Comparing two regimens of intravaginal misoprostol with intravaginal gemeprost for second-trimester pregnancy termination: a randomised controlled trial.

Aim: To compare the efficacy and safety of intravaginal misoprostol 200 µg, 400 µg and gemeprost regimens for second-trimester termination of pregnancy (TOP).

Methods: A three- armed randomi sed controlled trial (Clinical Trial Certificate 1100015) where 116 women undergoing second-trimester TOP were given intravaginal misoprostol 200 µ g (=37), misoprostol 400 µg (=40) or gemeprost 1 mg (=39) at 4- hour intervals until abortion occurred with a maximum of five doses.

Results: The misoprostol 400 µg group had the highest incidence of successful abortions (92.

Functionalized carbon nanomaterials: exploring the interactions with Caco-2 cells for potential oral drug delivery.

Although carbon nanomaterials (CNMs) have been increasingly studied for their biomedical applications, there is limited research on these novel materials for oral drug delivery. As such, this study aimed to explore the potential of CNMs in oral drug delivery, and the objectives were to evaluate CNM cytotoxicity and their abilities to modulate paracellular transport and the P-glycoprotein (P-gp) efflux pump. Three types of functionalized CNMs were studied, including polyhydroxy small-gap fullerenes (OH-fullerenes), carboxylic acid functionalized single-walled carbon nanotubes (f SWCNT-COOH) and poly(ethylene glycol) functionalized single-walled carbon nanotubes (f SWCNT-PEG), using the well-established Caco-2 cell monolayer to represent the intestinal epithelium.

Impact of colony-stimulating factors to reduce febrile neutropenic events in breast cancer patients receiving docetaxel plus cyclophosphamide chemotherapy.

Background: Data from US Oncology Adjuvant Trial 9735 has shown that four cycles of docetaxel plus cyclophosphamide (TC) improved disease-free and overall survival when compared against doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide (AC) in early-stage breast cancer. The febrile neutropenia (FN) rate was 4% in this study without primary granulocyte colony-stimulating factors (G-CSF) prophylaxis. However, the incidence of docetaxel-induced myelosuppression is recognized to be higher among Asian population.