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Biomedical subjects

Michael Steinberg

Publications and source records attributed to Michael Steinberg.

8 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2007

Mild serotonin syndrome associated with concurrent linezolid and fluoxetine.

PURPOSE: A case of serotonin syndrome that developed during concurrent linezolid and fluoxetine is presented. SUMMARY: A 23-year-old white male patient was originally admitted to receive intravenous chemotherapy for acute myelogenous leukemia. He had a history of intravenous amphetamine abuse, hepatitis B virus infection, hepatitis C virus infection, depression, and bipolar disorder. The patient's routine medications before admission included methadone, fluoxetine, voriconazole, transdermal nicotine patch, lorazepam, and quetiapine. The patient developed persistent neutropenia and complications from chemotherapy, including mild mucositis. Despite treatment with levofloxacin, acyclovir, and voriconazole, the patient developed high fevers. Levofloxacin was discontinued and aztreonam and vancomycin were started. After a blood culture revealed that the bacteria were likely vancomycin resistant, vancomycin was discontinued and linezolid was initiated. Nine hours later, the patient began complaining of severe pain in his abdomen. After a total of four doses of linezolid, the patient reported further discomfort. Two days after linezolid initiation, a health care team member identified the interaction between fluoxetine and linezolid as the cause of the patient's symptoms, and linezolid was discontinued. All symptoms resolved within 48 hours. While resolution generally occurs within 24-48 hours after discontinuing the offending agent, the time to resolution may be delayed if the agent has a long half-life or active metabolites, in which case admission to an intensive care unit is recommended. Cyproheptadine and chlorpromazine may also be used to treat symptoms. CONCLUSION: Serotonin syndrome developed in a patient taking concurrent linezolid and fluoxetine.

Acetamides↗
PubMed2004

Advances in pharmacotherapy for tobacco dependence.

The discovery that bupropion is an effective treatment for tobacco dependence has triggered a rapid increase in development of potential new non-nicotine pharmacotherapies, including bromocriptine, glucose, GTS-21, reboxetine, rimonabant, selegeline and varenicline. Successful new products will need to have excellent side-effect profiles in addition to proven efficacy. New faster delivery nicotine replacement products have the promise of addressing a broader list of indications, including treatment of nicotine withdrawal during temporary abstinence and long-term nicotine maintenance. Nicotine vaccines will need to demonstrate efficacy and also improve certain consumer acceptability characteristics (e.g., frequency of injections required) before they can become widely used and successful therapies. The best hope of improved treatment comes from combining existing and new pharmacotherapies with effective behavioural therapy.

Animals↗
PubMed2003

Quality-of-care indicators for early-stage prostate cancer.

PURPOSE: Decisions regarding treatment for early-stage prostate cancer are frustrated not only by inadequate evidence favoring one treatment modality but also by the absence of data comparing quality among providers. In fact, the choice of provider may be as important as the choice of treatment. We undertook this study to develop an infrastructure to evaluate variations in quality of care for men with early-stage prostate cancer. METHODS: We enlisted several sources to develop a list of proposed quality-of-care indicators and covariates. After an extensive structured literature review and a series of focus groups with patients and their spouses, we conducted structured interviews with national academic leaders in prostate cancer treatment. We then convened an expert panel using the RAND consensus method to discuss and rate the validity and feasibility of the proposed quality indicators and covariates. RESULTS: The panel endorsed 49 quality-of-care indicators and 14 covariates, which make up our final list of candidate measures. Several domains of quality are represented in the selected indicators, including patient volume, pretreatment referrals, preoperative testing, interpretation of pathology specimens, and 10-year disease-free survival. Covariates include measures of case-mix, such as patient age and comorbidity. CONCLUSION: This study establishes a foundation on which to build quality-of-care assessment tools to evaluate the treatment of early-stage prostate cancer. The next step is to field-test the indicators for feasibility, reliability, validity, and clinical utility in a population-based sample. This work will begin to inform medical decision-making for patients and their physicians.

Adenocarcinoma↗
PubMed2002

Clinical inertia.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Chronic Disease↗
PubMed2002

Tobacco and alcohol use and medical symptoms among cocaine dependent patients.

Despite the widespread use of tobacco and alcohol by illicit drug users, the medical effects of smoking and alcohol use remain understudied among such individuals. We investigated the relationship between smoking and alcohol use, and medical symptoms among 125 cocaine dependent patients. Subjects were assessed for smoking, alcohol use, and medical problems using a standardized self-report instrument (MILCOM). Medical symptoms were compared among nonsmokers, moderate smokers (less than 10 cigarettes per day), and heavy smokers (10 or more cigarettes per day) using partial chi-square statistics. Similar comparisons of medical symptoms were made between alcohol users (more than 2 drinks per day) and nonusers. Contrary to our expectations, there were no significant differences between nonsmokers, moderate smokers, and heavy smokers across most of the 14 major medical systems. However, regardless of the level of cocaine use, nonsmokers reported the fewest symptoms on the general subscale (p < 0.05) while moderate smokers reported the most nose/throat and respiratory symptoms (p < 0.01) among the three groups. As expected, significant relationships were observed between medical symptoms and alcohol use. Alcohol users reported more respiratory (p < 0.05), cardiovascular (p < 0.01), digestive (p < 0.05), head/neck (p < 0.001), eye (p < 0.01), and general (p < 0.05) symptoms than nonusers. While the findings generally support the link between alcohol and medical problems, it seems that the relationship between medical symptoms and smoking among cocaine patients may be more complex than that observed in the general population.

Adult↗