IMPORTANCE Hyperkalemia is a potentially life-threatening condition predominantly seen in patients treated with renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) inhibitors with stage 3 or greater chronic kidney disease (CKD) who may also have diabetes, heart failure, or both. OBJECTIVES To select starting doses for a phase 3 study and to evaluate the long-term safety and efficacy of a potassium-bi...

background: osteonecrosis (on) is known to be one of the most disabling complications following corticosteroid (cs) medications. however, evidence regarding risk of asymptomatic prevalence of on among different diseases and the impact of variable steroid regimens are conflicting. we aimed to determine the prevalence of on of femoral head in asymptomatic patients with systemic rheumatic diseases...

abstract background and objective: pain relief during labour is an important determinant of a women’s birth experience. there are numerous pain relief techniques which can be used either with or without pain medication. the aim of our study was to compare the effect of remifentanil alone and its effect in pain relief while using with ketamine during labour. methods: after obtaining informed con...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Some recent studies on radiation lens injuries have indicated much lower dose thresholds than specified by the current radiation protection guidelines. The purpose of this research was to measure the lens dose during brain CT scans with multidetector row CT and to assess methods for estimating the lens dose. MATERIALS AND METHODS With 8 types of multidetector row CT sca...

Opioid rotation refers to a switch from one opioid to another in an effort to improve the response to analgesic therapy or reduce adverse effects. It is a common method to address the problem of poor opioid responsiveness despite optimal dose titration. Guidelines for opioid rotation are empirical and begin with the selection of a safe and reasonably effective starting dose for the new opioid, ...

  Background: Osteonecrosis (ON) is known to be one of the most disabling complications following corticosteroid (CS) medications. However, evidence regarding risk of asymptomatic prevalence of ON among different diseases and the impact of variable steroid regimens are conflicting. We aimed to determine the prevalence of ON of femoral head in asymptomatic patients with systemic rheumatic diseas...

INTRODUCTION Dose escalation with tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-blockers is poorly characterized in pharmacy benefit management (PBM) settings. METHODS This retrospective study used integrated pharmacy and medical claims from the PBM Medco to characterize dose escalation among rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients treated with etanercept and adalimumab. Data from adults with RA with pharmacy claim...

The aim of this study was to determine whether outcomes in poorly controlled asthma can be further improved with a starting dose of inhaled budesonide higher than that recommended in international guidelines. The study had a parallel-group design and included 61 subjects with poorly controlled asthma, randomized to receive 3,200 microg or 1,600 microg budesonide daily by Turbuhaler for 8 weeks ...

tension suggest starting with carvedilol 12-5 mg daily, with subsequent increases to achieve control of the blood pressure. On the basis of our results, however, a lower starting dose may be needed in elderly hypertensive patients to avoid first dose postural symptoms. Similar caution is probably necessary in other groups of patients likely to be sensitive to combined x , blockade-namely, those...