Treatment avenues for age-related macular degeneration: Breakthroughs and bottlenecks.

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a significant factor contributing to serious vision loss in adults above 50. The presence of posterior segment barriers serves as chief roadblocks in the delivery of drugs to treat AMD. The conventional treatment strategies use is limited due to its off-targeted distribution in the eye, shorter drug residence, poor penetration and bioavailability, fatal side effects, etc.

New microbiological assay for determination of caspofungin in the presence of its degradation products and its measurement uncertainty.

Caspofungin is an echinocandin antifungal used in the treatment of invasive fungal infections. Several methods have been reported for the quantitative analysis of echinocandins; however, there is no microbiological assay for determination of caspofungin potency in the presence of its degradation products. This study aimed to develop and validate a microbiological method for quantitative analysis of caspofungin in lyophilized powder, evaluate the stability, and determinate the degradation kinetics of the drug when the finished product is submitted to heat stress.

Microbiological evaluation of reused catheter guides in a Brazilian hospital.

Within Brazilian hospitals, as well as in hospitals in other countries, the safety of reusing single-use medical devices is being questioned. At the same time, there has been a constant, growing increase in the number of such reprocessed products. In an attempt to evaluate such procedures, we analyzed 30 catheter guide units that were reused four times in patients at a public hospital of the state of São Paulo, Brazil.