Objective: The present study aimed to evaluate patients' knowledge about their newly prescribed medications, contributing factors, and preferred sources of medication-related information.
Methods: A cross-sectional study using an online survey was conducted among 931 customers of a mail-order pharmacy. Medication-related knowledge was examined using a novel knowledge index (KI) assessing medication dosage, indication, time of administration, and side effects.
Tissue hypoxia is associated with the development of organ dysfunction and death in critically ill patients commonly captured using blood lactate. The kinetic parameters of serial lactate evaluations are superior at predicting mortality compared with single values. S-adenosylhomocysteine (SAH), which is also associated with hypoxia, was recently established as a useful predictor of septic organ dysfunction and death.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA common final pathway of pathogenetic mechanisms in septic organ dysfunction and death is a lack or non-utilization of oxygen. Plasma concentrations of lactate serve as surrogates for the oxygen-deficiency-induced imbalance between energy supply and demand. As S-adenosylhomocysteine (SAH) was shown to reflect tissue hypoxia, we compared the ability of SAH versus lactate to predict the progression of inflammatory and septic disease to septic organ dysfunction and death.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Body surface area (BSA)-based dosing of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) results in marked inter-individual variability in drug levels, whereas determination of plasma 5-FU concentration and area under the curve (AUC) is a more precise dosing method but has not been integrated into clinical routine. We conducted a multicenter, prospective study to study 5-FU AUC distributions and assess clinical factors predicting therapeutic dosing in patients receiving BSA-dosed 5-FU.
Methods: Between June 2017 and January 2018, a total of 434 patients receiving continuous, infusional BSA-dosed 5-FU from 37 sites in Germany were included.
Z Evid Fortbild Qual Gesundhwes
April 2020
Background: The incidence of adverse drug events (ADE) described in the literature varies between 6.5 and 20 %. Furthermore, it is assumed that up to 29 % of ADE are due to medication errors as a result of confusion because of similarities in spelling (sound alike) or in name, physical appearance or packaging (look alike).
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