ABSTRACT
Background: Pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), a common condition among women of reproductive age caused by various aerobic and anaerobic organisms, may sometimes lead to complications like infertility, ectopic pregnancy and chronic pelvic pain. Moxifloxacin is a broad spectrum bactericidal antibiotic acting against many gram positive, gram negative aerobic organisms and anaerobes. Rapid absorption and high bioavailability allow single daily dosing and improves compliance. The present study was done to compare the clinical and microbiological outcomes in PID patients treated with conventional doxycycline- metronidazole and moxifloxacin therapy.Methods: Women with uncomplicated PID, randomized into two groups either received 400 mg single dose of moxifloxacin daily for 14 days (group A) or doxycycline 100 mg + metronidazole 500 mg twice daily for 14 days (group B). Temperature, TLC count, ESR, CRP, microbiological assessment, Visual analogue score for pain, vaginal discharge, dyspareunia and backache were noted. The bacteriological cure was assessed by high vaginal swab for organism identification by gram stain, 10% KOH and blood sample by ELISA.Results: Total 60 women were enrolled and randomized into two groups. There was significant reduction of CRP and improved TLC in the moxifloxacin treated group. Visual analogue scores for pain, vaginal discharge and malaise were significantly reduced in the group treated with moxifloxacin. Nausea, vomiting, metallic taste, dyspepsia and diarrhoea were complained by a significant number of patients of doxycycline + metronidazole group, in contrast to the patients receiving moxifloxacin.Conclusions: Moxifloxacin 400 mg once daily, is effective and safe for treatment of PID.
ABSTRACT
Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), the most common myeloproliferative disorder, occurring due to balanced reciprocal translocation between chromosome 9 and 22 and resulting in a chimeric oncogene called breakpoint cluster region-abelson (BCR-ABL) whose protein product has tyrosine kinase activity, causes uncontrolled proliferation of the myeloid cells. Although, imatinib, the first-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) achieved an extremely high response rate, some patients developed resistance to it. Thus, second-generation TKIs such as nilotinib, dasatinib, bosutinib were developed which proved very useful, till the emergence of T315I point mutation which occurs in the BCR-ABL gene and renders CML resistant to previous TKIs. Ponatinib, a third generation TKI approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), showed great promise as it was effective even against T315I point mutation. However, a recent increase in the incidence of blood clots observed in patients taking ponatinib has resulted in FDA temporarily suspending all trials, marketing and distribution of the drug. Hence, whether ponatinib evolves as a miracle or disaster for the patients of CML is yet to be answered.
ABSTRACT
he study assessed 54 advertisements of 145 different drugs, published over one year (from December 2011 to November 2012) in an Indian medical journal, circulated widely mainly among general practitioners (GPs). The ethical guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO) and Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI) for medicinal drug promotion were applied. The brand name was mentioned in all advertisements (100% compliance both with the WHO and OPPI criteria) and the names of the active ingredients were also mentioned in 128 (90.14%) advertisements. However, major adverse drug reactions were mentioned in only two advertisements (1.37%); precautions, contraindications and warnings in only two (1.37%); and major interactions in only one (0.68%). Only three advertisements (2.06%) were well substantiated with references. To ensure the ethical promotionof drugs among GPs, journals must introduce compulsory review and appraisal of promotional advertisements by a dedicated review board, including at least one member trained in pharmacology and one representative from the medical division of a pharmaceutical company.