Results tagged “Patients Safety” from Drugs & Medicaments

Doctors should probably stop using pulmonary artery catheters because they do not benefit patients, said doctors from Australia recently in the British Medical Journal.

The pulmonary artery catheter was invented in 1968. It enabled bedside monitoring in critically ill patients by measuring heart output and capillary pressure in the lungs and became widely used in intensive care units.

But reports of serious complications soon appeared and arguments for and against its use have continued ever since.

The most recent evaluation, commissioned by the NHS Health Technology Assessment (HTA) programme, found that pulmonary artery catheters do not benefit patients and concluded that withdrawing them from UK intensive care units would be cost effective.

 

by Dan Starks, 6 News

It has proven to be one of the deadliest drugs in the state, and its killing young people across North Carolina.

You may not even know just how strong it is, and that is a warning parents and teens should heed.

It was one phone call. A deadly pill and William Sigmon’s 19-year-old daughter, Linda, was gone.

"My ex-wife called me and told me I needed to go up to the hospital. I said why? She said its Linda. She was lying on the table. They tried to do CPR and shock her back and everything. She was already dead."

Cell Therapeutics said late Friday it has halted enrollment in its most important clinical trial because of premature deaths among patients taking its experimental cancer drug.

James Bianco, chief executive of the Seattle company, said the deaths do not appear related to any safety problems with its drug, Xyotax.

In an interview, Bianco would not say how many patients enrolled have died among the 200 women with lung cancer. But he acknowledged there were more deaths in the group receiving Xyotax than another receiving a standard chemotherapy drug. Further analysis is needed to sort out the reasons, he said.

(CP) - Health Canada is warning consumers against taking certain unauthorized natural health products promoted for the treatment of erectile dysfunction because they contain pharmaceutical ingredients that should be used only under medical supervision.

The products - Zimaxx, Actra-Rx, 4Everon, Vigor-25 and Nasutra - could pose serious health risks, especially for people with heart disease, those taking heart medications or those at risk for stroke.

Although not authorized for sale in Canada, Zimaxx, Actra-Rx, 4Everon, Vigor-25 and Nasutra are or may have been sold over the Internet or brought into Canada by travellers for personal use, Health Canada said in an advisory Thursday.

Another article which is promoting drugs as a remedy for depression. Especially, a full variety.

"Thirteen percent of the 123 study participants who did not get better on the first three drugs they tried were helped by a fourth, researchers found. 

But there is a downside to so many attempts: The more tries people made, the more likely it was that they later would relapse and slide back into depression."

What do I think about it? If you don't care about complications, and are looking for a quick fix (i.e. you are lazy about your health), then go for meds. If one doesn't help, take another. This doesn't help? Try another! Continue until your get seriously sick. Cancer maybe an option as well. It's up to you. Those drugs are not guaranteed to help your depression. Period

What are the alternatives to antidepressants, you may ask? I would recommend to look at photo therapy treatment. There are devices which are helping SAD, depression and even Alzheimer's disease.

Outside In, TrueSun, Alaska Northern Lights, FullSpectrum Solutions - these are only few of companies which produce photo therapy devices that work. Give it a shot. But don't forget to consult a specialist before going for it

Read the article below and decide for yourself.

SAN FRANCISCO: More than 40 women sued the makers of a popular birth-control patch, claiming the contraceptive caused serious illnesses and at least one death.

One lawsuit alleges that 43 women suffered from blood clots and other health ailments after taking Ortho Evra, one of the fastest-growing forms of contraception in the U.S.

A second complaint claims that 25-year-old Kelly Bracken of Elk Ridge, Maryland, died of severe blood clots in her lungs and legs after she started wearing the skin patch.

The lawsuits, filed in San Francisco Superior Court on Wednesday, name as defendants the drug's manufacturer, Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical Co., a Titusville, New Jersey-based subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson; and San Francisco-based distributor McKesson Corp. The plaintiffs seek unspecified monetary damages.

Pfizer said yesterday that clinical trials of torcetrapib — a heart medication that is the most important drug in the company’s pipeline — confirmed that it raises blood pressure, a potentially serious side effect.

Any problems with torcetrapib would be a serious setback for Pfizer, the world’s largest drug company. Pfizer has been counting on the new medicine to eventually replace the $13 billion in annual sales from the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor, which loses patent protection in 2010.

Cardiologists and Wall Street analysts alike have been closely watching the clinical trials of torcetrapib, a medicine intended to raise so-called good cholesterol.

Newswise — Topiramate (Topamax), a drug commonly prescribed to treat seizures and migraine headaches, can increase the propensity of calcium phosphate kidney stones, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found.

A study – the largest cross-sectional examination of how the long-term use of topiramate affects kidney-stone formation – appears in the October issue of the American Journal of Kidney Diseases.

Several case reports have described an association between topiramate and the development of kidney stones, but this complication had not been well recognized and physicians have not informed patients about the risk, the UT Southwestern researchers said. More important, the mechanism of stone formation was largely unknown previously.

GLENVIEW, Ill. -- A new report from Pain Treatment Topics -- "Methadone Analgesia Safety Overview & Patient Instructions Handout" -- provides essential background information and serves as a gateway to several innovative, evidence-based documents at Pain-Topics.com.

These guide healthcare providers in more safely and effectively prescribing methadone analgesia:

• Safely Dosing Methadone for Chronic Pain
• Avoiding Harmful Methadone-Drug Interactions
• Methadone Cardiac Considerations and Precautions

Additionally, the 12-page "Overview" links to documents discussing the management of opioid-induced constipation, a common side effect, and how to safely discontinue opioid analgesics.

ORLANDO, Fla. -- About 11 million Americans take cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins. They're the most widely-sold drugs in this country. Some doctors say they're over-prescribed while others say they're not prescribed enough.

Elaine Overton's cholesterol was 260, so her doctor put her on Lipitor. "My cholesterol dropped about 100 points in about six weeks' time," she said. "It was really remarkable."

Statins can lower cholesterol by 40 percent and prevent heart attacks. The newest research shows they also reduce the risk of a second stroke by 16 percent.

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- New research may explain why teenagers taking antidepressants become aggressive or kill themselves. Researchers tested hamsters to determine the link between teens, antidepressants, and suicidal tendencies.

Fluoxetine -- commonly known as Prozac -- is the only anti-depression medication approved to treat juveniles. However, controversy has arisen over claims that the drug actually increases suicidal behaviors in children and adolescents.

This seratonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) is known to inhibit aggression in adult hamsters. However scientists have discovered that juvenile hamsters -- when given low doses of fluoxetine, or Prozac -- become more aggressive, as opposed to their older counterparts. When juveniles are given high doses of the drug, their behavior is less aggressive. Adult hamsters seem to calm down whether they were given a high or low dose of the drug.

The air is leaking out of what was supposed to be the next big thing in the treatment of diabetes: inhalable insulin.

"While inhalable insulins will see a reasonable level of uptake, they aren't the surefire blockbuster they were hyped to be," says a new study by British market research firm Datamonitor PLC. It points out that the new treatment isn't significantly better than existing therapies, is expensive and its long-term safety in the lungs is unknown.

On the other hand, inhalable insulin represents a convenient and alternative delivery system for diabetics who have a needle phobia, and are reluctant to inject themselves with insulin to control blood sugar levels in the blood.

New York, October 27, 2006 - There may be as many as 70 million Americans with prehypertension. If these people can be treated pharmacologically to avoid or delay progression to clinical hypertension, there would be significant benefits to them and the overall health of the population. The recent TROPHY study seems to lead to that conclusion. However, two editorials published in the November issue of the American Journal of Hypertension emphatically argue that the study is flawed and the conclusions reached are misleading.

Persons with prehypertension, generally defined as having a systolic blood pressure in the range of 120-139 mm Hg or a diastolic blood pressure of 80-89, will usually develop hypertension at the rate of about 10% per year. The recent Trial of Preventing Hypertension (TROPHY) examined whether treating patients with candesartan for two years resulted in a sustained reduction in the incidence of high blood pressure after the drug was discontinued. The TROPHY study concluded that the treatment significantly reduced the risk of incident hypertension over the four year study.

Crushing pills to make them easier to swallow might be fatal because it releases drugs a lot quicker than they are supposed to, warn scientists.

David Wright and fellow pharmacy researchers at the University of East Anglia said crushing pills could increase the risk of side effects, reported the online edition of BBC news.

"Pills often have special coatings that affect how they are released into the body. Crushing them can mean this complex system is disturbed," said Wright.

MONTPELIER — Drug maker Wyeth must pay nearly $6.8 million to a Marshfield woman whose arm had to be amputated after she was injected with one of its medications, the Vermont Supreme Court said Friday, upholding a lower court's ruling.

In a case hailed as a victory by a national consumers' group, the court cited a U.S. Food and Drug Administration rule saying drug companies can issue sterner warnings than required by regulators if they think it's necessary.

The case, which was originally decided by a Washington County Superior Court jury, centered on Diana Levine, who went to the Health Center in Plainfield in April 2000 complaining of nausea stemming from migraine headaches. She was given an injection of Phenergan.

TORONTO — Avastin, a drug approved in Canada to treat advanced colorectal cancer, has been linked to two serious complications in a small number of patients, the drug's manufacturer advised Friday.

But Avastin, which works by choking off a tumour's blood supply, is also being tested experimentally for prostate, kidney, pancreatic and ovarian cancer, and is being widely used off-label by eye doctors to treat one form of age-related macular degeneration. (Off-label means doctors can prescribe any approved medication for other purposes.)

Most patients who experienced either of the two complicating conditions red-flagged Friday — hypertensive encephalopathy or RPLS — were being treated for conditions other than advanced colorectal cancer, Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. said in an advisory to health professionals and the public on Health Canada's website.

Gary Gow, 53, pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of a patient Wayne Ritchie after prescribing him an incorrect type of morphine with inadequate administration instructions, for his chronic back pain.

Mr Ritchie died after injecting himself with 120 milligrams of morphine tartrate on October 3, 2004, at his home in Figtree, near Wollongong.

Dr Gow had accidentally prescribed the morphine tartrate instead of morphine sulphate, the former designed to be administered in extremely small doses over a prolonged period to cancer patients with intractable pain.

Doctors should limit the number of Effexor pills they prescribe patients to reduce the risk of overdose, the antidepressant's manufacturer and federal health officials said Wednesday.

There have been reports of deaths and serious injuries in patients who overdosed on Effexor, also called venlafaxine, predominantly when taken with alcohol and/or other drugs, Wyeth and the Food and Drug Administration said.

Pfizer Inc.'s potential blockbuster drug torcetrapib may be delayed until 2011, clouding plans to replace top-selling cholesterol medicine Lipitor when its patent expires.

Officials at New York-based Pfizer, the world's largest drugmaker, said last week that U.S. regulators may want long- term studies showing the drug when combined with Lipitor prolongs lives and prevents disease before approving it. Analysts lowered their profit estimates after the comments on torcetrapib, which is designed to boost levels of so-called good cholesterol that removes plaque from arteries.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration may not finish until late 2008 its evaluation of imaging studies showing whether the drug shrinks fatty substances that clog arteries and trigger heart attacks, John LaMattina, president of global research and development at Pfizer, said in a conference call. Analysts say the review may run a year later than expected and the drug, which some projected to generate $1.6 billion in sales by 2009, may be delayed by one to three years as a result.

Merck & Co. Inc. said today that a Texas woman, who blamed the recalled pain reliever Vioxx for her heart attack, has dropped her lawsuit two weeks before trial.

It was the latest dropped case among at least 27,100 personal-injury cases filed against Merck in the two years since Merck recalled Vioxx due to safety concerns. About 3,000 of the cases, or 11 percent, have been dropped, leaving 23,800 as of Oct. 9, Merck said.