[The similarity of drug names as a possible cause of confusion: Analysis of data from outpatient care].

Background: The incidence of adverse drug events (ADE) described in the literature varies between 6.5 and 20 %. Furthermore, it is assumed that up to 29 % of ADE are due to medication errors as a result of confusion because of similarities in spelling (sound alike) or in name, physical appearance or packaging (look alike).

[A structured case analysis from the Critical Incident Reporting System of the German Medical Association and the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians].

Background: Reporting systems for near misses are necessary to improve patient safety. In Germany, different systems are publicly available on both a national and regional level or as systems related to various medical domains. In contrast with the British Registry, our reporting systems still lack systematic evaluation.

Supporting breast cancer decisions using formalized guidelines and experts decision patterns: initial prototype and evaluation.

Transparent decisions and its documentation of breast cancer patients' therapy are getting more important especially since modern therapeutic approaches favor personalized forms of treatment. The medical decisions for a treatment are very complex, because there are rules and different options for each patient. To support the decision process, we analyzed the current decision rules and implemented them in a prototype of a rule-based expert system.

Expression and regulation of luteinizing hormone/human chorionic gonadotropin receptors in ovarian cancer and its correlation to human chorionic gonadotropin-doxorubicin sensitivity.

Objective: Ovarian cancer cell lines and tissues express gonadotropin receptors. Conjugation of cytostatics to ligands of these receptors may increase the specificity of cytotoxic drugs.

Study Design: Toxicity of doxorubicin-human chorionic gonadotropin conjugates was determined in 4 ovarian cancer cell lines.

Cytotoxic effect of conjugates of doxorubicin and human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) in breast cancer cells.

Cytotoxic activity of drug conjugates of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) and doxorubicin alone was investigated compared to doxorubicin in breast cancer cells with and without expression of hCG receptors. Expression of hCG receptor was determined in MCF-7 and MB231 breast cancer cell line using a multiplex nested rt-PCR approach. The entire sequence of mRNA encoding for hCG receptor was detected in MCF-7 but not in MB231 breast cancer cell line.