[Donepezil therapy by neuropathic pain].

A case report of a successful treatment of neuropathic pain after a plexus brachialis injury is presented. On basis of experience from nerve-injured rat models 5 mg donepezil was added to an already instituted gabapentin therapy of 800 mg x 3 daily. This allowed halving the gapentin dose with fully contained pain alleviation but with a drastic reduction of gabapentin's side effects: ataxia and somnolence.

Orthostatic hypotension during postoperative continuous thoracic epidural bupivacaine-morphine in patients undergoing abdominal surgery.

Fifty patients undergoing colonic surgery received combined thoracic epidural and general anesthesia followed by continuous epidural bupivacaine 0.25% and morphine 0.05 mg/mL, 4 mL/h, for 96 h postoperatively plus oral tenoxicam 20 mg daily.

Treatment of generalized anxiety disorder: comparison of a new beta-blocking drug (CGP 361 A), low-dose neuroleptic (flupenthixol), and placebo.

In an attempt to evaluate an alternative drug treatment to benzodiazepines in generalized anxiety disorders, a placebo controlled trial was carried out with a new beta-adrenergic blocker (CPG 361 A). A low-dosage neuroleptic (flupenthixol) was included as a reference drug. Depending on the clinical assessment scales the placebo treatment resulted in moderate to excellent improvement in 36% to 56% of the patients after four weeks of treatment.

Plasma ratio tryptophan/neutral amino acids in relation to clinical response to paroxetine and clomipramine in patients with major depression.

The pretreatment plasma ratio of tryptophan (Trp) to other large neutral amino acids (LNAA), thought to reflect brain serotonin formation, was determined in 44 inpatients with major depression, who were subsequently treated double-blind on a fixed-dose schedule for 4 weeks with the selective serotonin uptake inhibitor paroxetine (n = 27) or clomipramine (n = 17). The study took place at four clinical centers. Endogenous and non-endogenous depressives were comparable with respect to the ratio Trp/LNAA and clinical improvement and were therefore analyzed together.