Depression and anxiety in patients with AL amyloidosis as assessed by the SF-36 questionnaire: experience in 1226 patients.

Background: Our study examines depression and anxiety in patients with immunoglobulin light chain (AL) amyloidosis, and determines the associations between the mental health problems and patient characteristics (age, gender, race, marital status, alcohol consumption, smoking status and cardiac involvement).

Methods: Patients with AL amyloidosis who completed the 36-item Short Form General Health Survey (SF-36) during initial evaluation at a single center were studied. The SF-36 included assessments of depression, anxiety, role limitation due to emotional problems and the mental health subscale score.

Creating computable algorithms for symptom management in an outpatient thoracic oncology setting.

Context: Adequate symptom management is essential to ensure quality cancer care, but symptom management is not always evidence based. Adapting and automating national guidelines for use at the point of care may enhance use by clinicians.

Objectives: This article reports on a process of adapting research evidence for use in a clinical decision support system that provided individualized symptom management recommendations to clinicians at the point of care.

Drug-drug interactions between warfarin and psychotropics: updated review of the literature.

As the number of psychotropics on the market expands, the likelihood increases that a patient requiring anticoagulation with warfarin will receive concurrent treatment with a psychotropic drug. Because warfarin undergoes hepatic metabolism and is highly protein bound, it is particularly prone to drug interactions; in addition, its relatively narrow therapeutic window places patients at risk of either hemorrhagic or thrombotic complications. Although warfarin's interactions with other drugs have long been studied, the most recent review of the literature of warfarin's interactions with psychotropics was over a decade ago.

Detrimental effects of divalproex on warfarin therapy following mechanical valve replacement.

Drug interaction between Warfarin and psychiatric agents may have important therapeutic effects for patients undergoing cardiac surgery. We present a case of a patient in whom concurrent treatment with Warfarin and valproic acid resulted in supratherapeutic international normalized ratio values. A discussion of the possible mechanisms for this interaction as well as a review of interactions between Warfarin and other psychiatric medications is the subject of this case report.