Prescription switching: Rationales and risks.

BACKGROUND: Therapeutic drug switching is commonplace across a broad range of indications and, within a drug class, is often facilitated by the availability of multiple drugs considered equivalent. Such treatment changes are often considered to improve outcomes via better efficacy or fewer side effects, or to be more cost-effective. Drug switching can be both appropriate and beneficial for several reasons; however, switching can also be associated with negative consequences. AIM: To consider the impact of switching in two situations: the use of statins as a well-studied example of within-class drug switching, and gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH)-targeting drug switching as an example of cross-class switching. RESULTS: With the example of statins, within-class switching may be justified to reduce side effects, although the decision to switch is often also driven by the lower cost of generic formulations. With the example of GnRH agonists/antagonists, switching often occurs without the realisation that these drugs belong to different classes, with potential clinical implications. CONCLUSION: Lessons emerging from these examples will help inform healthcare practitioners who may be considering switching drug prescriptions.

Metastatic Prostate Cancer: An Update on Treatments and a Review of Patient Symptom Management.

BACKGROUND: Available treatment options have improved overall survival and contributed to delayed progression, but metastatic prostate cancer remains incurable. Treatment strategies are based on disease progression assessed by a combination of biochemical, radiographic, and symptomatic changes. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this article is to review metastatic prostate cancer, symptoms representing disease progression, disease treatments, and symptom management. METHODS: A PubMed® search restricted to English-language articles published since 1990 was conducted in August 2018 with combinations of the keywords "metastatic prostate cancer," "symptom assessment," and "treatment." Review articles were excluded, but their reference lists were reviewed to identify additional articles. Information from relevant articles published after August 2018 was added as appropriate based on author consensus. FINDINGS: Nursing professionals play vital roles in symptom recognition and reporting, identification of disease progression, patient education, and implementation of individualized treatment strategies.

Narcolepsy caused by acute disseminated encephalomyelitis.

BACKGROUND: Narcolepsy with cataplexy is caused by a selective loss of hypocretin-producing neurons, but narcolepsy can also result from hypothalamic and rostral brainstem lesions. PATIENT: We describe a 38-year-old woman with severe daytime sleepiness, internuclear ophthalmoplegia, and bilateral delayed visual evoked potentials. Her multiple sleep latency test results demonstrated short sleep latencies and 4 sleep-onset rapid eye movement sleep periods, and her cerebrospinal fluid contained a low concentration of hypocretin. Magnetic resonance imaging showed T2 and fluid-attenuated inversion recovery hyperintensity along the walls of the third ventricle and aqueduct, which are consistent with acute disseminated encephalomyelitis. RESULTS: After treatment with steroids, this patient's subjective sleepiness, hypersomnia, and hypocretin deficiency partially improved. CONCLUSIONS: Autoimmune diseases such as acute disseminated encephalomyelitis can produce narcolepsy. Most likely, this narcolepsy is a consequence of demyelination and dysfunction of hypocretin pathways, but direct injury to the hypocretin neurons may also occur.