Pharmacology News

Research published in Pediatrics suggests that infants aged 60 days and younger with bacteremic UTI could receive shorter courses of parenteral antibiotics without the risk for readmission or recurrent infection.

Synthetic opioids like fentanyl “kill on a scale that is unprecedented among illegal drugs,” according to a new report conducted by the RAND Corporation.

CDC data show opioid deaths dropped 4.6% overall during a 12-month period that encompassed 2017 and 2018, but there was an 11.1% increase in opioid deaths related to illicitly manufactured fentanyl.

Women who used birth control pills as teenagers were up to three times more likely to experience depression as adults compared with women who started taking the pills as adults or never took them, according to a study published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.

Lifetime statin treatment in a hypothetical cohort of patients with borderline atherosclerotic CVD risk and LDL levels between 160 mg/dL and 189 mg/dL was determined to be cost saving, according to a study published in JAMA Cardiology.

The FDA has approved Nourianz tablets as an add-on treatment to levodopa/carbidopa in adults with Parkinson’s disease who are experiencing "off" episodes, according to a press release.

Methylphenidate — a drug used to treat ADHD — may affect specific tracts in brain white matter in boys with the disorder, according to findings from a randomized control trial conducted in the Netherlands. The results published in Radiology suggest that the effects are age dependent.

Inappropriate antibiotic treatment is common in hospitalized patients with asymptomatic bacteriuria, particularly among elderly patients with altered mental status, and it may lead to increased length of hospital stay, according to study results published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Judge Thad H. Balkman of the Cleveland County District Court in Oklahoma ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay the state more than $572 million in damages for its role in the opioid epidemic.

Incorporating a pharmacy-driven partnership into one children’s hospital’s antimicrobial stewardship plan decreased therapeutic drug monitoring for children administered IV vancomycin without increasing the risk for later kidney injury, according to findings published in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society.