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The release of cisplatin (CDDP) encapsulated in temperature-sensitive unilamellar liposomes to murine SCC VII carcinoma by localized hyperthermia and the effects of the treatment on tumor growth were studied. A transition temperature of the temperature-sensitive liposomes containing cisplatin (LIP-CDDP) was 41 degrees C. Twenty-four hours after injection of LIP-CDDP, the heated tumors (42 degrees C, 60 min) contained 3.3 times more CDDP than the unheated tumors receiving free CDDP. Although the uptake of liposome-associated CDDP by liver was approximately threefold greater at 1.5 h after injection than uptake of free CDDP, it decreased about 50% over a 24-h period. No difference in uptake of the two forms of CDDP by kidney was observed. The combination of LIP-CDDP and localized heating at 42 or 43 degrees C was more effective relative to the amount of CDDP in delaying tumor growth than that of free CDDP and hyperthermia. Treatment with LIP-CDDP plus local heating resulted in a dose-modifying factor of 5.3 when compared with free CDDP and no hyperthermia. The dose-modifying factor was 2.8 when treatment with LIP-CDDP and heat was compared with treatment with free CDDP and heat. Thus CDDP could be released selectively from the temperature-sensitive liposomes by heat and resulted in both a greater uptake of the drug and a delay in tumor growth.

An 87-year-old womandied of rapidly progressive pneumoniadue to Aeromonas hydrophila shortly after a neardrowning event. Autopsy showed necrotizing pneumonia and postmortem cultures of both blood and lung revealed the organism. Fulminant pneumonia should be considered in patients of a near-drowning event.

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Weretrospectively analyzed 20 cases of renal infarction to identify the problems in tentatively diagnosing renal infarction. The subjects consisted of 12 outpatients and 8 inpatients whose diagnosis was confirmed by renal scintigram and/or contrast computedtomography.Renal infarction was tentatively diagnosed in only 4 of the 12 outpatients. Causes of hospitalization were cerebral emboli in 5 cases, peripheral emboli in the extremities in 2 cases and one case involved percutaneous transmitral commissurotomy. On initial urinalysis, ll cases (55 %) showed less than 2+ hematuria using dipsticks to test for occult blood. The mean lactic dehydrogenase value was as high as 2,096 IU while the meanaspartate aminotransferase and meanalanine aminotransferase were 83.1 IU and 78.6 IU. Abdominal ultrasonography revealed abnormalities in only one of 18 cases. In conclusion, since only a moderate degree ofhematuria was seen in about half the cases and it was difficult to detect renal abnormalities by ultrasonography, a tentative diagnosis of renal infarction may be difficult in some cases.

A method affording direct estimation of the drug absorption rate from blood level data using arbitrary time intervals has been derived based on the staircase input principle. In the derivation, the drug was assumed to follow linear kinetics where the plasma concentration of the drug after an impulse input is expressed by a multiexponential function. Drug absorption was assumed to occur at a constant rate during each subsequent sampling interval. The absorption rate profiles obtained by the method using several numerical examples were expressed as a set of rectangular pulses. Divergence in the profiles reflected blood sampling measurement errors rather than errors due to the deconvolution. Smoothing of the rate profiles by calculating the mean of the absorption rates between adjacent time intervals gave realistic results. Absorption rate profiles for theophylline obtained by the method using published data gave information on the initiation and termination of the absorption as well as the extent of absorption from the dosage form.

Interactions of multivalent anionic porphyrins and their iron(III) complexes with cationic peptides, V3(Ba-L) and V3(IIIB), which correspond to those of the V3 loop regions of the gp120 envelope proteins of the HIV-1(Ba-L) and HIV-1(IIIB) strains, respectively, are studied by UV/Vis, circular dichroism, (1)H NMR, and EPR spectroscopy, a microcalorimetric titration method, and anti-HIV assays. Tetrakis(3,5-dicarboxylatophenyl)porphyrin (P1), tetrakis[4-(3,5-dicarboxylatophenylmethoxy)phenyl]porphyrin (P2), and their ferric complexes (Fe(III)P1 and Fe(III)P2) were used as the multivalent anionic porphyrins. P1 and Fe(III)P1 formed stable complexes with both V3 peptides (binding constant K>10(6) M(-1)) through combined electrostatic and van der Waals interactions. Coordination of the His residues in V3(Ba-L) to the iron center of Fe(III)P1 also played an important role in the complex stabilization. As P2 and Fe(III)P2 form self-aggregates in aqueous solution even at low concentrations, detailed analysis of their interactions with the V3 peptides could not be performed. To ascertain whether the results obtained in the model system are applicable to a real biological system, anti-HIV-1(BA-L) and HIV-1(IIIB) activity of the porphyrins is examined by multiple nuclear activation of a galactosidase indicator (MAGI) and 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assays. There is little correlation between chemical analysis and actual anti-HIV activity, and the size rather than the number of the anionic groups of the porphyrin is important for anti-HIV activity. All the porphyrins show high selectivity, low cytotoxicity, and high viral activity. Fe(III)P1 and Fe(III)P2 are used for the pharmacokinetic study. Half-lives of these iron porphyrins in serum of male Wistar rats are around 4 to 6 h owing to strong interaction of these porphyrins with serum albumin.

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