drugs

Warming local anaesthetic prior to injection reduces injection pain

June 5, 2012

For many patients, the worst part of a procedure, such as a tooth extraction or a carpal tunnel decompression, is likely to be the initial pain following the insertion of a needle and the injection of local anaesthetic. There are reports that warming local anaesthetics before injection can reduce pain, but the effectiveness of this approach has not been accurately determined. The purpose of this systematic review was to examine whether the strategy of warming local anaesthetic prior to injection reduces self-report of pain.

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Short- and long-term treatment with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs increases risk of death or recurrent MI in those with previous MI

May 25, 2012

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) have been implicated in causing negative cardiovascular outcomes, particularly in coronary artery disease (CAD) patients who have had a prior myocardial infarction (MI). In fact, as Schjerning Olsen and colleagues point out, current guidelines give the rather nebulous recommendation that duration of NSAID therapy should be as short as possible in CAD patients.

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The use of nano-quercetin to arrest mitochondrial damage and MMP-9 upregulation during prevention of gastric inflammation induced by ethanol in rat

January 18, 2012

Publication year: 2012 Source: Biomaterials, Available online 16 January 2012 Somsuta Chakraborty, Sami Stalin, Nirmalendu Das, Somsubhra Thakur Choudhury, Swarupa Ghosh, … Gastric ulcer is a multifaceted process that involves reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, extracellular matrix degradation and mitochondrial damage

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Fluorometric estimation of surface associated microbial abundance

December 30, 2011

Publication year: 2011 Source: Journal of Microbiological Methods, Available online 29 December 2011 Gabriel J. Swenson, Isaac M. Hagenbuch, James L. Pinckney, Richard A. Long Surface associated microbes have historically been difficult to accurately and effectively enumerate. In the current study, we propose a rapid and simple method for estimating abundance of surface associated microbial cells by fluorescence of SYBRGreen stained bacteria andin vivochlorophyllafluorescence of benthic diatoms in 24 and 48-well microtiter plates.

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Testing of viscous anti-HIV microbicides usingLactobacillus

December 24, 2011

Publication year: 2011 Source: Journal of Microbiological Methods, Available online 24 December 2011 B.J. Moncla, K. Pryke, L.C. Rohan, H. Yang The development of topical microbicides for intravaginal use to prevent HIV infection requires that the drugs and formulated products be nontoxic to the endogenous vaginalLactobacillus. In 30 min exposure tests we found dapivirine, tenofovir and UC781 (reverse transcriptase inhibitor anti-HIV drugs) as pure drugs or formulated as film or gel products were not deleterious toLactobacillusspecies; however, PSC-RANTES (a synthetic CCR5 antagonist) killed 2 strains ofLactobacillus jensenii.

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Feasibility of using a handheld electronic device for the collection of patient reported outcomes data from children

October 22, 2011

Publication year: 2011 Source: Journal of Communication Disorders, Available online 20 October 2011 Lisa A. Vinney, John Grade, Nadine P. Connor The manner in which a communication disorder affects health-related quality of life (QOL) in children is not known. Unfortunately, collection of quality of life data via traditional paper measures is labor intensive and has several other limitations, which hinder the investigation of pediatric quality of life in children

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Literature Update – Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, Sept, 2011

September 7, 2011

As I have mentioned in a previous post there are a number of journals I follow to stay abreast of developments in the ID, microbiology and antibiotic world.  For updates on the latest in antibiotic development from pre-clinical through clinical testing no journal beats the American Society of Microbiology’s Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (http://asm.org/).  Just to give a taste of how relevant this publication can be to those of us treating lower extremity infections, in the current September 2011 issue of AAC there at least 5 papers that present useful information.  In this “Literature Update” I will list these manuscripts, give the PubMed link to their Abstracts, and give a summary of what the authors reported.

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Why I Don’t Eat Raw Oysters

August 15, 2011

The more I read the infectious disease literature the more my diet becomes limited. It seems that new reports of contaminated food are published regularly.  It gets to a point where you don’t know what you should and should not eat!  I have always been wary of raw foods and rarely eat sushi especially after an article was published in Clinical Infectious Diseases a number of years ago complete with pictures of the worm coughed up by a patient who ate salmon sushi (I apologize for not being able to find the reference and to those of you who love to eat sushi, it’s just not for me).

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More on Antibiotics and Osteomyelitis

April 10, 2011

I have blogged a number of times about the questions surrounding some of the unknown, unproven issues surrounding the treatment of osteomyelitis including duration of antibiotic therapy and the “need” for surgical debridement. It continues to amaze me how it does not matter where, or to whom I lecture, if I ask the question “How long do you need to treat osteomyelitis and via what route?” the answer is always the same “4-6 WEEKS OF IV THERAPY” despite a total lack of human evidence to support that position. I recently came across an interesting paper that add to the ever increasing body of scientific literature that shows this old axiom is just not justified

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THE 80% SOLUTION (With apologies to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

February 24, 2011

This Tuesday, February 22, I was quoted in a very fair and balanced article in the Wall Street Journal by Science Reporter Laura Johannes dealing with laser treatment of onychomycosis . During my interview with Ms

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