Cost-utility analysis of searching electronic health records and cascade testing to identify and diagnose familial hypercholesterolaemia in England and Wales.

Background And Aims: The cost effectiveness of cascade testing for familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH) is well recognised. Less clear is the cost effectiveness of FH screening when it includes case identification strategies that incorporate routinely available data from primary and secondary care electronic health records.

Methods: Nine strategies were compared, all using cascade testing in combination with different index case approaches (primary care identification, secondary care identification, and clinical assessment using the Simon Broome (SB) or Dutch Lipid Clinic Network (DLCN) criteria).

Paracetamol: not as safe as we thought? A systematic literature review of observational studies.

Objectives: We conducted a systematic literature review to assess the adverse event (AE) profile of paracetamol.

Methods: We searched Medline and Embase from database inception to 1 May 2013. We screened for observational studies in English, which reported mortality, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal (GI) or renal AEs in the general adult population at standard analgesic doses of paracetamol.

Measurement of posaconazole, itraconazole, and hydroxyitraconazole in plasma/serum by high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection.

Background: Itraconazole and posaconazole are used in the prevention and treatment of invasive fungal infections. However, the oral bioavailability of both compounds varies widely, and dose-serum concentration relationships are poorly defined for these analytes. The aim of this work was to develop and validate a simple assay that could be implemented in most laboratories for the purpose of therapeutic drug monitoring.