Antibiotic Prescribing Trends Before and After Implementation of an Audit and Feedback Program in Internal Ward of a Tertiary Hospital in Tehran.

We implemented a post prescribing review and feedback program to investigate its effect on appropriateness of antimicrobial use and antimicrobial consumption rate. A pre-post interventional study conducted in internal ward of Imam Hossein teaching hospital. For nine months of intervention phase, medical file of all patients who received intravenous antibiotic were reviewed by a clinical pharmacy specialist.

Magnesium Sulfate in Exacerbations of COPD in Patients Admitted to Internal Medicine Ward.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of intravenous magnesium sulfate on patients with COPD exacerbation requiring hospitalization. In this randomized clinical trial 30 patients with COPD exacerbation were studied. Patients were randomly assigned to group A (case) who concurrent with standard therapy received 2 g magnesium sulfate in normal saline infused in 20 minutes on days one to three and group B (control) who received standard medications and placebo.

Approach to undiagnosed exudative pleural effusion: the diagnostic yield of blind pleural biopsy.

Background: Blind percutaneous pleural biopsy has traditionally been performed to investigate the etiology of exudative pleural effusion in which the initial thoracocentesis has been non- diagnostic. In view of the increasing use of image-guided and thoracoscopic pleural biopsies, this study examined the role of blind Abrams pleural biopsy in the investigation of the exudative pleural effusion in the largest tertiary pulmonary center in Tehran, Iran.

Methods: All patients with pleural effusion admitted from September 2007 to April 2009 entered in this study.