PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

W R Fairweather

Publications and source records attributed to W R Fairweather.

6 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1985

Public Health Service study on Reye's syndrome and medications. Report of the pilot phase.

Between February and May 1984, we conducted a pilot study to examine the methods for a larger study of a previously reported relation between Reye's syndrome and medications. Thirty patients with Reye's syndrome, whose diagnosis was confirmed by an expert panel, and 145 controls were matched for age, race (black or not black), and antecedent illness (respiratory infection, chickenpox, or diarrhea) and selected from the same hospital, emergency room, or school, or identified by random digit dialing. Significantly more cases (93 per cent, 28 of 30) than members of each of the four control groups or all controls combined (46 per cent, 66 of 145) had received salicylates during matched antecedent illnesses (odds ratio of all 30 cases vs. all controls = 16.1; lower 95 per cent confidence limit = 4.6). The prevalence and mean severity score of signs, symptoms, and selected events during the antecedent illness tended to be lower among cases than controls. Thus, differences in the severity of this illness between cases and controls did not explain differences in medication exposures. This pilot study suggests an association between Reye's syndrome and the use of salicylates during an antecedent illness.

Acetaminophen↗
PubMed1971

Influence of parasite strain on chemotherapy of murine infections with Schistosoma mansoni.

The effectiveness of chemotherapy in human schistosomiasis varies from one area to another, and limited data from experimentally infected animals suggest inherent differences in the susceptibility of certain parasites to drugs. In the present study, groups of mice infected with each of several geographic strains of Schistosoma mansoni were treated with one of four selected drugs and parasiticidal effects were compared.Responses to treatment were generally similar among strains except in two trials involving a Puerto Rican strain that was unusually sensitive to hycanthone and relatively resistant to stibophen.Selective killing of male worms occurred consistently with lucanthone and hycanthone treatment. The use of portal perfusion rather than dissection to recover surviving worms appears to have been instrumental in allowing the relatively resistant female worms to be found, namely in the liver.The results of this study indicate that strain differences in susceptibility to drugs do occur in S. mansoni, and apparent refractoriness or unusual sensitivity encountered in the field should be evaluated in the laboratory.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Influence of dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate on the absorption of tetracycline.

A pilot bioavailability study was carried out to evaluate the drug interaction and influence of dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate (DS) on the absorption/bioavailability of tetracycline. Three tetracycline products--a fast dissolving capsule, a slow dissolving capsule and a suspension, were used in the study. DS was administered 30 minutes before tetracycline administration; and on -3, -2 and -1 day in the evening before tetracycline administration. Frequent urine samples were collected up to 48 hours and analyzed by a microbiological method. Although not statistically significant in this small study, the results suggest that there is a reduction in tetracycline bioavailability due to DS. The indiscriminate use of surface active agents to increase the dissolution rate of solid oral dosage forms in the belief that the resulting increased dissolution improves product bioavailability must be questioned.

Biological Availability↗