• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.106-114
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• 2011

While multiple medication is an important global medication safety issue, ununified concomitant medication by multiple prescriptions may cause more severe problems by the fact that those are neither intended nor watched. This could cause therapy duplication and severe drug interaction and etc. Korean Government made region wide scale programs twice to detect such problems and give warnings to pharmacists and doctors through the internet system in 2009-2010, which are called Drug Use Review Services Pilot Project. This study is an analysis and comparison of the results of the two DUR pilot projects. There were 5.0 and 4.2 cases of severe drug interaction by the concomitant medication of multiple doctors' prescriptions per 10 thousand prescriptions, while only 0.37 and 0 cases by the medication of same doctor's prescription(s). There were 426 and 381 cases of drug duplication by the concomitant medication of multiple doctors' prescriptions per 10 thousand cases, while only 197 and 23 cases by medication of same doctors' prescription(s). Doctors' participation to those projects improved at Jejudo the later one compared to Goyangsi the former, which means the efforts of them to make less prescription problems succeeded to decrease the number of cases caused from same doctor's prescription. But they could not decrease the number of problem cases caused from concomitant medication by multiple doctors prescriptions enough. The findings support the issue of strengthening and widening the project nation wide and the issue of recommending the patients to designate their own pharmacy, which can provide them counseling for unified and safety controlled medication.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.89-108
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• 1997

The purpose of this study is to investigate drug information sources which influence physician's prescriptions, and to compare the differences of drugh information sources between private practitioners and hospital physicians. In addition, the ultimate goal of this study is to provide better quality of drug information for both groups of physicians through the professional drug information system. 264 physicians, including general practitioners and all types of specialists who were working in hospitals and private clinics in Taejon and Chungnam area, participated in this study which was conducted by mail. The results are summarized as follows ; 1. Both physician groups received drug informations mainly from medical journals, but there were differences in secondary sources of drug information. Namely, hospital physicians got drug information from annual meetings and textbooks, and private practitioners got it from detail men and colleagues. 2. Drug effect was the first consideration for drug selection in both physician groups. But, in the 2nd consideration, private practitioners concerned about the price, insurance and rebates, but hospital physicians were not. 3. Only 9.2% of the private practitioners satisfied with the sufficiency of drug information, whereas 22.0% of hospital physicians satisfied with it. The most insufficient area of information was drug interaction in both groups and 91.9% of the physicians suggested that a professional drug information system should be introduced. 4. Both physician groups had contacted with detail men frequently. However, it was rare for them to contact with a pharmacist. This phenomenon was more severe in the case of private practitioners. 5. Neither physician groups knew very much about drug informatio centers. However, they would be willig to participate if a professional drug information system were established. Also, they indicated that the information most required was drug interaction.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.243-249
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• 2020

Background: Despite the increased use of direct-acting oral anticoagulants, warfarin is still recommended as first-line therapy in patients with mechanical valves or moderate to severe mitral stenosis. Anticoagulation management services (AMSs) are warranted for patients receiving warfarin therapy due to the complexity of warfarin dosing and large interpatient variability. To overcome limited health care resources, we developed a messenger app-based chatbot that provides information to patients taking warfarin. Methods: We developed "WafarinTalk" as an add-on to the open-source messenger app KakaoTalk. We developed the prototype chatbot after building a database containing seven categories: 1) dosage and indications, 2) drug-drug interactions, 3) drug-food interactions, 4) drug-diet supplement interactions, 5) monitoring, 6) adverse events, and 7) precautions. We then surveyed 30 pharmacists and 10 patients on chatbot reliability and on participant satisfaction. Results: We found that 80% of the pharmacists agreed on the consistency of chatbot responses and 44% agreed on the appropriateness of chatbot. Furthermore, 47% of pharmacists said that they were willing to recommend the chatbot to patients. Of the seven categories, information on drug-food interaction was the most useful; 90% of patients said they were satisfied with the chatbot and 100% of patients said they were willing to use it when they were unable to see a pharmacist. We updated the prototype chatbot with feedback from the survey. Conclusion: This study showed that warfarin-related information could be provided to patients through a messenger application-based chatbot.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.43-48
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• 2017

Chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery are major methods to treat cancer. However, current cancer treatments report severe side effects and high recurrences. Recent studies about engineering nanoparticles as a drug carrier suggest possibilities in terms of specific targeting and spatiotemporal release of drugs. While many nanoparticles demonstrate lower toxicity and better targeting results than free drugs, they still need to improve their performance dramatically in terms of targeting accuracy, immune responses, and non-specific accumulation at organs. One possible way to overcome the challenges is to make precisely controlled nanoparticles with respect to size, shape, surface properties, and mechanical stiffness. Here, we demonstrate $500{\times}200nm$ discoidal polymeric nanoconstructs (DPNs) as a drug delivery carrier. DPNs were prepared by using a top-down fabrication method that we previously reported to control shape as well as size. Moreover, DPNs have multiple payloads, poly lactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA), polyethylene glycol (PEG), lipid-Rhodamine B dye (RhB) and Salinomycin. In this study, we demonstrated a potential of DPNs as a drug carrier to treat cancer.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.17-22
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• 2009

Pimobendan is a recently developed cardiac drug which is useful to control moderate to severe congestive heart failure (CHF) from chronic mitral valvular diseases (CMVI). Because of controversy related to the efficacy and safety of pimobendan in dogs, the optimal efficacy and safety of pimobendan was assessed in 20 dogs with CMVI in this study. Scores for quality of life, respiratory failure, circulatory failure and heart failure were evaluated along with radiographical and echocardiographical assessments for about 2 months period after the addition of pimobendan into the regular cardiac medications. This study proved clear evidence that pimobendan had beneficial therapeutic effects in dogs with advanced CMVI, without particular adverse effects. However, further studies are warranted to address the drug interaction with other cardiac therapeutics and to assess therapeutic effects in CHF from other type of heart diseases in dogs and other animals.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.17.1-17.12
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• 2023

Coronavirus has left severe health impacts on the human population, globally. Still a significant number of cases are reported daily as no specific medications are available for its effective treatment. The presence of the CD147 receptor (human basigin) on the host cell facilitates the severe acute respiratory disease coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. Therefore, the drugs that efficiently alter the formation of CD147 and spike protein complex could be the right drug candidate to inhibit the replication of SARS-CoV-2. Hence, an e-Pharmacophore model was developed based on the receptor-ligand cavity of CD147 protein which was further mapped against pre-existing drugs of coronavirus disease treatment. A total of seven drugs were found to be suited as pharmacophores out of 11 drugs screened which was further docked with CD147 protein using CDOCKER of Biovia discovery studio. The active site sphere of the prepared protein was 101.44, 87.84, and 97.17 along with the radius being 15.33 and the root-mean-square deviation value obtained was 0.73 Å. The protein minimization energy was calculated to be -30,328.81547 kcal/mol. The docking results showed ritonavir as the best fit as it demonstrated a higher CDOCKER energy (-57.30) with correspond to CDOCKER interaction energy (-53.38). However, authors further suggest in vitro studies to understand the potential activity of the ritonavir.