OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effect of intervention measures enforced by clinical pharmacists on reducing dosage of benzodiazepines. METHODS: Clinical pharmacists described benzodiazepine withdrawal scheme for adult patients who were treated with repeated benzodiazepine prescription more than 3 months. 10% of benzodiazepines dose was reduced every two weeks and single blind drug withdrawal was carried out. RESULTS: Consumption of benzodiazepine was reduced significantly by 70.50% after intervening by pharmacists. CONCLUSION: Clinical pharmacists play an important role in benzodiazepine withdrawal, whose intervention is rapid and useful method for physicians reducing dosage of benzodiazepines.

Seventy patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) aged 65 or above were treated with epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor (EGFR-TKI) erlotinib or gefitinib from February 2006 to September 2010. The efficacy and toxicities of treatment were retrospectively analyzed.The overall response rate and disease control rate were 31.4％ and 84.3％,respectively. Themedian progression-free survival time and median survival time were 8.0 months and 13.5 months,respectively(P ＜ 0.05 ). One-year survival rate was 54.3％. Response rate ( CR + PR) ( 42.9％ ) anddisease control rate (94.3％ )in female patients were superior to males (20.0％ and 74.3％ ) (P ＜ 0.05 ).Non-smoking and PS score ＜ 2 were good predictors for survival.The side effects were generally mild and mainly were skin rash and diarrhea.

Objective: To evaluate the impact of bleomycin/etoposide/cisplatin (BEP) and paclitaxel/carboplatin (PC) chemotherapy regimens on the fertility and prognostic outcomes in malignant ovarian germ cell tumor (MOGCT) patients who underwent fertility-sparing surgery (FSS). Methods: A propensity score matching algorithm was performed between the BEP and PC groups. The χ2 test and the Kaplan-Meier method were used to compare the fertility outcome, disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS). The Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was used to identify risk factor of DFS. Results: We included 213 patients, 185 (86.9%) underwent BEP chemotherapy, and 28 (13.1%) underwent PC chemotherapy. The median age was 22 years (range, 8–44 years), and the median follow-up period was 63 months (range, 2–191 months). Fifty-one (29.3%) patients had a pregnancy plan, and 35 (85.4%) delivered successfully. In the before and after propensity score matching cohorts, there were no significant differences in spontaneous abortion, selective termination of pregnancy, during-pregnancy status, and live birth between the BEP and PC groups (p>0.05). Fourteen (6.6%) patients experienced recurrence, including 11 (5.9%) in the BEP group and 3 (10.7%) in the PC group. Four (1.9%) patients in the BEP group died. Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed no significant differences in DFS (p=0.328) and OS (p=0.446) between the BEP and PC groups, and the same survival results were observed in the after matching cohort. Conclusion The PC regimen is as safe as the BEP regimen for MOGCT patients with fertility preservation treatment, and no differences were observed in fertility and clinical prognosis.

Increased intestinal barrier permeability, leaky gut, has been reported in patients with autism. However, its contribution to the development of autism has not been determined. We selected dextran sulfate sodium (DSS) to disrupt and metformin to repair the intestinal barrier in BTBR T⁺tf/J autistic mice to test this hypothesis. DSS treatment resulted in a decreased affinity for social proximity; however, autistic behaviors in mice were improved after the administration of metformin. We found an increased affinity for social proximity/social memory and decreased repetitive and anxiety-related behaviors. The concentration of lipopolysaccharides in blood decreased after the administration of metformin. The expression levels of the key molecules in the toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4)-myeloid differentiation factor 88 (MyD88)-nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) pathway and their downstream inflammatory cytokines in the cerebral cortex were both repressed. Thus, "leaky gut" could be a trigger for the development of autism via activation of the lipopolysaccharide-mediated TLR4-MyD88-NF-κB pathway.
Mice ; Animals ; NF-kappa B ; Myeloid Differentiation Factor 88/metabolism* ; Lipopolysaccharides/pharmacology* ; Toll-Like Receptor 4/metabolism* ; Autistic Disorder/metabolism* ; Signal Transduction/physiology*