Drug usage review and inventory analysis in promoting rational parenteral cephalosporin therapy

Drug usage review and inventory analysis data on the cephalosporin antibotics were presented by the pharmacy to a hospital pharmacy and therapeutics committee in an effort to promote rational use of these drugs and decrease drug costs. The committee recommended that cefazolin be the parenteral cephalosporin of choice. Cephalothin was placed on a limited formulary status for ophthamology patients and patients with renal impairment. Efforts by the committee to promote physician compliance with its recommendations are discussed.

Adenine phosphoribosyltransferase deficiency: its inheritance and occurrence in a female with gout and renal disease

A deficiency of adenine phosphoribosyltransferase (APRT) enzyme activity to approximately 40% of normal has been found in erythrocytes from a young woman aged 24 years, who had suffered from recurrent gouty arthritis since 11 years of age. She also demonstrated considerable, although asymptomatic, renal impairment with a creatinine clearance of one-third normal. Her father had suffered from gouty arthritis but had a normal APRT activity; he was obese, had a high purine intake and was a regular beer drinker. The patient's mother was asymptomatic with a normal serum urate concentration, but demonstrated a similar reduction in APRT activity to that of her daughter. Eleven other asymptomatic members of the family also demonstrated a similar reduction in APRT activity in erythrocyte lysates. The pattern of inheritance was consistent with autosomal transmission. Concentrations of phosphoribosylpyrophospate (PRPP) in erythrocytes were within normal limits both in the subjects with deficient, and in those with normal, APRT activity. Partial purification of APRT enzyme from erythrocytes of the index case did not reveal any difference from the normal enzyme as far as Michaelis constants, heat stability, or mobility in polyacrylamide gel was concerned. No primary abnormality of lipoprotein metabolism was demonstrated either in the propositus or in other members of her family. Study of urate metabolism in the propositus indicated that, although urate production was within the normal range in absolute terms, there was increased incorporation of glycine into produced urate, usually taken as one index of de novo urate production. Impaired renal excretion of urate was also shown. Although detailed study of urate metabolism has not been undertaken in other family members with APRT deficiency, no conclusive relationship has yet been demonstrated between APRT deficiency and disordered urate metabolism.

Distribution of alkaline phosphatase within the periplasmic space of gram-negative bacteria

Both reaction-product localization and ferritin-coupled antibody studies have shown that alkaline phosphatase is evenly distributed throughout the peri-plasmic space of Escherichia coli and a marine pseudomonad. This space is not locally enlarged except in cases where plasmolysis has occurred.

Survey of a medically indigent population in South Dallas, Texas, 1969

Images