Current Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 19, Issue 27, 2012

The use of antidepressant drugs, such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), during pregnancy is rapidly increasing. To date, the effects of SSRI on pregnant women and fetuses are controversial and still a matter of debate. Although a number of studies have shown that these antidepressants are not teratogenic, some of them have reported an increase of congenital malformations after antenatal exposure to Read More

Thromboembolism is an infrequent, yet serious cause of both maternal and fetal morbidity and death during pregnancy and the puerperium. Antithrombotic treatment and prophylaxis both before and during pregnancy are based on unfractionated heparin (UH), lowmolecularweight heparin (LMWH), Warfarin and Aspirin. The prevalence and severity of thromboembolism during pregnancy and puerperium warrant spe Read More

The renin-angiotensin system is highly conserved through evolutionary history, and has multiple functions in addition to maintaining cardiovascular homeostasis: these include the regulation of renal cell survival and cell death, and development of the kidney. The importance of angiotensin (ANG) in normal kidney development was first recognized in infants with renal maldevelopment born to mothers treated with angiotensin conv Read More

The liver represents the major site of drug metabolism in humans. The developmental changes that occur in the liver's metabolic activity during fetal life and in the perinatal period are at the basis of the varied sensitivity of human newborns to many drugs. The decreased capacity of the fetal and newborn liver to metabolize, detoxify, and excrete drugs - total cytochrome P450 content in the fetal liver being 30% to 60% of adul Read More

For a long time, nephrotoxicity has been definitively defined as renal injury or dysfunction that arises as a direct or indirect result of exposure to drugs and industrial or environmental chemicals. There are a number of inherent difficulties in diagnostic procedures for toxic nephropathy, which include the absence of standard diagnostic criteria and the inability to relate exposure to a given agent and the observed effect. Criticall Read More

Temperature control, airway management and support of circulation remain the gold-standards for the majority of neonates requiring resuscitation at birth. For the minority of neonates in which the basic steps of resuscitation fail to reverse an adverse situation, drug administration is justifiable. The 2010 International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR) guidelines for newborn resuscitation state: “Drugs are rarely indicat Read More

Invasive candidiasis (IC) in the premature infant population is a common infection that results in substantial morbidity and mortality. For these patients, fluconazole is among the first line therapies to treat and prevent IC, and yet few prospective studies investigating its pharmacokinetics (PK) and safety have been performed in this vulnerable population. We review five phase I studies examining the PK of fluconazole in pr Read More

The prevention and treatment of pediatric fungal infections are limited by the fact that not all antifungal drugs are approved for the pediatric age and appropriate dosages have not been established for each age group. The management of neonates and infants with invasive fungal infection is becoming more complex with an increasing number of antifungal agents available. Dosing information, is not available for newer antifu Read More

Sufficient organ blood flow of healthy newborn babies is maintained by relatively low systemic blood pressure. Premature infants are at an increased risk of systemic hypotension, often but not obviously, resulting in hypoperfusion of the cerebral, renal and intestinal vascular beds. Maintaining a stable blood pressure in preterm babies is of high importance in order to prevent complications such as intraventricular h Read More

Despite recent advances, Persistent Pulmonary Hypertension of the Newborn (PPHN) still represents an important challenge for neonatologists. The care of newborns with PPHN requires meticulous therapeutic and ventilation strategies including, besides the stabilization of the newborn, the use of selective pulmonary vasodilators as inhaled Nitric Oxide (iNO). However, not all the neonates with PPHN are responsive to this clinical Read More

The purpose of this review is to describe the state of the art of the pharmacological applications in perinatal medicine and highlight how a new emerging discipline, metabolomics, may have a significant impact on understanding complex biological processes associated with the drugs actions. Currently, there is great demand for new information regarding the use of drugs, especially during the perinatal period in order Read More

Blood platelets play a fundamental role in primary haemostasis and wound repair, but are also involved in several thrombotic and bleeding disorders for which the underlying mechanisms are still largely unknown. Elucidating platelet biology would help in finding novel disease biomarkers and drug targets in complex and/or genetically unknown platelet-related disorders. Proteomics, which allows studying thousands of gene Read More

The assessment of percutaneous absorption of molecules is a very important step in the evaluation of any dermal or transdermal drug delivery system. In order to perform percutaneous drug absorption studies, it is essential that the methods are standardized and that the integrity of the skin is monitored and maintained to ensure that the data obtained are valid and relevant. Reproducible data on percutaneous absorptio Read More

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer worldwide and the sixth cause of cancer-related death in men. When hormone therapy fails to control tumour growth, castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) occurs and chemotherapy drugs must be administered. Since 2004, docetaxel administration is the standard of care in metastatic CRPC, although it presents severe limitations such as acquired resistance and poor p Read More

Atrial fibrillation (AF), the most common cardiac arrhythmia, is associated with an increased risk of stroke and systemic embolism. Oral anticoagulation with vitamin K antagonists (VKAs), such as warfarin, has historically been the mainstay of long-term thromboprophylaxis in AF patients. However, although highly effective, VKAs have a number of limitations that make their use difficult and cumbersome in clinical Read More

The aims of this study were to synthesize 14-O-Methylmorphine-6-O-sulfate (14-O-MeM6SU) and examine its opioid properties (potency, affinity, efficacy) in receptor ligand binding and isolated tissues (mouse vas deferens, MVD and rat vas deferens, RVD bioassays). The results were then compared to the parent compounds morphine-6-O-sulfate (M6SU) and morphine, as well as the µ- opioid receptor (MOR) selective agoni Read More

Dendrimers are artificial polymeric macromolecules which are widely considered to be a promising tool for future gene therapy applications. They have been used as efficient delivery vehicles for antisense oligonucleotides targeting the interior of cells. We demonstrate that dendriplexes formed from anti-HIV oligodeoxynucleotides ANTI-TAR, GEM91, and SREV in complex with generation 4 maltose (PPI-Mal G4) and maltotriose (PP Read More