Clinical News

Rotigotine, a investigational dopamine agonist, is being studied for treatment of restless legs syndrome.

FDA has approved Neupro patch designed to treat symptoms of early Parkinson's disease. Consistent and continuous drug delivery over a 24-hour period may prove to be an advantage of this patch.

The differences between irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are discussed along with emerging treatments for both conditions. The recent withdrawal of tegaserod (Zelnorm) for the treatment of IBS-c has left many searching for new therapies.

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Health-system pharmacists could raise quality and safety in hospitals. Yet they are underutilized in areas of discharge counseling and drug-abbreviation confusion. Medication errors result.

Pharmacists can help control drug-resistant infections

Three trials at this year's ACC meeting in New Orleans focused on pharmacotherapy effects on cardiovascular disease, one with a strong showing for medical therapy alone versus mechanical intervention.

Pennsylvania is considering not licensing hospitals that fail to lower their hospital-acquired infection rates. This is a move that worries some pharmacists.

ApothéCure Inc., a drug compounding pharmacy in Texas erroneously made the drug colchicine 10 times more potent than intended, leading to the death of three people.

Comparative effectiveness research needed to find the best in drugs, devices, biologicals, and procedures to improve healthcare, contain costs

Latest urology meeting presents findings on treatments for prostate cancer.

The new 2007 update to the 2004 mucositis management guidelines has been published in the March issue of Cancer. New additions include the use of palifermin to prevent mucositis in high-dose chemotherapy with or without total body irradiation plus stem cell transplantation.

Merck has received FDA approval of combination drug Janumet, containing both sitagliptin and metformin. The new product utilizes three different mechanisms to improve glycemic control in type 2 diabetes.

Eligible members will receive an annual medication review as well as additional MTM services from trained pharmacists to help them achieve safe and effective results from their medications while controlling costs.

"We strongly feel that not only should the FDA do guidance prior to approving, but also require clinical evidence."

Debilitating pain-affecting millions of Americans-was often alleviated by traditional nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and COX-2 inhibitors. But the appeal of these once-popular drugs is declining due to safety concerns.

Debilitating pain-affecting millions of Americans-was often alleviated by traditional nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and COX-2 inhibitors. But the appeal of these once-popular drugs is declining due to safety concerns.

As many as 100,000 patients die every year from hospital-acquired infections. It doesn't have to be that way. HAIs are eminently preventable. Tools exist that can significantly lower HAI mortality and morbidity rates and reduce an associated $6 billion in excess annual health costs.

Now that we have electronic record technology, how should we set up a postmarketing surveillance system for drugs, biologicals, and medical devices?

A 70-year-old woman, T.R., has been transferred from an extended care nursing facility to your hospital with symptoms of fever, dyspnea with respiratory difficulty, cough, and sputum production. Her current medications include methadone 200 mg/ day (pain syndrome), risperidone (Risperdal, Janssen) 2 mg twice daily, digoxin 0.125 mg daily, and furosemide 20 mg twice daily.

The 2007 Polyanalgesic Consensus Panel recently recommended major changes to the guidelines for treatment, via intraspinal infusion, of patients suffering from severe chronic pain.

Don't forget to review inhaler use

Liver transplant patients with a prior history of hepatitis B (HBV) can now receive HepaGam B, from Cangene Corp., to prevent reinfection.

Brand pharmaceuticals that will lose their patents through 2009.

Aliskiren (Tekturna, Novartis) is a new molecular entity approved for treating hypertension either as monotherapy or in conjunction with other antihypertensive agents.

Brand-name drugmakers must have seen January as the 100 Hours from Hell. Generic drugmakers, on the other hand, probably heard angelic choirs. "It's safe to say that you can expect different outcomes in Congress under the Democrats," said Anna Schwamlein Howard, senior legislative representative for AARP. "You will see a lot of things being taken up and moving during this Congress that were never addressed under the last Congress."

The Deficit Reduction Act is the federal government's attempt to slow the pace of spending growth in Medicare and Medicaid. Under the act's provisions, the basis for state Medicaid programs' prescription reimbursement to pharmacists changes from average wholesale price (AWP) to average manufacturer price (AMP).

When is $4 not $4? Apparently when it's the cost of a Wal-Mart generic in a state where the retail giant and its competitors may be violating predatory-pricing laws. Those laws ban selling products below cost in order to kill off competitors and may apply to prescription drug sales in 21 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) and the National Community Pharmacists Association.

At the Generic Pharmaceutical Association meeting in Phoenix last month, Drug Topics' Managing Editor of Projects, Anthony Vecchione, spoke with Gary Buehler, R. Ph., Director, Office of Generic Drugs.

The terms being used to describe these generics-biogenerics, generic biologics, biological follow-on products, biosimilar drugs, generic biopharmaceuticals-are interchangeable, but the question of how to determine whether these generics are safely interchangeable with the branded products is only now starting to be answered.