Expert opinion on pharmacotherapy
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Despite significant advances in medical, surgical, and critical care interventions, infective endocarditis (IE) remains a disease associated with considerable morbidity and mortality. Estimates from the American Heart Association place the incidence of IE in the US at 10,000 - 15,000 new cases each year. This may be due to the changing epidemiology of IE, including increasing antimicrobial resistance, increasing heart surgeries, prosthetic valve implantation, and widespread use of intravenous drugs. Furthermore, a new form of the disease, healthcare-associated IE, which is associated with new therapeutic modalities such as intravenous catheters, hyperalimentation lines, pacemakers, and dialysis shunts, has emerged. ⋯ Successful management of IE depends on maintaining a high index of suspicion for the disease and, when IE is diagnosed, close cooperation of medical and surgical disciplines is required. Further research is needed to better understand and provide optimal therapy for complex situations such as multidrug-resistant and polymicrobial IE.
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Expert Opin Pharmacother · Dec 2009
ReviewQuetiapine XR efficacy and tolerability as monotherapy and as adjunctive treatment to conventional antidepressants in the acute and maintenance treatment of major depressive disorder: a review of registration trials.
Results from pivotal registration trials in major depressive disorder cohere with outcomes from effectiveness studies indicating that the majority of individuals receiving single-agent pharmacotherapy fail to achieve and sustain symptomatic remission. Several factors provided the impetus for this review: suboptimal efficacy with existing pharmacotherapy for major depressive disorder, quetiapine XR efficacy in the acute and maintenance treatment of bipolar depression, emerging pharmacodynamic evidence that quetiapine XR (and/or its metabolites) uniquely engages monoaminergic systems salient to symptom relief in depressive syndromes, the increasing use of second-generation antipsychotics in the treatment of major depressive disorder and the recent FDA review of quetiapine XR in major depressive disorder. Studies reviewed herein are pivotal registration trials that evaluated the acute and maintenance efficacy and tolerability of quetiapine XR (as monotherapy and as adjunctive treatment) in major depressive disorder. ⋯ The major limitations of quetiapine XR use in major depressive disorder relate to weight gain and disrupted glucose/lipid homeostasis as well as sedation/somnolence. Quetiapine XR has tolerability advantages compared with duloxetine on measures of sexual dysfunction. The data from the studies reviewed herein also indicate that quetiapine XR poses a low risk for extrapyramidal side effects in middle-aged and elderly individuals with major depressive disorder.
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Expert Opin Pharmacother · Dec 2009
ReviewNew information about the polymyxin/colistin class of antibiotics.
Infections by multidrug resistant Gram-negative bacilli (MDR-GNB) have become a major threat for patients hospitalized in intensive care units, representing a prevalent cause of morbimortality in the critically ill, since these microorganisms have developed resistance to most available antimicrobial agents. In this respect, very few therapeutic innovations have been developed in recent years, and it is not foreseen that any new drugs will be commercialized in the near future. Tigecycline represents an effective alternative in this setting, but lacks activity against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and its use has not been validated for all organ-specific infections. ⋯ Nonetheless, the effectiveness of polymyxins is still suboptimal, and the expansion of heteroresistance and pan-drug-resistant strains of gram-negative bacilli is of concern. Improvements in dosing, alternative methods of administration and different synergic antimicrobial combinations have been proposed in recent literature, among other measures, to enhance the effectiveness of polymyxins. The latest data regarding polymyxins and their clinical use are discussed in this review.
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Expert Opin Pharmacother · Dec 2009
EditorialRivaroxaban, the first oral, direct factor Xa inhibitor.
Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a major cause of death in hospitalized patients. In particular, patients undergoing elective major lower-limb orthopaedic surgery are at high risk of developing post-operative VTE. Rivaroxaban, a new oral anticoagulant, has been shown to be more effective than enoxaparin in reducing total and symptomatic VTE with similar major and non-major bleeding rates in patients undergoing elective total hip or total knee replacement.
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Expert Opin Pharmacother · Nov 2009
ReviewTapentadol immediate release for the relief of moderate-to-severe acute pain.
Tapentadol is a novel, centrally acting analgesic with two mechanisms of action: micro-opioid receptor agonism and norepinephrine reuptake inhibition. It has demonstrated broad analgesic efficacy across multiple pain models. ⋯ However, at doses providing comparable analgesic efficacy, tapentadol IR has been associated with significantly lower incidences of nausea and/or vomiting and constipation, and a significantly lower rate of treatment discontinuation compared with oxycodone IR. The observed efficacy across different pain models and favorable gastrointestinal tolerability profile associated with tapentadol IR indicate that this novel analgesic is an attractive treatment option for the relief of moderate-to-severe acute pain.