Usage of the Internet pharmacology resources among European pharmacologists: a preliminary investigation.

The Internet is becoming an ever more important source of information in pharmacology and medicine. Little is known, however, about which Internet pharmacology resources are actually used by the pharmacologists - and to what extent - and how they estimate the Internet information quality and evaluation. This pilot study used an anonymous questionnaire, distributed among 250 mostly European (220/250) pharmacologists from 30 European countries attending The 2nd European Congress of Pharmacology, held in Budapest, Hungary, in 1999. According to study results, 93% of all participants use the Internet pharmacology resources: 56%, 35% and 9% of them on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, respectively. Among 56 pharmacological/medical free online databases offered, the general scientific databases were found to greatly prevail (Pub Med 60%, Evaluated MEDLINE 37%, Internet Grateful Med 29%, etc.), while drug monographs or toxicological databases were less used [e.g. ECDIN, RxList, National Toxicology Programme (NTP) < 10%]. Some 80% of the participants estimated the quality of the pharmacological information on the Internet as good or very good, while 20% thought the quality should be improved. Also, 35% of participants felt the need for improvement of the Internet pharmacological information evaluation, which should be the goal of pharmacology professional.

Angiotensin-converting enzyme gene polymorphism in patients with systemic lupus.

The renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) has been considered one of the probable pathophysiologic mechanisms involved in disease progression. Genetic polymorphism of the RAAS has been associated with the clinical course of renal disease. One of the genetic polymorphisms is a deletion or insertion of a 287 base pair fragment in intron 16 of the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) gene. It is known that ACE gene polymorphism is present in humans and that it is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases, renal disease progression and sarcoidosis. In this study, the potential significance of ACE gene polymorphism in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) was investigated. ACE gene polymorphism was determined in 18 patients with SLE and in 21 healthy volunteers as a control group. The mean age of patients was 38.5 years. All patients had a mean follow-up of 30.7 +/- 20.2 months (range 5-95 months). ACE genotypes were determined by the method of polymerase chain reaction. Proteinuria and creatinine were also followed. The frequency of DD, ID and II genotypes was 50%, 28% and 22% in SLE patients and 25%, 50% and 25% in healthy controls, respectively. DD genotype was more common in SLE patients than in the control group. The patients with II genotype had lower proteinuria and creatinine level than those with DD genotype (p < 0.05). The time to disease remission was shorter in patients with II genotype (p < 0.05). Study results indicated an increased frequency of D allele in SLE patients. The increased ACE activity in these patients pointed to the need of further studies of ACE gene polymorphism in SLE.