BACKGROUND Antenatal steroids are standard of care for women who are at risk of preterm delivery; however, antenatal steroid dosing and formulation have not been evaluated adequately. The standard clinical 2-dose treatment with betamethasone-acetate+betamethasone-phosphate is more effective than 2 doses of betamethasone-phosphate for the induction of lung maturation in preterm fetal sheep. We h...

BACKGROUND Betamethasone is used for its antiinflammatory and immunosuppressive effects in disorders of many organ systems. However, the pharmacokinetic properties of betamethasone in plasma after intramuscular injection of betamethasone sodium phosphate and betamethasone acetate dual-acting suspension need further investigation. OBJECTIVES The main aim of this study was to determine the phar...

BACKGROUND Central nervous system injuries after transforaminal epidural steroid injections have been ascribed to occlusion of the blood vessels supplying the spinal cord and brain by the particulate steroid. METHODS The authors compared the sizes of the particles of the steroids methylprednisolone acetate, triamcinolone acetonide, dexamethasone sodium phosphate, betamethasone sodium phosphat...

The effect of pH, media, phosphate concentration and ionic strength on the kinetics of thermal degradation of betamethasone valerate and betamethasone dipropionate has been investigated. A validated HPLC method has been used to determine the parent compounds and their major thermal degradation products identified in the reaction. Betamethasone-17-valerate gave rise to two major products, namely...

background and objective: preterm birth is a public health problem and late preterm birth (deliveries between 34-36 weeks of gestation) accounts for 75% of all preterm births. antenatal betamethasone can reduce the severity of respiratory distress in preterm infants and its effect is accepted in 24-34 weeks of gestation. our goal was to determine the neonatal outcomes of betamethasone prescript...

BACKGROUND Antenatal betamethasone is routinely used for the prevention of neonatal respiratory distress syndrome in preterm infants. However, little is known of the long term effects of exposure to antenatal betamethasone on lung function in adulthood. METHODS Five hundred and thirty four 30 year olds whose mothers had participated in the first and largest randomised controlled trial of ante...

Maternal administration of betamethasone to enhance fetal lung maturation for women who threaten preterm labor is common clinical practice. However, recommendations regarding the choice of betamethasone formulations for perinatal use are vague. The disposition of betamethasone from two commonly used antenatal formulations is poorly understood. We therefore designed a study to capture the true p...

A new simple and rapid TLC-densitometric procedure for the separation and identification of betamethasone and its related substances, betamethasone-17,21-dipropionate, betamethasone-17-valerate, betamethasone-21-valerate and also betamethasone disodium phosphate was developed. One of the chromatographic systems proposed in this study, which has been satisfactory applied in separation of four pa...

Administration of L-carnitine or betamethasone to pregnant rats failed to increase either the total phospholipid or dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC) contents in foetal rat lungs on the 20th day of gestation, compared to controls. The combined administration of betamethasone (0.3 mg/kg) and L-carnitine (80 mg/kg) resulted in a pronounced increase of dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (7.8 +/- 2...