Drugs of today
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This article will review the clinical development of ibritumomab tiuxetan, a yttrium-90-conjugated monoclonal antibody to CD20, for patients with relapsed B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphomas. Ibritumomab is the murine parent anti-CD20 antibody that was engineered to make the human chimeric antibody rituximab. Tiuxetan is an MX-DTPA chelator that is linked to ibritumomab to form ibritumomab tiuxetan. ⋯ Finally, a fifth trial treated 30 patients with mild thrombocytopenia using 0.3 mCi/kg (90)Y-ibritumomab tiuxetan and found an overall response rate of 83%. (90)Y-ibritumomab tiuxetan radioimmunotherapy is a new treatment modality for patients with relapsed B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The advantages of this therapy are that it utilizes targeted radiation in a single-dose, outpatient schedule that is well tolerated and accepted by the patient. Future trials will build on these results and determine at what point in the disease course this modality can best be utilized to maximize the benefits to the patient.
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Many advances have improved the care of critically ill patients, but only a few have been through the use of pharmaceutical agents. Recently, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved drotrecogin alfa (activated), or recombinant human activated protein C, for the treatment of patients with a high risk of death from severe sepsis. Drotrecogin alfa (activated) has antiinflammatory, antithrombotic and fibrinolytic properties. ⋯ This rise in blood pressure is often significant enough that endogenous catecholamines can be decreased and frequently discontinued entirely. Early withdrawal of the vasopressin replacement infusion results in recurrent hypotension. Unfortunately, randomized, blinded, placebo-controlled trials showing improvement in long-term outcomes such as mortality and length of stay are still lacking.