Archives of Pharmacology and Therapeutics

Cancer has its own disease burden and patients usually suffer from symptom clusters when they are referred for palliative treatment. Identification of symptom cluster trajectories will help clinician to take into account measures that can optimize quality of life of palliative patients. Therefore the aim of this paper is to determine the overall prevalence of symptoms and symptoms clusters in different disease groups according to etiology at the time of first visit to Palliative care clinic by using HIS Palliative First Assessment note indicating Edmonton symptom scale.

While the global COVID-19 pandemic has challenged the entire humanity and health systems, it also triggered researchers to urgently perform clinical trials to assess the safety and efficacy of many agents and modalities to combat COVID-19. As of April 22, over 650 clinical studies have been registered both in USA and internationally. Results from these studies are also coming at a brisk pace in this unprecedented emergency.

Tumor node metastasis (TNM) staging system is the most useful method in predicting prognosis of colorectal cancer (CRC), the third most common cause of death worldwide, even if other biological markers are currently under evaluation to assess their role in affecting CRC outcome and planning the best tailored therapeutic approach. Several molecular factors are being demonstrated to be effective in influencing both overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) in CRC, acting on different aspects of tumor promoting and progression.

Our modern world is facing extraordinary circumstances while passing through a serious pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) which may lead to multi-organ system failure & death. Bcell depletion could compromise antiviral immunity, which makes the safety of rituximab use in the COVID19 era unclear.

Chronic hypertension is present in 1-2% of pregnant women. Women with chronic hypertension are at an increased risk of maternal and perinatal complications when compared with normotensive women. It is not uncommon for the women with chronic hypertension to present first time during pregnancy and obstetricians are the first one to encounter them during antenatal checkup. Secondary hypertension is often unrecognised and misdiagnosed thus leading to improper treatment with significant risk to the mother and fetus. 

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) chronically infects more than 250 million individuals worldwide and is responsible for more than 800,000 deaths per year by promoting end-stage liver diseases, among which decompensated cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) (WHO, July 2020) are prominent. Studies performed in chimpanzees or in animalversion of HBV (woodchuck HBV: WHBV) highlighted the lack of immune responses against the virus upon primary infection.

At the beginning of Covid-19 pandemic, we proposed to use hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and intranasal interferon (IFN) a-2b spray to prevent SARS-CoV-2. Since then, clinical trials testing these two drugs separately for the treatment and prophylaxis have been reported. A consensus is forming that HCQ and IFNs are not effective in treating severe Covid-19. However, the pathogenesis of Covid-19 suggests that early intervention could reduce the infection and prevent the progression from mild to severe Covid-19.

Since the declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic in March 2020, there have been more than 100 million reported cases of COVID-19 worldwide and more than 2.1 million deaths. The purpose of this editorial is to review recent updates regarding COVID-19 disease and SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in cancer patients.

While much attention has been given to how COVID-19 patients are treated (or fail to be treated), the impact of the pandemic on illicit drug users remains largely undiscussed. The consequences of COVID-19 on substance users and on the health care system are exposed.

Background: This paper analyses any possible association of various factors like gender, last COVID-19 PCR test results, BCG Vaccination, Seasonal Flu vaccination, occupation and confirmed case contact history with COVID-19 RDT results of the participants. COVID-19 will soon become endemic in Pakistan, the government should adopt COVID-19 RDT kits for trace, test and quarantine activities.

The rise in the occurrence of hypertension, a non-communicable disease and a major factor for chronic renal failure, cardiovascular disease, and stroke, which most times lead to sudden death is worrisome. Resistant hypertension is more common and may have no symptoms at all for months or years, but then can cause heart attack, stroke, and vision and kidney damage. Prevention and quick management of hypertension is therefore essential in reducing the risk of these debilitating ailments. Aqueous and ethanolic extracts of the leaves of Clerodendrum chinensis (AeC and EeC) are used by local communities of West Africa as medicine for rapid anti-hypertensive actions. We aim to discover the scientific basis for the use of the herb as medicine.

The COVID-19 pandemic started at the end of 2019 and remains carrying a health threat and significant economic consequences. Over the last two years, COVID-19 has been the main Public Health issue, and has impacted regular healthcare systems, with significant build-up of waiting lists and delay in optimum management of other serious medical conditions including heart diseases and cancer.

Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH) represents a rare but devastating disease due to small pulmonary arterial vessels remodelling and increased pulmonary vascular resistance leading to right ventricular dysfunction, right heart failure and death.

Cellular components are attractive targets for antiviral therapy because they do not mutate as readily as do viral proteins do [1-3]. The identification of CCR₅ as an HIV-1 coreceptor [4-7], facilitated by the discovery of the antiviral activities of CCR₅ ligand ?-chemokines [8], resulted in the development of new viral entry inhibitors to block CCR₅ binding, including both- small molecules and CCR₅ antibodies

Since the discovery of escaping mechanism of tumor from negative immune regulation, the paradigm of drug discovery for anti-cancer agents has been dramatically shifted to cancer immunotherapy (e.g., dendritic cell therapy, CAR-T cell therapy, or antibody therapy) by stimulating patient’s immune system to treat cancer. 

Currently, around 60-75% of the HIV positive patients in developed countries on anti-retroviral therapy (ART) have undetectable plasma viral load using current diagnostic PCR assays.

The incidence of thromboembolic events in COVID-19 is reportedly higher in intensive care unit (ICU) patients (29.4%) as compared to non-ICU patients (11.5%), while data on thromboembolic events in non-hospitalized, self-limiting COVID-19 is unavailable. Renal infarction with COVID-19 has only been reported in three patients who had severe infection, multiple comorbidities, and/or immuno-compromised state post kidney transplantation. Since the onset of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, guidelines for the prophylaxis and treatment of COVID- 19-related hypercoagulability have only been focused on hospitalized patients. Concurrently, risk factors and management guidelines for thromboembolic events in mild COVID-19 have remained unidentified. In this report, we describe a case of a 38-year-old male–with no medical history pertinent to hypercoagulability–who developed an isolated renal infarction one week after being diagnosed with mild COVID-19.

Human monocytic ehrlichiosis (HME) is an emerging life-threatening tick-borne disease caused by the obligate intracellular bacterium Ehrlichia chaffeensis. HME is often presented as a nonspecific flu-like illness characterized by presence of fever, headache, malaise, and myalgia. However, in some cases the disease can evolve to a severe form, which is commonly marked by acute liver injury followed by multi-organ failure and toxic shock-like syndrome.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused delivery of orthopaedic services to require extra consideration and substantial revision. Alternative ways to manage patients with urgent injuries have been instigated to minimize patient’s exposure to the disease, spread within the hospital system and reduce the overall impact on stretched resources.

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS)–induced toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) endocytosis has emerged as a key step for the production of interferon (IFN)-β, which activates the transcription of antiviral response genes through Janus kinase (JAK)/pTyr⁷⁰¹ signal transducer and activator 1 (STAT1) signaling. TLR4 endocytosis also promotes proinflammatory cytokines production, at least in part through mediating a late-phase of nuclear factor (NF)-κB activation.