone propionate is a corticosteroid with the potential for topical treatment of ulcerative colitis because of low systemic bioavailability. The drug was compared with prednisolone in the management of active left sided or total ulcerative colitis. Two hundred and five patients were studied in the multicentre four week double blind study. Prednisolone was given in a dose of 40 mg daily or...

Maximum plasma levels in six acute colitics were about three times greater after an intravenous bolus of 20 mg prednisolone than the mean level achieved during infusion of the same dose (p<0.001) over eight hours; the level during infusion was about twice as great as the maximum recorded previously after a single 40 mg oral dose of prednisolone. These findings favour the use of intravenous admi...

An 7-year-old girl with ocular myasthenia gravis (MG) refractory to prednisolone and anticholinesterase compounds was treated with high-dose intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg). Ocular symptoms disappeared rapidly by the administration of IVIg 300 mg/kg/day for five consecutive days. Booster infusions of IVIg at an interval of 2 weeks appeared to be effective in maintaining a remission at least a...

A 64 year old man admitted to hospital with increasing effort dyspnoea and lethargy was found to have a thymoma and pure red cell aplasia. Lymphocytes accounted for 20-30% of marrow cells, and numbers of T8 suppressor/cytotoxic cells in peripheral blood were greatly increased. He remained anaemic after removal of the thymoma despite blood transfusions, and immunosuppression with prednisolone 60...

A 32-year-old Caucasian man was admitted to our department for evaluation of oesophageal erosions that had persisted for one year (Fig. 1A and 1B). On admission a small erosion was observed on his soft palate. The patient had a history of recalcitrant Crohn’s disease, with colon manifestation at 17 years of age. An early colectomy was performed as the patient’s condition was unresponsive to sys...

The first sentence of last paragraph, column 1, page 61 should read: “In the 2004 United Kingdom Infantile Spasms study, spasm freedom was achieved in 70% children taking high dose oral prednisolone (40–60 mg/day) and 76% ACTH (40 IU/alternate day) [21]” instead mg/kg/day) [21].”

The nephrotic syndrome in childhood is usually of the minimal-change variety. At least 95% of children with this lesion respond to adequate corticosteroid treatment. Failure to respond is an indication for renal biopsy to exclude a more sinister glomerular lesion. We report the case of a boy whose failure to respond was not due to progressive glomerular disease but to a drug interaction. Case r...