Metadoxine in acute alcohol intoxication: a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study.

Background: At present there are only intriguing and preliminary clinical results regarding the efficacy of metadoxine (pyridoxol L-2-pyrrolidone-5-carboxylate) in acute alcohol intoxication. The present study was planned with the aim of investigating the effectiveness of metadoxine in the management of patients affected by acute ethanol intoxication.

Methods: A double-blind, randomized, multicenter, placebo-controlled trial was carried out on 58 patients of both sexes with acute ethanol intoxication.

[Halcion (triazolam) in the treatment of insomnia].

A hypnotic effect of chalcion (triazolam) was studied in 24 outpatients suffering from insomnia. It was found high and beneficial in pre-, intra- and post-insomniac disorders. Side effects were mild.

[Depakine syrup in the treatment of therapy-resistant epilepsy].

Depakin syrup was given for several weeks in initial dose 300 mg/day with graded increase of the dose to 1200 mg/day to 11 patients aged 15-39 suffering from epilepsy and residual-organic affection of CNS with epileptic syndrome. A complete or partial discontinuation of the fits was achieved in 82% of the patients, primarily in those with partial and primary-generalized fits, partial fits with secondary generalization. It is concluded that depakin syrup treatment is justified in management of epilepsy, especially in the treatment-resistant cases.

Frequent isolation of intertypic poliovirus recombinants with serotype 2 specificity from vaccine-associated polio cases.

Five representatives from a collection of 21 Sabin type 2-like poliovirus strains isolated from paralytic poliomyelitis cases in two regions of the USSR have been subjected to limited nucleotide sequencing. All proved to be intertypic recombinants having the genes encoding capsid proteins of Sabin 2 origin and a 3'-end portion of the genome derived from either type 1 (3 isolates) or type 3 (2 isolates) Sabin strains. The crossover points in all the 5 genomes have been mapped to different loci of the P3 region.