Cl, a new tool to assess soil carbon dynamics.

Soil organic carbon is one of the largest surface pools of carbon that humans can manage in order to partially mitigate annual anthropogenic CO emissions. A significant element to assess soil sequestration potential is the carbon age, which is evaluated by modelling or experimentally using carbon isotopes. Results, however, are not consistent.

A phase 1/2 study of orally administered synthetic hypericin for treatment of recurrent malignant gliomas.

Background: Hypericin is a potent inhibitor of glioma growth in vitro. To examine whether synthetic oral hypericin can be tolerated by patients with recurrent malignant gliomas (anaplastic astrocytoma and glioblastoma) and to investigate its efficacy against these tumors, the authors undertook an open-label, sequential dose escalation/de-escalation tolerance study.

Methods: Patients with documented recurrent or progressive malignant gliomas who had received standard radiation therapy with or without chemotherapy were included.

A phase II placebo-controlled study of photodynamic therapy with topical hypericin and visible light irradiation in the treatment of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma and psoriasis.

Background: Hypericin is a known photodynamic agent that has been demonstrated to induce apoptosis in normal and malignant B and T lymphocytes, and has potential to treat benign and malignant disorders of the skin, including psoriasis and cutaneous T-cell lymphoma.

Objective: We wished to test whether topical hypericin was an effective, safe, and well-tolerated therapy for patch or plaque phase mycosis fungoides and for plaque psoriasis.

Methods: We conducted a phase II placebo-controlled clinical study in patients who had either patch or plaque phase mycosis fungoides or plaque type psoriasis vulgaris.

Rapid oral transmucosal absorption of sumatriptan, and pharmacodynamics in acute migraine.

Objectives: (1) To determine whether sumatriptan can be absorbed across the oral mucosa, and, if so; then (2) to describe its pharmacokinetics; and (3) to investigate whether there are pharmacodynamic correlates of such pharmacokinetics in patients experiencing migraine attacks.

Methods: Two clinical trials. The first, in normal volunteers, compared the pharmacokinetic performance of a lingual spray (LS) formulation of sumatriptan (2 dose sizes, one of which in both the fed and fasted state) with an orthodox 50-mg sumatriptan tablet.

Lack of effect of rifalazil on ethinyl estradiol pharmacokinetics in healthy postmenopausal women.

Rifalazil, a second-generation rifamycin, is being evaluated for the treatment of sexually transmitted disease and gastrointestinal infections. We determined whether rifalazil influences CYP3A4 metabolism by studying the effect of a single oral, 25 mg dose of rifalazil administered to healthy postmenopausal women, on the steady-state pharmacokinetics (PK) of ethinyl estradiol (EE) during administration of Ortho-Novum 1/35 (EE/NET). Noncompartmental PK and sequential statistical analyses were performed to establish if and when subjects achieved steady-state EE plasma concentrations and to determine whether this steady state was altered by rifalazil administration.