Clinical therapeutics
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Clinical therapeutics · Jan 2007
ReviewAdverse drug interactions involving common prescription and over-the-counter analgesic agents.
Eight analgesic preparations with approved indications for acute pain were among the top 200 drugs prescribed in the United States in 2006. In addition, an estimated 36 million Americans use over-the-counter (OTC) analgesics daily. Given this volume of use, it is not surprising that a number of drug interactions involving analgesic drugs have been reported. ⋯ Considering the widespread use of analgesic agents, the overall incidence of serious drug-drug interactions involving these agents has been relatively low. The most serious interactions usually involved other interacting drugs with low therapeutic indices or chronic and/or high-dose use of an analgesic and the interacting drug.
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Clinical therapeutics · Jan 2007
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative StudyA randomized, open-label, two-period, crossover bioavailability study of two oral formulations of tacrolimus in healthy Korean adults.
Tacrolimus is a macrolide immunosuppressant used in transplantation. It has been shown to have a comparable therapeutic effect and a low adverse drug reaction profile relative to cyclosporme. ⋯ In these healthy Korean adults, there were no statistically significant differences between the pharmacokinetic parameters of the more recently developed oral formulation of tacrolimus and the conventional formulation.
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Clinical therapeutics · Jan 2007
Influences of attitudes on family physicians' willingness to prescribe long-acting opioid analgesics for patients with chronic nonmalignant pain.
The treatment of moderate to severe chronic nonmalignant pain (CNMP) is a challenge for both the patient and health care provider. Conflicting information exists regarding the appropriate use of long-acting (ie, controlled-release [CR]) opioid analgesics for CNMP, and physicians may be reluctant to prescribe them even when medically appropriate. ⋯ About two thirds of physician respondents were willing to prescribe long-acting opioids for patients with CNMP, and physician attitudes were marginally favorable. Further study should investigate how physicians' attitudes and willingness translate into actual prescribing behavior.
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Clinical therapeutics · Jan 2007
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter StudyPsychometric testing and validation of the Chronic Pain Sleep Inventory.
Patients with chronic pain often experience significant disruptions in sleep. A potential benefit of treatment aimed at pain relief is improved quality of sleep in patients with chronic pain. ⋯ CPSI items showed good construct validity, and the results support the scoring of a reliable single index from 3 of the 5 CPSI items that all attributed sleep problems to pain.
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Clinical therapeutics · Jan 2007
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter StudyMetabolic effects of two years of exenatide treatment on diabetes, obesity, and hepatic biomarkers in patients with type 2 diabetes: an interim analysis of data from the open-label, uncontrolled extension of three double-blind, placebo-controlled trials.
Exenatide, an incretin mimetic for adjunctive treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), reduced glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA(1c)) and weight in 30-week placebo-controlled trials. Some patients were followed up in open-label extensions to provide 'real-world' exenatide clinical experience. ⋯ In these patients with T2DM, adjunctive exenatide treatment for 2 years was generally well tolerated and resulted in a sustained reduction of HbA(1c), progressive reduction in weight, and improvements in HOMA-B, blood pressure, and the hepatic injury biomarkers, AST and ALT.