Drug interactions in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis.

Background: Treating patients with inflammatory joint diseases (rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis) according to established treatment algorithms often requires the simultaneous use of three or more medications to relieve symptoms and prevent long-term joint damage as well as disability.

Objective: To assess and give an overview on drug-drug interactions in the pharmacotherapy of inflammatory joint diseases with regards to their clinical relevance.

Methods: All possible drug combinations were evaluated using three commercially available drug interaction programs.

Genetic radiation risks: a neglected topic in the low dose debate.

Objectives: To investigate the accuracy and scientific validity of the current very low risk factor for hereditary diseases in humans following exposures to ionizing radiation adopted by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation and the International Commission on Radiological Protection. The value is based on experiments on mice due to reportedly absent effects in the Japanese atomic bomb (Abomb) survivors.

Methods: To review the published evidence for heritable effects after ionising radiation exposures particularly, but not restricted to, populations exposed to contamination from the Chernobyl accident and from atmospheric nuclear test fallout.

'Lifestyle' and cancer rates in former East and West Germany: the possible contribution of diagnostic radiation exposures.

Breast and prostatic cancer as well as leukaemia in childhood have remarkably increased over some decades in the Federal Republic of Germany as well as in several other highly developed industrial nations. Such increase was much less or not observable in East Germany between 1960 and 1989 where diagnostic exposures were applied to a lesser extent. Low-level radiation can cause these diseases and the difference of cancer rates gives rise to renewed evaluation of current risk estimates.

Risk estimates for meningiomas and other late effects after diagnostic X-ray exposure of the skull.

This study aims to investigate the contribution of diagnostic exposures to the rising rates of brain tumours and other neoplasms which are observed in several industrial nations. Included are benign tumours in the head and neck region and cataracts which are neglected in usual risk estimates by international and national radiation protection committees. Dose-effect relationships for tumours of the brain, skin, thyroid and other sites of the head region, leukaemia and cataracts are taken from the literature.