What do I need to know about glycopeptide antibiotics?

Glycopeptides have been crucial in the fight against Gram-positive pathogens with their use within paediatrics becoming ever prevalent. This article reviews the pharmacology of the commonly used glycopeptides, vancomycin and teicoplanin, and discusses the practical aspects of their use in the clinical setting.

A practitioner's guide for exploring water quality patterns using principal components analysis and Procrustes.

To design sustainable water quality monitoring programs, practitioners must choose meaningful variables, justify the temporal and spatial extent of measurements, and demonstrate that program objectives are successfully achieved after implementation. Consequently, data must be analyzed across several variables and often from multiple sites and seasons. Multivariate techniques such as ordination are common throughout the water quality literature, but methods vary widely and could benefit from greater standardization.

Practical pharmacokinetics: what do you really need to know?

Having some understanding of pharmacokinetics is important for all clinicians when prescribing medications. Key elements to effective and safe prescribing include making sure that we don't underdose a medication making it ineffective, but also do not overprescribe a treatment known to cause toxic effects. In paediatrics, there are significant physiological and developmental differences that add to the challenges of safe prescribing.

Intravenous salbutamol for childhood asthma: evidence-based medicine?

Intravenous salbutamol is commonly used to treat children with severe asthma unresponsive to inhaled β2-agonist therapy. However, in this setting, there is little clinical trial data demonstrating its effectiveness. Additionally, there are significant concerns that intravenous salbutamol-dosing recommendations for children with acute asthma are excessive, and unnecessarily raise the potential for adverse reactions, such as lactic acidosis and tachycardia which, by increasing respiratory workload, exacerbate respiratory failure.

Propranolol for infantile haemangiomas: a review.

Infantile haemangiomas are the most common benign tumour of infancy. However the majority are self-resolving and only a small minority of cases require treatment, with various different medications being used in the past. Over the last few years, propranolol, a non-selective β-blocker, has become a popular and successful treatment for infantile haemangiomas.

A pilot study to gauge nutritional behavior regarding eye health in an urban community health center population.

Purpose: The purpose of this pilot study was to assess the knowledge base of an urban community health center population on the link between nutrition and eye health to determine current habits and then utilize this information for an educational intervention.

Methods: A survey was given to 150 patients of an ethnically mixed, lower socioeconomic cohort. The data served as a guide for a focus group.

Simulating Secondary Succession of Elk Forage Values in a Managed Forest Landscape, Western Washington.

Modern timber management practices often influence forage production for elk (Cervus elaphus) on broad temporal and spatial scales in forested landscapes. We incorporated site-specific information on postharvesting forest succession and forage characteristics in a simulation model to evaluate past and future influences of forest management practices on forage values for elk in a commercially managed Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii, PSME)-western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla, TSHE) forest in western Washington. We evaluated future effects of: (1) clear-cut logging 0, 20, and 40% of harvestable stands every five years; (2) thinning 20-year-old Douglas fir forests; and (3) reducing the harvesting cycle from 60 to 45 years.