Micellised DHT antagonist - combined Aroma therapy: An effective topical treatment for diffused and androgenic alopecia

Riyadh Colleges of Dentistry and Pharmacy, Riyadh, KSA Background: Hair loss and thinning hair have been sensitive issues for men and women throughout time. Objectives: Effective fast acting treatments for hair loss comprising micellised essential oils and/ or dihydrotestosterone (DHT) antagonist are formulated. The preparations are tested on both males and females suffering from excessive hair shedding or from early advanced stages of alopecia caused by androgenic factors. The preparations are also tested on females suffering from hair shedding associated with diffused alopecia. Methods: Four formulations namely (A), (B), (C) and (D) were tested. Formula (A) comprises selected micellised essential oils. Formula (B) from an FDA approved androgenic antagonist, formula (C) from a combination of (A+B). Placebo formulation (D) was made from the hydrophilic vehicle used excluding the active ingredients. 80 alopecia sufferers from both sex (36 females (F) and 44 males (M) were divided into four groups (each of n=9 for the (F) group and n=11 for the (M) group. Subjects are massaged with 2 ml of either preparation twice daily for a period of 4 month. The effect of each treatment was evaluated weekly in terms of professional photographs, allergic reactions. Hair quality in terms of thickness, covering area and density as well as patient satisfaction was evaluated during and at the end of the treatment period. Results: The results showed that all subjects (100%) of the (F) & (M) groups treated with formulation (C) experienced new hair growth and improved hair quality compared to only 40%, 30% and 10% from formulations (A) (B) and (D) respectively. Formulation (C) was very effective in stopping hair shedding and increased hair density within < 1 month with from 30 – 70%. Formulation (A) showed to be more effective (P = 0.02) than formulation (B) in female groups with diffused alopecia but not significant (p = 0.2) for those suffering from androgenic alopecia. Formulation (B) produced significant improvement (P = 0.01) with a delayed action in case of females and males with androgenic alopecia rather than those with diffused alopecia. Conclusion: Formula (A) showed to be more effective than that of formula (B) or placebo in the treatment of diffused alopecia (non androgenic alopecia). Formula (B) showed to be effective in the treatment of androgenic alopecia subjects but with delayed action. The combination of aromatherapy and anti dihydrotestosterone (formula C) showed to be highly effective and rapidly acting treatment in both type of alopecia compared with the other two formulations and the placebo.

Eicosanoids: Metabolism and Pharmacologic Uses

Eicosanoids are biologically active lipid mediators, including prostaglandins, thromboxanes, leukotrienes, lipoxins and other oxygenated derivatives, which are produced primarily by three classes of enzymes, cyclooxygenases (COX-1 and COX-2), lipoxygenases (LOX) and cytochrome P450 mono-oxygenases. Eicosanoids encompass a wide array of hormones, many of which endocrinologists have never heard of. They are derived from a unique group of polyunsaturated essential fatty acids containing 20 carbon atoms. The chemistry, biochemistry, pharmacology, and molecular biology of eicosanoids are vast, complex and occasionally contradictory subjects that continue to develop at an extraordinarily rapid rate. This lecture is intended only as a broad overview of the topic that can be understood by those with some knowledge of lipids in general. To date biochemists have identified more than 100 eicosanoids and are finding more each year. The breakthrough in eicosanoids research occurred in 1971 when John Vane finally discovered how aspirin (the wonder drug of the 20th century) actually worked: It changed the levels of eicosanoids. Eicosanoids are very widespread in the mammalian organism – most cells synthesize them. They are involved in many normal physiological processes. They are also involved in disease-related phenomena. Eicosanoids are the key to our health because they control the flow of information in our biological internet. The metabolism of eicosanoids can be modified by drugs but also by changes in the diet. In practice, when eicosanoids have beneficial effects, they are used as drugs; when they have adverse effects, one tries to inhibit their biosynthesis or their effects. One can classify prostaglandins according to their therapeutic uses, cardiovascular, digestive, gynecological, obstetrical and ophthamic. In biotechnology, one of the hot research areas today is the field of biological response modifiers. Eicosanoids represent the first (and probably the most powerful) biological response modifiers developed by living organisms. Researchers believe that the foundation of 21st century medicine will be the manipulation of eicosanoids.

Opportunities for New Pharmacist in Academic Path

Pharmacy career is one of the very essential steps that the new pharmacist must think about. To start a best career option for you as a academic pharmacist, it must be based on the collective knowledge and experience that you gain during your study period. Due to the large options that the pharmacists can work, he/she should be more orientated to the job tasks and daily activities which will ease his/her choice in pharmacy career.

Academic Pharmacy path is varied from Lecturer to Professor, depend on the degree that the pharmacist is hold. Pharmacist will be considered as Pharmacist by getting the Bachelor Degree. More degrees that the pharmacist can earn to improve his / her professional development in academic path. In Saudi Arabia, we are having Pharm D., Residence and Master of pharmacy specialty in our pharmacy colleges. Diploma is considered as one degree of pharmacy which allow the participant to be pharmacy technician in pharmacy practice but there is no role for him / her in academic path.

In this presentation, I will show the all the degrees that the pharmacist can get to be one of the facility members in pharmacy colleges. More details about Academic Improvement path will be viewed.

Background: Populations, individuals and ethnic groups vary in their response to medications consequently individualized drug dosage is crucial and required. For patients with impaired renal function, drug modification is essential for many medications.

Objective: To apply the theory of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics to demonstrate the mathematical models used such as analysis and clinical data for aminoglycosides to calculate dosage adjustment in patient with abnormal renal function.

Clinical pharmacokinetics applies the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics to individuals which proved the means of prescribing the right dosage for the right patient and therefore optimizing the therapeutic effect of medication with minimized side effects.

Conclusion: This address will focus on pharmacokinetics in renal impairment patient, time course of drug concentration in the body, which means the processes of drug disposition including absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion.

Medication Reconciliation: Practical Exam

Medication Reconciliation is the process of creating the most accurate list of all possible medications a patient is taking, and comparing that list against the current Physicians order, transfer and/or discharge orders.

In this brief presentation we will focus on the process of implementation, monitoring and evaluation of medication reconciliation in hospital set with some life examples.

Outcomes of Discharge Counseling by Pharmacists

Background and Objective: Patients who discharged from the hospital often experience multiple changes in medication regimens, that lead to adverse drug events (ADEs), poor adherence, poor treatment outcomes, and increased health care cost. Our objectives were to assess the impact of discharge counseling provided by pharmacist on medication error including wrong prescribing, profiling ,processing, and dispensing. Also we will provide information about discharge counseling program at King Abdulaziz Medical City which related to our standards, policy, procedures and achievement.

Role of Pharmacists in Narcotic and Controlled Medications

Narcotic & controlled medications' law and regulations has been changed and updated significantly in the past five years. Is the main aim of releasing these new laws and regulations is only limited to minimize the usage of those kind of medication? And do these kind of medications require any specific requirements from health team workers?

Does the pharmacists know the their required role in dispensing those kind of medications? Or their role is only limited as a keys holders of the metal double locked cabinets - which those medications are stored - only waiting to receive the required prescriptions in order to dispense the prescribed quantities? Or their role is only to make sure that they are dispensing the minimum quantities as possible of these medications?

During this presentation we will know exactly the new updated rules and regulations governing the dispensing process of those kind of medications, as well as the required and the ideal role of pharmacists when dealing with such kind of medications.

Protective Effect Of Thymoquinone And Aminoguanidine Against Bleomycin Induced Lung toxicity: Possible Role Of Nitric Oxide Synthase

Bleomycin - induced lung injury is due to oxidative damage produced by free radicals generations. The present study was undertaken to investigate whether inhibition of nitric oxide synthase by aminoguanidine, an inhibitor of Nitric Oxide (NO) synthase, can protect against bleomycin -induced lung toxicity and to investigate whether thymoquinone, a potent superoxide radical scavenger can protect against bleomycin - induced lung toxicity in rats. Administration of bleomycin , 15 mg/kg, i.p. every other day for 4 weeks, induced lung toxicity as indicated by a significant increase in the level of lipid peroxide , significant depletion of the reduced glutathione in lung tissue and significant increase in the activity of antioxidant enzymes glutathione peroxidase (EC 1.11.1.9 ) and glutathione S-transferases (EC 2.5.1.18). Oral administration of aminoguanidine or thymoquinone for one day before and during the period of bleomycin treatment leads to normalize the alterations in the biochemical parameters induced by bleomycin toxicity. In conclusion, this study demonstrated that both thymoquinone and aminoguanidine significantly attenuate the development of pulmonary toxicity. The thymoquinone is a potent superoxide radical scavenger, scavenging power being as effective as superoxide dismutase against superoxide. The superoxide scavenging and anti-lipid peroxidation may play a part in the protective effect of thymoquinone against bleomycin -induced lung toxicity. However the effect of aminoguanidine was predominantly mediated by inhibition of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) activity, thereby reducing peroxynitrite formation. We propose that the development of a more specific and potent inhibitors of iNOS might be beneficial in the prevention and treatment of lung toxicity.

Enzymes: A Quick and Efficient Paraphernalia in the Modern Pharmaceutical Drug Preparations

From household sanitary detergent and food to pharmaceutical industrial preparations there are enzymes playing a crucial role for an ideal living. There are different classes of enzymes which have been categorized industrially in to different groups based of the specific areas of their utilization. One of the major areas which have been revolutionized is the pharmaceutical industry by enzyme mediated pharmaceutical preparations. Most of the stereotypic chemical drugs are in their isomeric pairs. The separation of intimately associated unintentional chemical synthesis of enantiomeric pairs of drugs with different biological activities has been a thrust area of pharmaceutical preparations. The modern day enzyme mediated synthesis and separation of drugs paid a promising results and reduction in the cost of preparation of drugs. This review briefs the applications of enzymes in the modern day pharmaceutical preparations of an array of drugs for the treatment of cancer and HIV control to anti-inflammation.

Exploration of microorganisms as a source of new drugs

Microorganisms have been exceptionally rich sources of drugs. Exploration of microorganisms as a source of interesting pharmacologically active natural products has been a great challenge. Potent antifungal cyclic lipopeptides, burkholdines (Bk), were isolated from a culture of Burkholderia ambifera 2.2N. Bk-1229 (1) and Bk-1097 (2) are octapeptides comprised of non-proteinogenic amino acids, including beta-hydroxytyrosine, beta-hydroxyasparagine and a new fatty acyl amino acid. 1 and 2 are fungicidal against a panel of fungi with potencies 2-60 fold better than amphotericin B control.

Application of Molecular Techniques in Pharmaceutical Research

The article presents a deep insight into the various molecular techniques that are currently applied in the rapid and accurate diagnosis of human infectious diseases in the state of art modern clinical laboratory setup. The molecular or biotechnology techniques that have been discussed here includes DNA based techniques such as PCR and its variants like Nested PCR, Multiplex PCR, Reverse Transcriptase PCR (RT PCR) and Real time or Q PCR methods. Other molecular techniques like Hybridization techniques, which include In situ Hybridization, Dot blot, Southern blot, Western blot, Northern blot, Immuno blot, Colony hybridization, Direct, Indirect and Sand witch ELISA techniques have also been discussed in detail. Finally, other types of molecular techniques like Random Amplification of Polymorphic DNA (RAPD), Amplified Fragment Length polymorphisms (AFLP), Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphisms (CAPS), Microsatellites and its variants, DNA Microarray techniques, Mass Spectrometry (Mass Spec), Polyclonal and Monoclonal (Mab) based detection kits have also been discussed in brief.

Pharmacovigilance and Medication Safety

Medication safety concept is getting more popular in the last decades and it became from the top priorities for most of the regulatory agencies worldwide. Although it got more attention lately but this concept was around many years ago especially after many medication disasters. Starting with diethyl glycol and sulfonamide elixir disasters in 1937 and thalidomide disaster in early 1960s and end with rofecoxib and rosiglitazone safety problems. It influences many aspects of the health care system including reducing the harm that can affect patients’ health, prevent many preventable adverse drug reactions (ADRs), reduce the workload on the hospitals and reduce the overall cost on the hospitals. Medication safety or drug safety is responsible for reducing any harm on patients including monitoring and reducing ADRs and medication errors and other related aspects.

Recently, Saudi Arabia pays and attention to the concept of medication safety through several initiatives including the Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA). SFDA is one from the regulatory agencies that is considering drug safety as one of its top priority. Thus, it has established an executive directorate that is responsible on all drug safety aspects. This directorate called Vigilance and Crisis Management Executive Directorate. To facilitate all these tasks, SFDA has brought the required systems to perform the assigned work on these tasks. The presentation will cover, but not limited to, the following topics; concept of medication safety, importance of medication safety, role of healthcare professionals in medication safety enhancement, role of SFDA in applying the medication safety concept, SFDA efforts to improve the healthcare professionals awareness on medication safety notion.

Development of pH based change solution of Gatifloxacin for Opthalmic drug delivery

Conventional dosage forms like gels and eye drops show relatively low bioavailability due to poor precorneal contact time. In situ gelling systems are of great importance in providing prolonged ocular drug delivery due to their elastic properties. It resists ocular drainage leading to longer contact time. In the present study an in situ gelling solution was formulated for gatifloxacin an antibacterial agent, using different ratios of hydroxypropyl cellulose and Sodium alginate with a view to increase gelling strength and bio-adhesion force in order to increase pre-corneal contact time, thereby increasing ocular bioavailability of the drug. The prepared formulations were evaluated for various physical parameters such as, clarity, pH, viscosity, drug content, sterility, and in vitro drug release. The formulated gels were transparent, uniform in consistency and had sufficient spreadability with a pH range of 6.8 to 7.1. It was found that with an increase in the concentration of the bioadhesive polymer sodium alginate the drug release was prolonged for longer period of time. Amongst the different polymer combinations studied the G-7 showed satisfactorily higher gel strength, and sustained drug release for more than twelve hours and was stable throughout the stability studies. Thus it can be concluded that the G-7 was more suitable combination for the formulation of ophthalmic in situ gelling system for sustained ocular drug delivery of gatifloxacin, which improves the bioavailability of the drugs on the precorneal area.

Opportunities for New Pharmacist in Hospital Pharmacy

Pharmacy career is very essential step that the new pharmacist must think about. To start a best career option for you as a pharmacist, it must be based on the collective knowledge and experience that you gain during your study period. Due to the large options that the pharmacists can work, he/she should be more orientated to the job tasks and daily activities which will ease his/her choice in pharmacy career.

Hospital pharmacy is considered as one of these options that the pharmacist can work. Most of the pharmacists working in hospitals are facing some challenges from the long working hours, shifting schedule, stress of the work and coworkers (Pharmacists, Physicians, and Nurses). All the newly graduated students are getting the training in the hospitals and they know what are the daily duties and responsibilities of the pharmacist in hospital pharmacist. But this is not enough to let them make their decision to work in hospital pharmacy.

In this presentation, I will show the complete picture about different tasks and duties of pharmacist working in the hospital pharmacy. Skills required for such pharmacists and self development tips will be viewed during this presentation.

"The World of Pharmacy in Riyadh 2020 & Beyond"

Keeping up with the growth of the Capital City Riyadh into Greater Riyadh leaves one with certain conclusions that will have a great impact on the practice of pharmacy. Riyadh is one of the most rapidly growing cities in the world. With the traffic congestion the way it is in spite of adequate network of roads and highways making movement within the city from one point to another a major undertaking. The future holds even more of the same. These conditions will in no doubt affect how people view their neighborhood pharmacist. The projections call for a bigger role for pharmacist in the delivery of health care. These changes would come at the time when the online services have matured in the country and all the health care providers use the system on the regular basis. The community based pharmacy practice will in doubt flourish and be the only way forward. It is interesting that this has always been my vision for the profession and the way it is heading to. Community based pharmacy practice would surely give the pharmacist a bigger role in patients’ care. A community based practice for the pharmacist would open up a world of opportunities hitherto unattainable. I dare to predict that the golden era of pharmacist is yet to come.