Introduction: We intended to assess the accuracy of re-expressed Modification of Diet for Renal Disease (MDRD) and Cockcroft-Gault (CG) equations to estimate glomerular filtration rate (GFR) in chronic kidney disease in two different etiologies of acute renal failure (ARF): acute tubular necrosis (ATN) and acute glomerulonephritis (AGN). Methods: Patients admitted for ARF or the patients compl...

Clomipramine is a tricyclic antidepressant. Different methods for determination of clomipramine hydrochloride in plasma have been described. Most of these procedures favor the use of acidic back-extraction in extraction procedure and HPLC as the analytical technique. In this study, the clomipramine extraction procedure was modified and a direct injection to the column was performed to shorten t...

BACKGROUND To evaluate the efficiency of platelet-rich plasma preparations by means of a double centrifugation tube method to obtain platelet-rich canine plasma at a concentration at least 4 times higher than the baseline value and a concentration of white blood cells not exceeding twice the reference range. A complete blood count was carried out for each sample and each concentrate. Whole bloo...

BACKGROUND There are many sources of variability in plasma samples drawn for pharmacokinetic analyses or therapeutic drug monitoring. In this article, methods are proposed on how to prevent sample dilution (Part I) and contamination effects (Part II) in plasma samples, using doxorubicin as an example. METHODS Experiments were performed in the laboratory setting to identify factors that could ...

UNLABELLED The purpose of the study was to investigate the efficacy and safety of Cerebrolysin in patients with hemorrhagic stroke. The primary objective of this trial was to assess the clinical efficacy and safety of a 10-days course of therapy with a daily administration of Cerebrolysin (50 mL i.v. per day). The trial had to demonstrate that Cerebrolysin treatment is safe in hemorrhagic strok...

Acupuncture, one of the Oriental medical therapeutic techniques that can be traced back at least 2500 years, is growing in popularity all over the world. Korea has continued to develop its own unique tradition of medicine throughout its long history, and has formed different types of acupuncture methods. The purpose of this review is to summarize clinical case studies in acupuncture and related...

We cringe at the pervasive notion that a randomised trial needs to yield equal sample sizes in the comparison groups. Unfortunately, that conceptual misunderstanding can lead to bias by investigators who force equality, especially if by non-scientific means. In simple, unrestricted, randomised trials (analogous to repeated coin-tossing), the sizes of groups should indicate random variation. In ...

Patient-Reported Outcomes (PROs) data are increasingly common and widely accepted in clinical investigations of symptoms. Agreements or differences regarding Doctor-Report Outcomes (DROs) VS PROs data are unclear. In this study, we conducted a clinical trial and investigated the agreement levels of DROs VS PROs in symptoms of diabetics. This study had a parallel self-controlled and double blind...

BACKGROUND The Study to Assess Long-term Opioid Medication Effectiveness (SALOME) is a two-stage phase III, single site (Vancouver, Canada), randomized, double blind controlled trial designed to test if hydromorphone is as effective as diacetylmorphine for the treatment of long-term illicit opioid injection. Recruiting participants for clinical trials continues to be a challenge in medical and ...

BACKGROUND Several studies have evaluated the impact on myocardial infarction (MI), stroke, and overall mortality of perioperative beta-blocker use in patients undergoing noncardiac surgery (NCS). However, most studies did not have adequate sample size and statistical power and were therefore underpowered to adequately evaluate these endpoints. OBJECTIVE To conduct a meta-analysis to determin...