Internal medicine journal
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Internal medicine journal · Mar 2016
ReviewCharacterisation and therapeutic manipulation of the gut microbiome in inflammatory bowel disease.
Inflammatory bowel diseases are thought to develop as a result of dysregulation of the relationship that exists between the gut microbiota, host genetics and the immune system. The advent of culture-independent techniques has revolutionised the ability to characterise the role of the gut microbiota in health and disease based on the microbiota's genetic make-up. ⋯ Current strategies to manipulate therapeutically the gut microbiota using dietary modification, prebiotics, probiotics, antibiotics and faecal microbiota transplantation aim to restore the balance to a state of normobiosis. However, the ability of such strategies to correct dysbiosis and thereby achieve therapeutic benefit is yet to be fully characterised.
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Internal medicine journal · Mar 2016
A tertiary hospital audit of opioids and sedatives administered in the last 24 h of life.
To audit the doses of opioids and sedatives administered to patients in the last 24 h of life in an Australian tertiary hospital and compare results with doses published in New Zealand (NZ) benchmarking studies and to examine the effect of caring for dying patients using a modified version of the Liverpool Care Pathway (mLCP) in respect to doses of opioids and sedatives. ⋯ The significance of the lower midazolam doses was postulated, including the possibility of inadequate symptom control for patients with a non-malignant diagnosis. The use of the mLCP did not lead to the provision of higher doses of medications.