The cardiotonic effect of the crude ethanolic extract of Nerium oleander in the isolated guinea pig hearts.

Cardiovascular diseases are increasingly becoming one of the leading diseases causing morbidity and mortality in Uganda. Ethnographic evidence suggests that these diseases are often first managed by indigenous and related herbs before patients are referred for allopathic forms of management. One such herb of interest is Nerium oleander. Therefore the crude ethanolic extracts of the dried leaves of this herb were tested against the following parameters in the isolated guinea pig hearts: force of contraction, heart rate and cardiac flow. The extracts brought about dose-dependent increases in all these parameters from their baseline readings. Compared with graded doses of digoxin the effects closely mirrored the activities in a dose dependent manner. At the mechanism of action level, it would appear the extract works in the same as digoxin since their dose-contraction-response curves are parallel. This finding would tend to provide a strong rationale for the herb's traditional use in cardiovascular illness.

Community pharmaceutical care: an 8-month critical review of two pharmacies in Kampala.

BACKGROUND: The concept of pharmaceutical care is neither well developed nor adequately documented in Uganda. OBJECTIVES: This study is therefore an attempt to identify and quantify the various service components of community pharmacy practice in Kampala, Uganda's capital city. SETTING: Two pharmacies operating retail outlets were chosen out of about 110 in Kampala. The city itself is fairly small with a rather congested population. It is Uganda's economic hub with the greatest number of private sector health facilities and pharmacy outlets. METHODS: This study involved an 8-month observation period at the two pharmacies, combined with a data collection form to record demographic characteristics of respondents and parameters such as self-medication, pharmacy initiated therapy, prescription filling, patient/non-patient clients and treatment received. RESULTS: 567 observations were made. Missing data for parameters studied were omitted during analysis, thus yielding different totals for the various sets of variables. Just less than half of 564 respondents (44.3%), were females compared to males (55.7%). The study found that clients over the age of 12 years seeking pharmaceutical services were 8-fold (93.1%) more likely to be the very patients compared to children (OR = 8.3; 95% CI, 3.7-18.7). Slightly over thirty percent of respondents (32.3%) were third party patients. About fifteen percent (14.7%) of respondents came to fill prescriptions, 28.8% to receive pharmacy-initiated therapy and 56.5% came for self-medication with all drugs including antibiotics at 22.4%. Most clients (75.2%) received treatment. The availability of a drug at the pharmacy was found to be a significant predictor of whether treatment was received, with the client age acting as a confounding variable (OR = 59.7; 95% CI 25.9-137.6).

The optimum pH for the derivative spectrophotometric determination of co-trimoxazole in binary mixtures.

BACKGROUND: Although the experimental assessment of co-trimoxazole by use of derivative spectrophotmetry underscores the usefulness of this method due to its relative simplicity with which it can be carried out over the official United States Pharmacopoeia (USP) high pressure liquid chromatography (hplc) methods for this drug, suitable optimum conditions ought to be refined for its universal acceptability. OBJECTIVE: The objective of the present work was to obtain the optimum pH level for the UV assessment of co-trimoxazole. METHODS: The aqueous solutions of the individual drugs and their binary mixtures were buffered with Sodium Acetate-Acetic Acid buffer in the pH ranges 2-7 and scanned on zero order and on first-order derivative at the wave length between 200- 300 nm. RESULTS: At the same drug solution concentrations, spectral shifts occurred with change in pH, especially between the wavelengths 200 and 240 nm, only seeming to converge from approximate wavelength 260 nm onwards. Absorbance fluctuations were also observed at the same drug concentrations in the pH range 2 to 3.5 and 5 to 7 when the solutions were scanned, even at the wavelength where the spectra seem to converge. However there were no absorbance differences between pH 4 and 5. CONCLUSION: The UV spectrophotometric method is dependent on the optimum pH and this has been found to range from 4 to 5.

Spectrophotometric determination of sulphamethoxazole and trimethoprim (co-trimoxazole) in binary mixtures and in tablets.

BACKGROUND: The formulation of sulphamethoxazole (S) and trimethoprin (T) (CO-TRIMOXAZOLE) in a combination mixture is very good pharmacologically since it enhances the efficacy of the individual drugs. However in this combination, difficulties in analysis on ordinary UV spectrophotometry are introduced because the two components give overlapping spectral bands on zero-order. The United States Pharmacopoea (USP)-recommended HPLC analytical method is quite expensive. OBJECTIVE: The objective of the present work was to assess whether derivative spectrophotometry could be used to circumvent the overlapping spectral bands of the components and hence use it for routine analysis of the drug. STUDY DESIGN: Experimental. METHODS: The aqueous solution of the individual drugs and their binary mixtures were scanned on zero order and on first derivative at the wave length between 200- 300 nm and at the pH of 4.5. RESULTS: The zero-order spectra of the compounds were completely overlapping. However the first-derivative scan offered better separation and hence T was determined from the absorbance at 237.6 nm with negligible contribution from S (since at this point it was reading zero). Likewise S was determined at a wavelength of 259 nm when T was reading zero. The linear calibration graphs were obtained for 4-25 microg x ml(-1) of S and for 4-20 microg x ml(-1) of T. CONCLUSION: The method is rapid, simple and can be applied successfully to assay a mixture of the two drugs in pharmaceutical preparations.