Objective. To describe the drug prescription duties held by nursing professionals in the city of Cali (Colombia) during the year of 2008. Methodology. A survey was applied to 135 nurses who work in different kinds of healthcare or administrative services about prescription habits, perceptions about their education, abilities and necessities to prescribe drugs. Results. Drug prescription is a frequent practice in most of the surveyed population,unrelated to the work performed, the postgraduate degree or the job experience. The surveyed consider they need more than a legal support the pharmacological training to prescribe drugs; however they don’t recognize this practice as part of their professional job. Nurses’ drug prescription is sometimes presented as part of their occupation tasks into the institution. Conclusion. Drug prescription is a practice performed by the city nurses and according to the presented results they require an academic, legal, professional debate to be considered between their tasks.
Background: Global pandemic of COVID-19 has attracted a number of proposed treatment therapies. Hydroxychloroquine/Azithromycin (HA) combination has been reported to potentially affect repolarization by prolonging the QTc and causing torsades de pointes (TdP). Methods: We prospectively followed hospitalized patients with PCR confirmed COVID-19. Hydroxychloroquine was administered 400mg twice daily on day 1 and daily for the last 4 days plus daily Azithromycin 250mg. QTc interval was measured via 12 lead ECG prior to initiation of therapy, 3 hours post second dose of hydroxychloroquine, and subsequent daily QTc evaluation via telemetry. Potassium and magnesium were checked daily and replaced accordingly. QTc prolonging medications were discontinued when possible. Results: Sixteen patients were followed for 5 days, 56% were male with average age of 67. Comorbidities were 31% coronary artery disease, 31% diabetes mellitus, 13% congestive heart failure, 69% hypertension, 19% chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, 25% atrial fibrillation, and average BMI of 29. Average Tisdale score was 11/21. Mean QTc prior to HA therapy was 442 ms, 3 hours post second dose 429 ms and on day 5 was 441 ms with a change of (-)3ms compared to prior starting therapy as seen in figures below. Fifteen patients recovered and 1 patient expired. Twenty five percent of patients required ET intubation and mechanical ventilation. Zero patients required stopping of HA therapy. Only 1 patient required 2 extra days of QTc monitoring due to 5th day QTc being 504ms. Conclusion In acutely infected COVID-19 patients with limited comorbidities, repolarization/risk for TdP appears to be low in the presence of HA. With close monitoring and the right patient population, this combination therapy for short term treatment appears to be safe in regards to QTc and the risk for TdP. Although larger published studies have shown repolarization risk, we did not find that to be the case in our relatively healthy population.
Background Vinflunine is a vinca alkaloid indicated as monotherapy for the treatment of patients with advanced or metastatic carcinoma transitional cell urothelial tract after failure of prior treatment that included platinum compounds. Purpose To analyse the use of vinflunine in a 600-bed hospital. Materials and methods Retrospective study of patients treated with vinflunine from February 2010 to April 2011. Data were collected from Oncofarm ® software, medical records of patients and dispensing program to outpatients. Results The authors studied 6 patients: 5 men and 1 woman, mean age: 67 (52-80) years. 4 had distant metastases (M1) at diagnosis and 2 showed no metastasis (M0). As first lines: 2 patients received carboplatin-gemcitabine scheme, with an average of 7 cycles; 2 received carboplatin-gemcitabine with an average of 7 cycles; 1 received 2 cycles of carboplatin-gemcitabine, followed by 4 cycles Gemcitabine; 1 received 5 cycles of cisplatin-gemcitabine, followed by 2 cycles of carboplatin-gemcitabine and 3 cycles of gemcitabine alone. As a second line: 3 patients received Vinflunine an average of 4 cycles; 2 received paclitaxel with an average of 4 cycles, and 1 received 8 cycles of cisplatin-gemcitabine. As a third-line: 2 patients received Vinflunine with an average of 5 cycles and 1 received 3 cycles of paclitaxel, following by a 4th line with 1 cycle of vinflunine. The use of vinflunine regimen in 2 patients was due to progression of liver carcinoma, in 2 to cerebral progression, in 1 to lung and bone progression, and progression in 1 to lung, liver and pelvic node. No patient received other subsequent treatment lines, 3 died of disease progression, 1 is currently being treated with vinflunine and 2 with symptomatic treatment. Conclusions Vinflunine was used in all cases correctly according to its indication, and may be an alternative for patients with advanced transitional cell urothelial tract carcinoma.
The colombian National Bibliographic Index, Publindex, has defined during the last two decades the management and editorial quality, the dissemination and even the number of scientific journals indexed in Colombia 1. The criteria with which Publindex accepts a scientific journal and qualifies it in this index are the road map of a large number of editorial committees and universities. These criteria have not changed much since their inception and corresponded to a minimum editorial approach (ISSN registration, creation of editorial committees, percentage of institutional endogamy, punctuality in publication, among others) rather than results in indicators of use and diffusion (indexation in specialized databases, citations, international collaboration, etc.). For the year 2010, the number of journals indexed in Publindex increased, and it slowed down the promotion of journals to higher categories 2. Due to the above, Publindex adopted in that year a mixed classification system with four categories (A1, A2, B and C) based on the quartiles of the SJR (Scientific Journal Rankings) indexes of Scopus or JCR (Journal Citation Report) of Web of Science (normalized), and it superimposed the top two quartiles of the classification with the Google Scholar Metrics H-5 index (not normalized) in the two lower categories (B and C). With this system, in the convocation No. 768, Publindex recognized 33 journals in the health area (medicine, nursing and pharmacy); 16 because they are indexed in Scopus (Colombia has only two health journals in Web of Science in quartiles inferior to those classified in Scopus) and 17 with the quartile system H-5 of Google Scholar Metrics (GSM). This measurement was aligned with international systems; but it did not correct the editorial stagnation suffered by scientific journals; and there will emerge others if corrections are not early made.
Colombian journals need to be characterized as having an editorial guideline oriented towards achieving international standards and have the best conditions to be accepted in databases, repositories, and bibliometric indices. Deployment of proposals should encompass aspects of policy research, training and technology necessary to induce a significant change in the diffusion and dissemination of knowledge. Open access principles, the use of open source, protection of intellectual property and recognition of the formation of the editor must be the basis of a policy of national publications.
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