Drug-drug interactions are common in elderly hypertensive patients. Computer-based screening could help pharmacists and physicians to recognize potential, clinically significant interactions.

A significant incidence of actual DDIs suggests that DDIs play an important role in patient safety. Drug therapy should be initiated if absolutely necessary, and the number of drugs used to treat elderly patients should be minimized to reduce the incidence of DDI-related adverse patient outcomes.

Pharmacotherapeutic counseling can reduce readmission and emergency department visit rates for disease progression. Improved patient knowledge about adverse drug reactions could be the reason for increased rates of readmissions and emergency department visits due to adverse drug reactions in the intervention group.

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Rehospitalization rates of patients who were prescribed atypical antipsychotic drugs were similar to those of patients who were prescribed typical antipsychotic drugs for both the group with the first psychotic episode and group with chronic schizophrenia.

2 AbstractPurpose: Drug safety classifications give a very basic estimation of risk and should only be used as general guideline when assessing risk of pregnancy-related drug exposure or planning treatment. We conducted a study to assess the strength of association between both the clinical pharmacologists' risk assessment and the FDA risk categorization, and adverse pregnancy outcomes. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed records of 1076 patients consecutively referred to the clinical pharmacology outpatient clinic for pregnancyrelated drug exposures (2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008). Clinical pharmacologists' risk assessments were reviewed in relation to FDA drug categorization and available pregnancy outcomes. Results:Overall, clinical pharmacologists' risk estimation was in agreement with the FDA risk categorization system in only 28% of consulted women, and in only 9% of women with high risk exposure (FDA DX). Clinical pharmacologists' risk assessment confirming high risk drug exposure had a better positive predictive value for adverse pregnancy outcomes than the FDA DX categorization (25% vs. 14%, respectively), while the negative predictive values were similar (92% vs. 94%, respectively). Clinical pharmacologists' risk assessment was a better predictor of adverse pregnancy outcomes when compared to FDA risk categorization [OR 2.11 (95%CI 1.5-3.1; p<0.001) vs. OR 1.52 (95%CI 1.1-2.1; p=0.014), respectively].Conclusions: Additional evaluation beyond the FDA drug classification is essential for safer and more rational drug use in pregnancy. Clinical pharmacologists who have undergone rigorous medical training are ideally placed to consult on administration of medicines in pregnant women, thus making the prescribing of treatments in that patient category substantially safer and more rational.

Exclusive use of amikacin significantly reduced the resistance of GNB isolates to gentamicin and netilmicin, the number of GNB nosocomial bacteremias, and the cost of total antibiotic usage in ICUs.

Our study showed that SH on brain MRI are more common in specific regions of the brain in pSS patients with FETH than in controls with FETH, signifying a more widespread cerebral vasculopathy in SS patients with FETH. Periventricular SH seem to be associated to increased platelet serotonin release in pSS patients with FETH and correlated with disease duration, without correlation to the actual ESSDAI and markers of immunoinflammation, and might be linked with chronic immunoinflammation of low-grade intensity and vasculitis in pSS.