Development of a novel physico-chemically and microbiologically stable oral solution of flecainide for pediatrics.

There is as yet no commercialized preparation for oral administration of flecainide acetate (FA) to children. In such cases, manipulation of commercial tablets is the usual practice in pharmacy services of hospitals and compounding pharmacies, to provide a suitable dosage form for this vulnerable pediatric population group. In this study, we have formulated FA as an oral solution, as an alternative to the suspension elaborated from commercial tablets. Due to this sensitivity of young patients, we have used the pure active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) and the lowest permitted levels of pediatric excipients. Despite being a highly soluble API, only one of the formulations appears as a transparent solution due to complete FA solubilization. The proposed formulation is physico-chemically and microbiologically stable and the mass and dose uniformity is appropriate for 30 days' storage at 25 °C.

Epifluorescent direct counts of bacteria and viruses from topsoil of various desert dust storm regions.

Topsoil from arid regions is the main source of dust clouds that move through the earth's atmosphere, and microbial communities within these soils can survive long-range dispersion. Microbial abundance and chemical composition were analyzed in topsoil from various desert regions. Statistical analyses showed that microbial direct counts were strongly positively correlated with calcium concentrations and negatively correlated with silicon concentrations. While variance between deserts was expected, it was interesting to note differences between sample sites within a given desert region, illustrating the 'patchy' nature of microbial communities in desert environments.