Current medical research and opinion
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Pregabalin is frequently prescribed for chronic non-cancer pain. No previous study has examined its off-label use. ⋯ The main limitations of the study are patients' low response rate, the recruitment of participants solely from a tertiary pain center and not from the general patient population and a possible recall bias that may have arisen from the retrospective nature of the study.
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Editorial Comment
Sepsis and beta-blockade: a look into diastolic function.
There is growing interest on the modulation of the overwhelming sympathetic response of septic patients. Beta-blockers appear promising in this respect and, although we are at early stage, one large trial and a smaller one have demonstrated major beneficial effects. ⋯ It should be also considered that septic patients are at higher risk of cardiac arrhythmias and beta-blocker may have a protective effect in this regard. We are still at a preliminary stage and more research is needed it seems reasonable that beta-blockade will become an option for the treatment of septic patients over the next few years.
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To investigate the associations between obesity and any significant improvements in glycemic control, blood pressure, and lipid targets in Chinese patients with concomitant type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and hypertension. ⋯ A considerable proportion of dyslipidemia patients failed to achieve guideline-recommended targets in China, and this apparent treatment gap was more pronounced among women with central adiposity and patients with an elevated BMI. Based on the limitations of this cross-sectional study, further investigation of the mechanism at the molecular level is necessary.
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The objective of this project was to determine pharmacy cost savings and improvement in adherence based on a combinatorial pharmacogenomic test (CPGx ) in patients who had switched or added a new psychiatric medication after having failed monotherapy for their psychiatric disorder. ⋯ PGx testing provides significant 'real world' cost savings, while simultaneously improving adherence in a difficult to treat psychiatric population. Limitations of this study include the lack of therapeutic efficacy follow-up data and possible confounding due to matching only on demographic and psychiatric variables.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Intraocular pressure decrease with preservative-free fixed and unfixed combination of tafluprost and timolol in pseudoexfoliative glaucoma.
We investigated the intraocular pressure (IOP) lowering efficacy of preservative-free fixed and non-fixed combination of tafluprost 0.0015% and timolol 0.5% in pseudoexfoliative glaucoma (XFG). A per protocol worse eye analysis was made on all XFG patients who participated in a recent 6 month, prospective, randomized, double-masked, parallel group, multicenter phase III study. The mean time-wise IOP decreased by 8.62 to 10.25 mmHg (31.8 to 36.7%) in the fixed dose combination arm (15 patients) and by 5.38 to 11.35 mmHg (21.3 to 41.2%) in the non-fixed combination arm (13 patients), respectively (p < 0.001 for all comparisons). The results show that a preservative-free fixed dose combination of tafluprost and timolol provides a clinically significant IOP reduction in XFG, and may offer an advantage for the XFG patients with dry eye, due to its preservative-free nature.