Current and Future Initiatives for Vascular Health Management in Clinical Practice.

Current and future initiatives for vascular health management in clinical practice.

Vasc Health Risk Manag. 2013; 9: 255-64
Cameron JD, Asmar R, Struijker-Boudier H, Shirai K, Sirenko Y, Kotovskaya Y, Topouchian J

Central arterial structure and function comprise a primary determinant of vascular health, and are integral to the important concept of ventriculo-vascular coupling or interaction. Central aortic stiffening is a major influence on central blood pressure, and directly relates to coronary perfusion. The joint session of the International Society of Vascular Health (Eastern Region) and the Ukrainian Congress of Cardiology was held in Kiev, Ukraine, on September 23, 2011; it provided an expert forum to discuss arterial evaluations, clinical applications, and progress toward translating arterial protection into cardiovascular benefits. The conclusions of the expert panel were: Aortic stiffness is not presently a treatment target but may be useful for substratifying cardiovascular risk in individuals in order to better target the intensity of conventional therapy, and it may be useful in assessing response to treatment.Crosstalk between macro- and microcirculation in hypertension has important implications for pharmacological treatment. An antihypertensive regimen should abolish the vicious cycle between the increased resistance in the microcirculation and the increased stiffness of the larger arteries. Such treatment should be based on drugs with multiple actions on the vascular tree, or on drug combinations that target the various segments of the arterial system.Several blood pressure-independent mechanisms of large artery stiffness exist. Future considerations for clinical understanding of large artery stiffness should involve new drugs and new evaluation methods – with a focus on vascular health, for the initiation of cardiovascular prevention, for newly designed studies for treatment evaluation, and for new studies of drug combinations.Arterial stiffening is a sign of cardiovascular aging and is a major factor affecting the biomechanics of large arteries. Arterial stiffness is an attractive therapeutic target in terms of vascular aging. Healthy lifestyle, physical exercise, and smoking cessation are the most effective ways of preventing and treating early vascular aging. Long-term effects of cardiovascular drugs on arterial stiffness need to be further investigated.The emerging clinical data on the cardio ankle vascular index (CAVI) technique of arterial health assessment is presented, showing that the CAVI is elevated in aging, coronary artery diseases, chronic kidney disease, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, smoking, and stress. The CAVI decreased with the administration of statins, angiotensin II receptor blocking agents, and calcium channel blockers. The CAVI is suggested as an important predictor of cardiovascular diseases. Future development of a clinical understanding of large artery stiffness is important and should include consideration of new drugs and new evaluation methods, with a focus on vascular health aimed at cardiovascular prevention. HubMed – drug

 

Pharmacokinetic drug interaction profile of omeprazole with adverse consequences and clinical risk management.

Ther Clin Risk Manag. 2013; 9: 259-71
Li W, Zeng S, Yu LS, Zhou Q

Omeprazole, a proton pump inhibitor (PPI), is widely used for the treatment of dyspepsia, peptic ulcer, gastroesophageal reflux disease, and functional dyspepsia. Polypharmacy is common in patients receiving omeprazole. Drug toxicity and treatment failure resulting from inappropriate combination therapy with omeprazole have been reported sporadically. Systematic review has not been available to address the pharmacokinetic drug-drug interaction (DDI) profile of omeprazole with adverse consequences, the factors determining the degree of DDI between omeprazole and comedication, and the corresponding clinical risk management.Literature was identified by performing a PubMed search covering the period from January 1988 to March 2013. The full text of each article was critically reviewed, and data interpretation was performed.Omeprazole has actual adverse influences on the pharmacokinetics of medications such as diazepam, carbamazepine, clozapine, indinavir, nelfinavir, atazanavir, rilpivirine, methotrexate, tacrolimus, mycophenolate mofetil, clopidogrel, digoxin, itraconazole, posaconazole, and oral iron supplementation. Meanwhile, low efficacy of omeprazole treatment would be anticipated, as omeprazole elimination could be significantly induced by comedicated efavirenz and herb medicines such as St John’s wort, Ginkgo biloba, and yin zhi huang. The mechanism for DDI involves induction or inhibition of cytochrome P450, inhibition of P-glycoprotein or breast cancer resistance protein-mediated drug transport, and inhibition of oral absorption by gastric acid suppression. Sometimes, DDIs of omeprazole do not exhibit a PPI class effect. Other suitable PPIs or histamine 2 antagonists may be therapeutic alternatives that can be used to avoid adverse consequences. The degree of DDIs associated with omeprazole and clinical outcomes depend on factors such as genotype status of CYP2C19 and CYP1A2, ethnicity, dose and treatment course of precipitant omeprazole, pharmaceutical formulation of object drug (eg, mycophenolate mofetil versus enteric-coated mycophenolate sodium), other concomitant medication (eg, omeprazole-indinavir versus omeprazole-indinavir-ritonavir), and administration schedule (eg, intensified dosing of mycophenolate mofetil versus standard dosing).Despite the fact that omeprazole is one of the most widely prescribed drugs internationally, clinical professionals should enhance clinical risk management on adverse DDIs associated with omeprazole and ensure safe combination use of omeprazole by rationally prescribing alternatives, checking the appropriateness of physician orders before dispensing, and performing therapeutic drug monitoring. HubMed – drug

 

Missed medication doses in hospitalised patients: a descriptive account of quality improvement measures and time series analysis.

Int J Qual Health Care. 2013 Jun 5;
Coleman JJ, Hodson J, Brooks HL, Rosser D

OBJECTIVE: /st>To investigate the changes in overdue doses rates over a 4-year period in an National Health Service (NHS) teaching hospital, following the implementation of interventions associated with an electronic prescribing system used within the hospital. DESIGN: /st>Retrospective time-series analysis of weekly dose administration data. SETTING: /st>University teaching hospital using a locally developed electronic prescribing and administration system (Prescribing, Information and Communication System or PICS) with an audit database containing details on every drug prescription and dose administration. PARTICIPANTS: /st>Prescription data extracted from the PICS database. INTERVENTION: s)Four interventions were implemented in the Trust: (i) the ability for doctors to pause medication doses; (ii) clinical dashboards; (iii) visual indicators for overdue doses and (iv) overdue doses Root Cause ANALYSIS: (RCA) meetings and a National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) Rapid Response Alert.Main outcome measure(s)The percentage of missed medication doses. RESULTS: /st>Rates of both missed antibiotic and non-antibiotic doses decreased significantly upon the introduction of clinical dashboards (reductions of 0.60 and 0.41 percentage points, respectively), as well as following the instigation of executive-led overdue doses RCA meetings (reductions of 0.83 and 0.97 percentage points, respectively) and the publication of an associated NPSA Rapid Response Alert. Implementing a visual indicator for overdue doses was not associated with significant decreases in the rates of missed antibiotic or non-antibiotic doses. CONCLUSIONS: /st>Electronic prescribing systems can facilitate data collection relating to missed medication doses. INTERVENTIONS: providing hospital staff with information about overdue doses at a ward level can help promote reductions in overdue doses rates. HubMed – drug

 


 

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