Coronary heart disease is the single largest killer of people living in the U.S. Some of the risk factors include hypertension, obesity, smoking, and dyslipidemia, an irregularity of a patient’s lipid profile. Dyslipidemia covers a variety of disorders relating to abnormal levels of total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C), and triglycerides. The incidence [...]

Problem: A pharmacist is working alone in a busy hospital pharmacy. He receives a stat order for oral clonidine (e.g., Catapres®, Boehringer Ingelheim) 1 mg and levodopa (e.g., Laradopa®, Roche) 125 mg for a growth hormone stimulation test to be performed on an eight-year-old child. Despite significant pressure from the order and a backlog of [...]

Hold on to your hats! The new Medicare-approved Drug Discount Cards that are scheduled to become available in June 2004 will not only entitle Medicare beneficiaries to lower drug prices but will also send the drug industry on a wild ride over the next 18 months.

As a medical educator and practicing primary care general internist at our academic medical center, I have probably attended literally hundreds of pharmaceutical company-sponsored lunches and grand rounds over the course of the last 14 years. No doubt, I have received scores of pens and pads branded with the names of dozens of different proprietary [...]

Manufacturer: Sanofi-Synthelabo, Inc. Drug Class: Platinum antineoplastic agent Description: Oxaliplatin for injection is an organoplatinum complex in which the platinum atom is joined with 1,2-diamino-cyclohexane (DACH) and with an oxalate ligand as a “leaving group,” an atom (or group of atoms) that is displaced as stable species and takes the bonding electrons with it. Oxali-platin [...]

Manufacturer: Eli Lilly Drug Class: Antifolate antineoplastic agent Description: Pemetrexed for injection exerts its action by disrupting folate-dependent metabolic processes that are essential for cell replication. By inhibiting dihydrofolate reduc-tase, thymidylate synthase, and glycinamide ribonucleotide formyl transferase, it interrupts the de novo synthesis of both purines and pyrimidines. As a single agent, it is active [...]

Cetuximab (Erbitux™) for IV Use Only Manufacturer: Imclone Systems, Inc./Bristol-Myers Squibb Drug Class: Recombinant, human/mouse chimeric monoclonal antibody Description: Cetuximab binds specifically to the extracellular domain of human epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). Produced in mammalian (murine myeloma) cell culture, cetuximab is composed of the fragment variable (Fv) regions of a murine anti-EGFR antibody with [...]