Drug-related problems identified by clinical pharmacists in nephrology department of a tertiary hospital in China-a single center study.

BACKGROUND: There is a lack of data on drug-related problems (DRPs) occurring in nephrology department in China. The objective of this study was to identify and categorize the types and causes of DRPs and to assess their severity. DRPs were examined by clinical pharmacists and the results of their interventions were rated. METHODS: Clinical pharmacists reviewed all medication orders for patients and documented clinical pharmacy services within a nine-month study period. The Pharmaceutical Care Network Europe (PCNE) classification (Version 9.00) was used to identify DRPs. Our Primary outcomes measured the number, causes, types, potential hazards of DRPs and the types and success rate of intervention. RESULTS: Admission medication reconciliation data of 113 patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) were collected and all of the medications were reviewed retrospectively. Exclude 26 patients who did not occurred DRPs, 87 patients (77%) identified 101 DRPs. The average DRP number per patient was 1.16. The most common type of problem was "treatment effectiveness P1" (84.16%; 85/101). The most common causes were "drug selection C1" (36.00%; 45/125), "dose selection C3" (29.60%; 37/125), and "patient related C7" (26.40%; 33/125). Clinical pharmacists totally proposed 249 interventions, of which 190 (76.31%) were fully accepted and implemented. CONCLUSIONS: DRPs are common among CKD patients in the nephrology department. Hence the necessity for pharmaceutical care to be improved to ensure the ongoing safety of patients.

Quantitative determination of allele frequency in pooled DNA by using sequencing method.

Quantitative determination of the allele frequency of single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in pooled DNA samples is a promising approach to clarify the relationships between SNPs and diseases. Here, we present such a simple, accurate, and inexpensive method for quantitative determining the allele frequency in pooled DNA samples. Three steps of DNA pooling, PCR amplification and sequencing are involved in this assay. Although direct determination of the allele frequency from the two allele-specific fluorescence intensities is possible, correction for differential response of alleles is important. We explored the effect of differential response of alleles on test statistics and provide a solution to this problem based on heterozygous fluorescence intensities. We demonstrate the accuracy and reliability of this assay on pooled DNA samples with pre-determined allele frequencies from 7.1% to 53.9%. The accuracy of allele frequency measurements is high, with a correlation coefficient of r² = 0.997 between measured and known frequencies. We believe that by providing a means for SNP genotyping up to hundreds of samples simultaneously, inexpensively, and reproducibly, this method is a powerful strategy for detecting meaningful polymorphic differences in candidate gene association studies.