Fundamental & clinical pharmacology
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Fundam Clin Pharmacol · Feb 2011
Vitamin use among children attending a Canadian pediatric emergency department.
Increasing use of vitamins has been documented worldwide in children and adolescents, and potential for vitamin-drug interactions exists. The aim of this study was to identify vitamin use by children visiting a pediatric emergency department (ED). A survey of parents and/or patients 0-18 years was conducted at a large pediatric ED in Canada. ⋯ The use of vitamins was higher with older patient and parental age (P<0.001), chronic patient illness (P<0.001), completed immunization (P<0.001), concurrent patient use of prescribed medications (P=0.02), higher parental education (P<0.01), and English as a primary language spoken at home (P=0.002). Prevalence of vitamin use among children in the ED is 32% in the preceding 3 months and 8% within the last 24 h. In light of these findings, pediatricians should ask about vitamin use and discuss with parents potential interactions and possible adverse effects.
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Animal models are pivotal for understanding the mechanism of neuropathic pain and development of effective therapy for its optimal management. A battery of neuropathic pain models has been developed to simulate the clinical pain conditions with diverse etiology. ⋯ Furthermore, research has resulted in the development of new therapeutic agents for neuropathic pain management, and the preclinical data obtained using these animal models have been successively translated to effective pain management in clinical setup also. As each animal model has been created with specific methodology and results tend to vary largely with the slight changes related to methodology, therefore, it is essential that data from different models should be reported and interpreted in the context of the specific pain model.
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Fundam Clin Pharmacol · Feb 2011
Relative contribution of pre- and post-synaptic effects to the neostigmine-induced recovery of neuromuscular transmission blocked by vecuronium.
The relative contribution of the pre- and post-synaptic effects to the neostigmine-induced recovery of neuromuscular transmission blocked by vecuronium was studied. A conjunction of myographical and electrophysiological techniques was employed. The preparation was the sciatic nerve-extensor digitorum longus muscle of the rat, in vitro. ⋯ Neostigmine alone increased the peak amplitude, the quantal content and the half-decay time of the epps. When employed in the presence of vecuronium, neostigmine increased both the quantal content of the epps (via a presynaptic effect) and the half-decay time of the epps (via a postsynaptic effect). Seeing the pre- and the post-synaptic effects of neostigmine were of similar magnitude, they permit to conclude that both these effects contributed significantly to the restoration by neostigmine of the neuromuscular transmission blocked by vecuronium.