Pharm World Sci
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Comparative Study
Relationship between plasma concentrations of morphine and its metabolites and pain in cancer patients.
This study was undertaken to investigate the relationship between the plasma concentration of morphine, morphine-3-glucuronide and morphine-6-glucuronide and pain in cancer patients receiving oral morphine. ⋯ These results indicated that the level of morphine-3-glucuronide is related to the patient's perception of morphine effect, and the plasma concentration of morphine-3-glucuronide and the ratio of morphine-3-glucuronide/morphine indicated potency to assess clinical effect.
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Venous thromboembolism is a major cause of mortality and morbidity in hospitalized patients. To evaluate physicians' approach to patients' thrombosis risk assessment and practice of thromboembolism prophylaxis in a teaching hospital, we designed an interventional prospective study. ⋯ The implementation of clinical pharmacists' prepared protocol helped to a great extent in the improvement of administrating DVT prophylaxis appropriately in patients.
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The aim of this study was to examine general practitioners' (GPs') views on (1) patients' drug-related problems (DRPs) and noncompliance and (2) the role of pharmacy practitioners in DRP management. ⋯ The surveyed GPs demonstrated very positive attitudes towards the role of pharmacy practitioners in improving patients' drug use and managing DRPs. The GPs realised that many patients were not compliant with their prescribed drug treatments and accepted an imperfect compliance.
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To describe clozapine prescribing in a mental health service in Auckland, New Zealand and compare it with national and international treatment guidelines. ⋯ Contemporary management of patients with treatment resistant schizophrenia in New Zealand is broadly in line with national and international best practice guidelines. There is some evidence, based on hospitalisation rates, to support the assertion that shorter delays in accessing clozapine leads to better outcomes. This needs further evaluation using measures of clinical outcome including objective measures of functioning.
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This is a retrospective study, based on analysis of data from patients with previous adverse drug reactions admitted to the Allergy and Clinical Immunology Division of both the University of Messina and the University of Bari in the last 4 years. We observed five patients: four of them (two males and two females) with a well documented history of tranexamic acid hypersensitivity reactions and one female who showed a positive response to an intradermal challenge test with tranexamic acid. ⋯ Although the risk of immunogenic and severe allergic reactions to tranexamic acid is significantly lower than those associated with administration of other drugs, our experience points out that adverse reactions to tranexamic acid can occur. This drug may be responsible for a wide and various spectrum of hypersensitivity reactions characterized by different pathogenetic mechanisms (immunologic and non-immunologic). Etamsylate was a well tolerated alternative drug to tranexamic acid in all examined patients.