Prevalence and safety-relevance of drug-related problems in German community pharmacies.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess prevalence and characteristics, including safety-relevance, of drug-related problems (DRPs) detectable in community pharmacy routine service, and to investigate the influence of relevant risk factors.

Methods: Patients in 69 community pharmacies in Berlin were surveyed using a checklist for quality assurance of DRP detection in order to enable quantitative detection. An expert committee assessed the safety-relevance of detected DRPs by use of an algorithm.

[Unlicensed use of drugs: measures to minimize risks].

The use of unlicensed drugs is an unsettling issue in medical circles. "Dear Doctor Letters", batch recalls and important notifications about them are not provided systematically. Unlicensed use is, however, sometimes the only promising option for further medical treatment.

Multipotent cells of monocytic origin improve damaged heart function.

Recently, we generated cells with multipotent properties from blood monocytes that in vitro differentiate into various somatic cell types. This experimental study investigated whether these programmable cells of monocytic origin (PCMO) succeed to restore left ventricular function after myocardial infarction (MI). PCMO were generated from monocytes by exposition to RPMI medium containing M-CSF and IL-3 for 6 days.

Polymorphonuclear neutrophil chemiluminescence in periodontal disease.

The oxidative metabolism of polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNs) in rapidly progressive periodontitis (RPP, n = 19), localized juvenile periodontitis (LJP, n = 10), adults periodontitis (AP, n = 10) and healthy control subjects (HS, n = 39) was compared using the luminol chemiluminescence (CL) method. Possible influences of the isolation procedure on CL were circumvented by replacing starch with Haemaccell 35 as the sedimentation agent. In all groups, CL was significantly higher with autologous serum than with normal pooled serum (NPS) and there was a significant linear relationship between the two values.