The “New & Interesting” series is a biweekly compilation of select research findings, news articles, and random tidbits in bullet-point format. The entries are highly abbreviated, but provide links to the original articles or abstracts if you desire to read further.

General Articles

• Telaprevir leads to 75% cure rate in hepatitis C virus (HCV) infected individuals, as shown in late-stage Phase III drug trial. This is a significant improvement over the 40-50% cure rate of the current HCV therapies: interferon and ribavirin. The side effect profile of telaprevir is also much more tolerable than with interferon and ribavirin. If approved by the FDA, telaprevir may also lead to a multi-billion dollar boon for its developer, Vertex Pharmaceuticals. (Reuters)

• Researchers at Ulm University in Germany discovered that children who ate three or more hamburgers a week had a 40% greater risk of developing asthma than those who ate less hamburgers. The group hypothesizes that saturated fats promote asthma by causing inflammation in the airways. This does not apply to all fats, such as omega-3, which may instead have a protective effect. (WebMD)

Technical Articles

• Bilateral necrosis of earlobes and cheeks may be another complication of cocaine. There has been an increasing percentage of cocaine cut with the antihelmintic agent levimasole. Levimasole is an immunomodulating agent that has neutropenia and vasculitis as adverse effects. Physicians from the University of Rochester report two cases of cocaine abusers who developed these yet unknown consequences of cocaine use. (Ann Intern Med)

• Inactive hepatitis B still carries risk for hepatocellular carcinoma and liver-related death. The REVEAL-HBV (Risk Evaluation of Viral Load Elevation and Associated Liver Disease/Cancer in HBV) Study Group found that the annual incidence rates of hepatocellular carcinoma and liver-related death was higher in inactive HBV carriers when compared to uninfected controls. (Gastroenterology)

The “New & Interesting” series is a biweekly compilation of select research findings, news articles, and random tidbits in bullet-point format. The entries are highly abbreviated, but provide links to the original articles or abstracts if you desire to read further.

General Articles

• Telaprevir leads to 75% cure rate in hepatitis C virus (HCV) infected individuals, as shown in late-stage Phase III drug trial. This is a significant improvement over the 40-50% cure rate of the current HCV therapies: interferon and ribavirin. The side effect profile of telaprevir is also much more tolerable than with interferon and ribavirin. If approved by the FDA, telaprevir may also lead to a multi-billion dollar boon for its developer, Vertex Pharmaceuticals. (Reuters)

• Researchers at Ulm University in Germany discovered that children who ate three or more hamburgers a week had a 40% greater risk of developing asthma than those who ate less hamburgers. The group hypothesizes that saturated fats promote asthma by causing inflammation in the airways. This does not apply to all fats, such as omega-3, which may instead have a protective effect. (WebMD)

Technical Articles

• Bilateral necrosis of earlobes and cheeks may be another complication of cocaine. There has been an increasing percentage of cocaine cut with the antihelmintic agent levimasole. Levimasole is an immunomodulating agent that has neutropenia and vasculitis as adverse effects. Physicians from the University of Rochester report two cases of cocaine abusers who developed these yet unknown consequences of cocaine use. (Ann Intern Med)

• Inactive hepatitis B still carries risk for hepatocellular carcinoma and liver-related death. The REVEAL-HBV (Risk Evaluation of Viral Load Elevation and Associated Liver Disease/Cancer in HBV) Study Group found that the annual incidence rates of hepatocellular carcinoma and liver-related death was higher in inactive HBV carriers when compared to uninfected controls. (Gastroenterology)

The “New & Interesting” series is a biweekly compilation of select research findings, news articles, and random tidbits in bullet-point format. The entries are highly abbreviated, but provide links to the original articles or abstracts if you desire to read further.

General Articles

• The recommended daily intake of salt is 2000 mg, but the average amount ingested by Americans is over twice that amount. Sometimes we may not be aware of how much salt there is in processed food. This infographic reveals how much salt is contained in different types of food. (Next Generation Food)

• Dr. Hank Chien, a New York-based plastic surgeon, set the world record in the classic arcade game Donkey Kong with 1,061,700 points in 2 hours and 35 minutes. (American Medical News)

Technical Articles

• Use of cotrimoxazole (trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole) and warfarin has been associated with a nearly four-fold increased risk of upper GI tract hemorrhage. (Arch Intern Med)

• Green tea extracts decreased glucose, triglyceride, and insulin levels in animal models of insulin resistance. Oxidative stress was also reduced, as suggested by lower plasma lipid peroxidation, sulfhydryl (SH) group oxidation, and DNA oxidative damage. (J Am Coll Nutr)

Earlier I wrote an article listing some challenges with medication reconciliation, one of which is the proper identification of home medications. I often encounter patients who may not recall the names or doses of the medications in their pillbox, but would identify them by their description: “I take the purple pill”. Interestingly, while physicians need detailed knowledge of various drugs to responsibly prescribe them, they typically do not know how they look like.

To confess, I myself rely on Epocrates on my iPhone to guesstimate patient’s descriptions of their own pills. Another good resource for pill identification is Pillbox, a website developed by the National Library of Medicine for the “rapid identification of unknown solid-dosage medications (tablets/capsules) based on physical characteristics and high-resolution images”. Through a Flash interface, the user can search for pill images based on imprint, shape, color, size, and scoring. There is also an option to just browse the 7287 pill images in the database. For each medication, Pillbox provides relevant external links about the drug, biological and physical data, toxicology, and drug effects on breastfeeding.
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The cost of designing, developing, and marketing a new pharmaceutical drug can literally exceed a billion dollars. Even millions more are invested in non-industry trials to demonstrate the efficacy — or lack thereof — of these drugs with certain medical conditions or clinical parameters. The process of getting FDA approval is another separate adventure in itself. Given the enormous effort in ensuring that drugs are safe and efficacious, it is curious that the same stringency is not applied in prescribing these drugs at the time of health care delivery.

Disclaimer: this is not a critique of health care professionals, but a discussion of some challenges surrounding medication reconciliation.
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