ABSTRACT
Background: Chronic lumbar radiculopathy a clinical condition in which there is back and leg pain associated with sensory, reflex, or motor deficits in the area of nerve root distribution lasting for more than 12 weeks. The prevalence of lumbar radiculopathy has been reported to be 5.3% in men and 3.7% in women. Pregabalin and gabapentin, which fit in to a new category of drugs called as alpha-2-delta (?2?) modulators, have been discovered to be effective in the treatment of neuropathic pain related with multiple conditions. So this study was done to compare safety and efficacy of pregabalin and gabapentin in management of pain associated with chronic lumbar radiculopathy.Methods: This was a randomized two arm comparative prospective study. Total 160 patients were enrolled and randomized equally into 2 groups. Group A patients were given capsule pregabalin 75 mg two times a day orally, Group B patients were given tablet gabapentin 300 mg two times a day. Pain intensity was assessed at the start of study i.e. at baseline (0 week), at 6 weeks and at 12 weeks of starting the treatment using numeric pain rating scale.Results: There was significant reduction in pain at the end of 12 weeks in both the groups (p<0.0001), but there was no significant difference between these two groups. The incidence of adverse effects was also more in group A.Conclusions: Both the drugs are having comparable efficacy but gabapentin is more tolerable in such cases.
ABSTRACT
Background: To study cost-effective and cost-benefit analysis of antibiotic prescription in patients who had enteric fever and was given intravenous ceftriaxone. Methods: This was a prospective observational study conducted in a tertiary care hospital. 200 patients who have been diagnosed with enteric fever and were prescribed ceftriaxone were studied and their prescriptions were analyzed. 5 brands of most commonly prescribed ceftriaxone injections were chosen to analyse costeffective and cost-benefit analysis. Our study showed that there was a major difference of prizes between generic and 5 most commonly prescribed brands of the same drug. Use of branded drugs was associated with increase cost of treatment and in many cases was responsible for failure to take complete treatment as prescribed by treating physician. Results: This Study was conducted on 100 patients, 68 males and 32 females, diagnosed with enteric fever. Out of these patients Maximum number of patients were seen between age group of 30-40 years (34) and minimum patients belonged to age group of more than 60 years (8). Analysis of prescriptions revealed that 80 patients were prescribed Branded drugs and 20% were prescribed generic drugs. Out of these 80 patients who were prescribed branded drugs most common 5 brands were studied. The analysis of the cost of single dose of inj ceftriaxone revealed that branded drugs were 3.12 % to 200.84 % more in comparison with generic IV ceftriaxone. Analysis of cost of 1 day of treatment with IV ceftriaxone 1gm revealed similar figures. Total cost of treatment was Rs 595 for generic drug and 1790 for branded drug with maximum MRP. The Analysis of patients who discountinued treatment before completion revealed that most of them belonged to Brand E (30%) and minimum number of patients belonged to Generic group (5%.Conclusion: The cost of most commonly prescribed branded drugs was significantly higher (3%-200%) than generic drug and prescribing branded drugs was associated with failure to take complete treatment as prescribed by treating physician.