Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation: The Use of Comparative Effectiveness Research to Inform Policy Decisions on the Inclusion of Bevacizumab for the Treatment of Macular Diseases in Thailand’s Pharmaceutical Benefit Package.
The use of comparative effectiveness research to inform policy decisions on the inclusion of bevacizumab for the treatment of macular diseases in Thailand’s pharmaceutical benefit package.
Filed under: Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation
Clinicoecon Outcomes Res. 2012; 4: 361-74
Anothaisintawee T, Leelahavarong P, Ratanapakorn T, Teerawattananon Y
There is increasing impetus to use pharmaceutical interventions, ie, ranibizumab or bevacizumab, for the treatment of particular macular diseases. This paper describes the evidence and decision-making of the National List of Essential Medicines Committee that recently announced the inclusion of bevacizumab for the treatment of macular diseases in its pharmaceutical benefit package. The findings of a systematic review and meta-analysis in this paper indicate that the intravitreal administration of bevacizumab is superior to nonpharmaceutical treatments for age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic macular edema (DME), but inconclusive for retinal vein occlusion, given the limited evidence. The study also failed to distinguish among the differences in terms of visual acuity improvement, reduction of central macular thickness, and response to treatment between AMD and DME patients treated with bevacizumab and those treated with ranibizumab. Although bevacizumab was not licensed for AMD and DME, the committee decided to include bevacizumab in the National List of Essential Medicines. It is expected that many patients who are in need of treatment but who are unable to afford the expensive alternative drug, ranibizumab, will be able to receive this effective treatment instead and be prevented from suffering irreversible loss of vision. At the same time, this policy will help generate evidence about the real-life effectiveness and safety profiles of the drug for future policy development in Thailand and other settings.
HubMed – drug
Interventions performed by community pharmacists in one Canadian province: a cross-sectional study.
Filed under: Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation
Ther Clin Risk Manag. 2012; 8: 415-21
Young SW, Bishop LD, Conway A
Interventions made by pharmacists to resolve issues when filling a prescription ensure the quality, safety, and efficacy of medication therapy for patients. The purpose of this study was to provide a current estimate of the number and types of interventions performed by community pharmacists during processing of prescriptions. This baseline data will provide insight into the factors influencing current practice and areas where pharmacists can redefine and expand their role.A cross-sectional study of community pharmacist interventions was completed. Participants included third-year pharmacy students and their pharmacist preceptor as a data collection team. The team identified all interventions on prescriptions during the hours worked together over a 7-day consecutive period. Full ethics approval was obtained.Nine student-pharmacist pairs submitted data from nine pharmacies in rural (n = 3) and urban (n = 6) centers. A total of 125 interventions were documented for 106 patients, with a mean intervention rate of 2.8%. The patients were 48% male, were mostly ?18 years of age (94%), and 86% had either public or private insurance. Over three-quarters of the interventions (77%) were on new prescriptions. The top four types of problems requiring intervention were related to prescription insurance coverage (18%), drug product not available (16%), dosage too low (16%), and missing prescription information (15%). The prescriber was contacted for 69% of the interventions. Seventy-two percent of prescriptions were changed and by the end of the data collection period, 89% of the problems were resolved.Community pharmacists are impacting the care of patients by identifying and resolving problems with prescriptions. Many of the issues identified in this study were related to correcting administrative or technical issues, potentially limiting the time pharmacists can spend on patient-focused activities.
HubMed – drug
Formulation and optimization of nano-sized ethosomes for enhanced transdermal delivery of cromolyn sodium.
Filed under: Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation
J Pharm Bioallied Sci. 2012 Oct; 4(4): 333-40
Rakesh R, Anoop KR
The current study was aimed to investigate the feasibility of transdermal delivery of cromolyn sodium using a novel lipid vesicular carrier, ethosomes.Ethosomes of cromolyn sodium was prepared, optimized, and characterized for vesicle shape, vesicle size and size distribution, zeta potential, entrapment efficiency, in vitro drug release, in vitro skin permeation, in vitro skin deposition and vesicle stability. Histological examination of porcine ear skin treated with optimized ethosomal formulation was performed to study the change of skin morphologies.The optimized cromolyn sodium ethosomes showed reasonable entrapment efficiency (49.88±1.84%), optimum nanometric size range (133.8 ± 7.5 nm), and high zeta potential (-69.82 ± 1.2 mV). In vitro drug release studies of optimized ethosomal formulation through cellophane membrane showed an enhanced and sustained delivery of drug compared to conventional liposomes, hydroethanolic, (45% v/v) and phosphate buffer saline PBS pH 7.4 drug solutions. The optimized ethosomal formulation showed significantly-enhanced transdermal flux (18.49 ± 0.08 mg/cm(2)/h) across porcine ear skin as compared to liposome (1.80 ± 0.12 mg/cm(2)/h), hydroethanolic drug solution (4.45 ± 0.71 mg/cm(2)/h), and PBS pH 7.4 drug solution (1.18 ± 0.35 mg/cm(2)/h). Moreover, ethosomal formulation showed better skin drug deposition (10.28 ± 0.67%) and shortest lag time (0.11 ± 0.09 h) for cromolyn sodium.Our significant results suggest that ethosomes can be a promising tool for transdermal delivery of cromolyn sodium.
HubMed – drug
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