Current Drug Therapy - Volume 5, Issue 1, 2010

The cost of health care is ever increasing and absorbing larger portions of national budgets. This issue has recently come into sharp focus in the United States with the debates on health care reform. Other countries are not immune from this issue. Those that have comprehensive health care systems are struggling with ever increasing cost, and many countries with more limited resources are trying to find ways to deliver even Read More

Chordomas are relatively rare, slowly growing primary tumors of bone that arise from embryonic remnants of the notochord. These neoplasms typically occur in the axial skeleton mainly in the skull base (about 35%) and sacral region (about 50%) and have an overall peak distribution in patients aged 55-65 years. Chordomas are divided into conventional (the most common type), chondroid, and dedifferentiated types. Ag Read More

Retigabine is a new anticonvulsant in clinical development, which activates neuronal M-current by opening voltage-gated potassium channels (KCNQ2/3 and KCNQ3/5). Retigabine had demonstrated potent anticonvulsant activity in various animal models of epileptic seizures including partial and generalized seizure models as well as status epilepticus model. Up to date, three pivotal clinical studies had been completed in patie Read More

Systemic chemotherapy for cancer of the urothelial tract is used according to two main strategies. Neoadjuvant or adjuvant treatment combined with surgery and/or radiotherapy is aimed at cure of localised disease whilst treatment for advanced incurable disease allows for improved survival and palliation of symptoms. Cisplatin based combination regimens represent the standard of care in both of these settings and incorpor Read More

In the past few years accumulating evidence involved chromosomal instability and the subsequent aneuploidy that it generates in tumor formation. Moreover, the misregulation of most of the proteins involved in the mitotic checkpoint as well as kinetochore assembly has proven to have tumorigenic potential in vivo. Thus, the overexpression of Ndc80/Hec1, an outer kinetochore protein involved in spindle assembly check Read More

The heart and vascular system represent major targets of the thyroid hormone action, and marked changes occur in cardiac electro-mechanical function of patients with hyper-hypothyroidism. Thyroid hormones exert their effects through both genomic (nuclear) and nongenomic (extranuclear) mechanisms. Understanding the cellular mechanisms of thyroid hormone action on the heart and cardiovascular system i Read More

As the indications for recombinant human growth hormone (r-hGH) treatment have expanded, the number of patients receiving r-hGH has increased and injectable delivery of r-hGH is likely to be required for the foreseeable future. Continued innovations in the ease of use, safety and reliability of r-hGH devices have already gone some way to making GH treatment less stressful for patients, both physically and psycholo Read More

Critical illness is a pathophysiological stress response that typically requires mechanical ventilation and hemodynamic support in an intensive care unit (ICU). Allostatic mechanisms tailor the critically ill state and eventually downregulate the stress response. Failure to downregulate the stress response can lead to increased morbidity and mortality. In general, ICU care focuses on component organ system physiology and prioriti Read More

Introduction: Little is known about the effectiveness of various interferon regimes in patients with chronic hepatitis C in every day clinical practice. Therefore, we conducted a retrospective evaluation and analysis of all therapy results from patients treated with interferon in our general care hospital during the last 12 years. Patients and methods: 108 patients (66 men, 42 women) with bioptically confirmed hepatitis C and HCV Read More

Breakthrough pain (BP) is a common problem in patients with cancer and is associated with significant morbidity in this group of patients. BP has been defined as a transitory increase in pain intensity that occurs either spontaneously, or in relation to a specific predictable or unpredictable trigger, despite relatively stable and adequately controlled background pain. A well understood subtype of BP is incident pain, which is d Read More

Extrapulmonary tuberculosis refers to disease other than the lungs. The recent pandemic of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) has changed the epidemiology of tuberculosis and has once again brought extrapulmonary tuberculosis into the limelight. Over the last two decades the incidence of extrapulmonary tuberculosis has increased at a faster rate than that of pulmon Read More