[CROATIAN GUIDELINES FOR THE PHARMACOTHERAPY OF TYPE 2 DIABETES]. / HRVATSKE SMJERNICE ZA FARMAKOLOSKO LIJECENJE SECERNE BOLESTI TIPA 2.

INTRODUCTION: The Croatian Association for Diabetes and Metabolic Disorders of the Croatian Medical Association has issued in 2011 the first national guidelines for the nutrition, education, self-control, and pharmacotherapy of diabetes type 2. According to the increased number of available medicines and new evidence related to the effectiveness and safety of medicines already involved in the therapy there was a need for update of the existing guidelines for the pharmacotherapy of type 2 diabetes in the Republic of Croatia. PARTICIPANTS: as co-authors of the Guidelines there are listed all members of the Croatian Association for Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases, as well as other representatives of professional societies within the Croatian Medical Association, who have contributed with comments and suggestions to the development of the Guidelines. EVIDENCE: These guidelines are evidence-based, according to the GRADE system (eng. Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation), which describes the level of evidence and strength of recommendations. CONCLUSIONS: An individual patient approach based on physiological principles in blood glucose control is essential for diabetes' patients management. Glycemic targets and selection of the pharmacological agents should be tailored to the patient, taking into account the age, duration of disease, life expectancy, risk of hypoglyce- mia, comorbidities, developed vascular and other complications as well as other factors. Because of all this, is of national interest to have a practical, rational and applicable guidelines for the pharmacotherapy of type 2 diabetes.

Myasthenic crisis as a side effect of methimazole therapy: case report.

Myasthenia gravis and Graves' disease are two autoimmune diseases with a similar mechanism, both having circulating organ autoantibodies and cell specific autoantibodies. It is not unusual for these diseases to occur together. There is a large body of data proving that antithyroid drugs such as methimazole and propylthiouracil have an immunomodulatory effect in addition to their thyrosuppressant action. This case report describes a 34-year-old woman hospitalized for just diagnosed myasthenic crisis (Osserman IV). She had a prior history of hyperthyroidism and treatment with methimazole was initiated. However, improvement in thyroid disease led to the burst of myasthenia. The phenomenon described as worsening of one disease while improving the other, the so-called 'see-saw' relationship, occurred in this case. The question is whether antithyroid drugs improve hyperthyroidism while unveiling or worsening myasthenia. Is the 'see-saw' relationship actually a therapeutic side effect of antithyroid drug? The proposed mechanism of methimazole action is intracellular: it lowers the level of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA). PCNA promotes selective apoptosis in some T lymphocyte clones. In this way, CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells might 'skip' immune self-tolerance and autoantibodies against acetylcholine receptor may occur. Do antithyroid drugs actually create an immune 'thymic surrounding'?