Endovascular repair of iliac artery aneurysms has emerged as an alternative to traditional open surgical repair. Although there is little consensus on indications to preserve hypogastric blood flow during aneurysm repair, it is well understood that complications from bilateral hypogastric occlusion may be significant. The GORE EXCLUDER Iliac Branch Endoprosthesis (W. L. Gore and Associates, Fla...

Etanercept is approved for the treatment of moderate to severe plaque psoriasis at a dose of 50 mg twice weekly for 3 months followed by a maintenance dosage of 50 mg weekly thereafter. Clinical studies have shown excellent efficacy, favorable benefit to side-effects ratio, and safe long-term usage. Extensive information on safety is available as etanercept has been used for many years for othe...

This review discusses the pharmacology and clinical applications of hirudin, a bivalent direct thrombin inhibitor (DTI). Besides the current major indication for hirudin--anticoagulation of patients with heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT)--the experience with hirudin in other indications, especially acute coronary syndromes, are briefly presented. Hirudins have been formally studied prior t...

Drug-eluting stents (DES) were first approved in the United States in 2003 on the basis of improvement in angiographic and clinical restenosis. The first 2 DES, now referred to as “first-generation” DES, were the sirolimuseluting stent (SES) (Cypher, Cordis Corporation, Miami Lakes, Florida; approved in 2003) and paclitaxel-eluting stent (PES) (Taxus, Boston Scientific, Natick, Massachusetts; a...

Facing substantial obstacles to developing new therapies for rare diseases, some sponsors are looking to 'repurpose' drugs already approved for other conditions and use those therapies to treat rare diseases. In an effort to facilitate such repurposing and speed the delivery of new therapies to people who need them, we have established a new resource, the Rare Disease Repurposing Database (RDRD...

Background: The clinical field has vast sick data that has not been analyzed. Discovering a way to analyze this raw data and turn it into an information treasure can save many lives. Using data mining methods is an efficient way to analyze this large amount of raw data. It can predict the future with accurate knowledge of the past, providing new insights into disease diagnosis and prevention. S...

OBJECTIVE The lag in the approval and development of neurological drugs between Japan and other countries has been a major issue for patients with neurological diseases. The objective of this study was to analyze the factors contributing to the delay in the launching of neurological drugs in Japan. METHODS We analyzed data from Japan and the US for the approval of 36 standard neurological dru...