Concentrated Insulin Confusion
Extreme caution should be used when administering U-500 insulin. This concentrated form is used for patients with marked insulin resistance who would otherwise need large volumes of U-100 insulin.
The clinical impact of these shortages cannot be underestimated. According to the EIN survey, the lack of specific antimicrobial agents led to an alteration of therapy by 82% of the respondents. The survey identified sepsis, streptococcal and enterococcal endocarditis, pneumococcal meningitis, group B streptococcal infections, and neurosyphilis as those indications most likely to require alterations [...]
The events of September 11, 2001 have focused unprecedented attention on the availability of antimicrobial agents and vaccines. The potential need for large amounts of specific antimicrobials was highlighted by the subsequent use of anthrax as an instrument of terror and the depletion of stocks of canadian ciprofloxacin HCI (Cipro drug, Bayer), the preferred agent [...]
The office of the inspector general (OIG) at the Department of Health and Human Services is expected to issue draft compliance guidelines for the pharmaceutical industry any day now. Once finalized, they will have a significant bearing on the relationship between drug companies, PBMs, drugstores, and physicians.
In a recent issue of P&T, the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) described the wide scope of the shortage of fentanyl and the other challenges that health care organizations faced. The ISMP conducted a recent national survey regarding ongoing drug shortages and their threat to patient safety. Surprisingly, only 5% of the 344 respondents [...]
The drug approval process in this country is a rigorous one. There has long been interest in trying to help safe and effective drugs through this process efficiently, and in recent years, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has focused increased attention on the development phase, principally to assure that drug developers carry out appropriately [...]
Imagine that many of our readers remember HA1A, a.k.a. Centoxin. How tantaliz-ingly close we once came to a seemingly effective therapy for septic shock caused by gram-negative organisms and their deadly endotoxins. Indeed, our research team at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital (TJUH) in Philadelphia, in collaboration with our colleagues at the University Healthsystem Consortium (UHC) [...]
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