Jaundice due to iprindole

Twenty-one patients treated for depression with iprindole developed evidence of liver damage: 15 were jaundiced, five had bilirubinuria, and one had pruritus. These complications occurred between four and 21 days after initial exposure to the drug. All patients recovered. Light and electron microscopic findings in liver biopsies of one of these patients were those of cholestasis without inflammation.     

Clinical nursing rounds part 3: patient comfort rounds

Clinical rounds are being introduced in the Dudley Group of Hospitals to improve patient care, involve patients and improve communication. There are four types of rounds, matrons' rounds, nurse management rounds, patient comfort rounds and teaching rounds. This article is the third in the series and describes patient comfort rounds (PCRs). PCRs are an important part of maintaining and monitoring the fundamental aspects of individual patient care. They should be carried out at 2-hour intervals whenever possible, commencing after lunchtime and continuing for the rest of the day. At night time, PCRs should be carried out before patients go to sleep and again in the early morning. It may be necessary to carry out more regular care to some patients. This approach should not be confused with the old system of "back rounds" which were often restricted to pressure area care. The purpose of PCRs is to maintain a regular review of the patient nursing needs, support the nursing process and evaluate nursing care.     

Identification of 3-(acylamino)azepan-2-ones as stable broad-spectrum chemokine inhibitors resistant to metabolism in vivo

3-(acylamino)glutarimides, a class of broad spectrum chemokine inhibitors, are rapidly hydrolyzed in serum, despite being stable in aqueous solution. Synthesis and high-performance liquid chromatography analysis of the proposed N-acyl-glutamate and -glutamine metabolites establish the enzyme-catalyzed breakdown pathways. In vitro assays suggest that despite their short half-life in vivo, the parent acylamino-glutarimides, not the ring-opened hydrolysis products, are the source of the antiinflammatory activity. Identification of this metabolic pathway has led to the development of 3-(acylamino)azepan-2-ones that are also broad spectrum chemokine inhibitors and act as stable, orally available powerful antiinflammatory agents in vivo with doses of 1 mg/kg.     

The "electrophysiological sandwich": a method for amplifying ERP priming effects

We describe the results of a study that combines ERP recordings and sandwich priming, a variant of masked priming that provides a brief preview of the target prior to prime presentation (S. J. Lupker & C. J. Davis, 2009). This has been shown to increase the size of masked priming effects seen in behavioral responses. We found the same increase in sensitivity to ERP priming effects in an orthographic priming experiment manipulating the position of overlap of letters shared by primes and targets. Targets were 6‐letter words and primes were formed of the 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 6th letters of targets in the related condition. Primes could be concatenated or hyphenated and could be centered on fixation or displaced by two letter spaces to the left or right. Priming effects with concatenated and/or displaced primes only started to emerge at 250 ms post‐target onset, whereas priming effects from centrally located hyphenated primes emerged about 100 ms earlier.