Off-label and unlicenced medicine administration to paediatric emergency department patients.

Objective: To determine the prevalence and nature of off-label and unlicenced (off-label/unlicenced) medicine administration to paediatric ED patients.

Methods: We undertook a retrospective, observational study in six EDs (July 2011 to June 2012, inclusive). Patients, aged 0-17 years, who were administered a medicine in the ED were included.

Complementary and alternative medicine use among paediatric emergency department patients.

Aim: To determine the period prevalence and nature of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use among paediatric emergency department (ED) patients and the perceptions of CAM among the CAM administrators.

Methods: A survey was undertaken in four Victorian EDs (January to September 2013). A convenience sample of parents/carers accompanying paediatric patients completed a self-administered questionnaire.

Vitamin d and stage 5 chronic kidney disease: a new paradigm?

Vitamin D receptor agonists (VDRA) are currently recommended for the treatment of secondary hyperparathyroidism in stage 5 CKD. They are considered to be contraindicated in the presence of low or normal (for a dialysis patient) levels of PTH due to the risk of developing adynamic bone disease, with consequent vascular calcification. However, these recommendations are increasingly at odds with the epidemiological evidence, which consistently shows a large survival advantage for patients treated with low-dose VDRAs, regardless of plasma calcium, phosphate, or PTH.