[Compatibility of intravenous medications needs attention. Catheter occlusion, treatment failure and embolisms can be prevented]. / Blandbarhet av intravenösa läkemedel behöver uppmärksammas - Kateterocklusion, terapisvikt och embolier kan förebyggas.

When dealing with more drugs than available lumens, intravenous medications need to be co-administered in the same catheter. This type of scenario may induce therapeutic risks, such as catheter occlusion, changes in drug effect or embolization of precipitated particles. Various sources are available to provide information on compatibilities of intravenous medications. When using these sources, the applicability of the information must be assessed, comparing concentrations, diluents used and other pharmaceutical aspects. For the last three years, a group of pharmacists at Sahlgrenska University Hospital has worked on a project collecting and validating compatibility data for intravenous medications. In the future, this data will be available to more hospitals in Sweden.

Protective effects of thymol against nephrotoxicity induced by cisplatin with using 99mTc-DMSA in mice.

BACKGROUND: In this study, we investigated the protective effect of thymol as a natural compound against cisplatin-induced nephrotoxicity by quantitative renal 99mTc-DMSA uptake and compared its effect with histopathology in mice. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Mice were divided into six groups as control, cisplatin (7.5 mg/kg, intraperitoneally), thymol+cisplatin (thymol; 50 and 150 mg/kg+cisplatin; 7.5 mg/kg) and thymol (50 and 150 mg/kg). Thymol was orally administrated for two days before cisplatin injection and continued for 4 days. (99m)Tc-DMSA was injected through the tail of mice after the drug administration. The percentage of the injected dose per gram of kidney tissue (%ID/g) was calculated. In other experiment, kidneys of treated mice were assessed for histopathology. RESULTS: 99mTc-DMSA uptake per gram tissue of the kidneys as %ID/g was 85.27±21.81, 45.55±5.50, 65.02±32.21 and 88.46±20.46 in the control, cisplatin, thymol (50 mg/kg)+cisplatin and thymol (150 mg/kg)+cisplatin. Thymol administration with cisplatin resulted in a significant increase in the level of %ID/g. Histopathological examinations showed a protective effect of thymol against cisplatin nephrotoxicity in mice. CONCLUSION: The results showed that thymol significantly attenuates the cisplatin-induced nephrotoxicity in mice, and 99mTc-DMSA uptake in kidney is a suitable method for assessment of nephrotoxicity in mice.