Piroxicam in breast milk after long-term treatment

Pharmacological Approach to Managing Childhood-Onset Systemic Lupus Erythematosus During Conception, Pregnancy and Breastfeeding

Pediatric patients often have poor pregnancy outcomes. Systemic lupus erythematosus predominantly impacts women in their second to fourth decade of life, with childhood-onset disease being particularly aggressive. Reproductive issues are an important clinical consideration for pediatric patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), as maintaining good disease control and planning a pregnancy are important for maternal and fetal outcomes. In this clinical review, we will consider the safety of medications in managing childhood-onset SLE during conception, pregnancy, and breastfeeding. The developing fetus is at highest risk for teratogenicity from maternal medications during the period of critical organogenesis, which occurs between the first 3-8 weeks following conception. Medications known to be teratogenic, leading to a specific pattern of malformations, include mycophenolic acid, methotrexate, and cyclophosphamide. These should be discontinued prior to a planned pregnancy or as soon as pregnancy is suspected. Hydroxychloroquine is safe and should be continued throughout pregnancy and breastfeeding in those without contraindications to it. Azathioprine and calcineurin inhibitors are felt to be compatible with pregnancy in usual doses and may be used prior to and throughout pregnancy and lactation. Non-fluorinated corticosteroids including methylprednisolone and prednisone are inactivated by the placenta and can be used if needed for maternal indication during gestation. Addition of aspirin may be considered around the 12th week of gestation for prevention of pre-eclampsia. Illustrative cases are presented that demonstrate management of adolescents with childhood-onset SLE through conception, pregnancy, and breastfeeding.

Lactation and Management of Postpartum Disease

While much of the existing literature in the field of reproductive rheumatology focuses on fertility, preconception counseling, and pregnancy, there is limited information regarding the postpartum period and lactation. Evidence suggests that many rheumatologic disorders flare after delivery, which, along with limitations in medications compatible with breastfeeding, make this time period challenging for women with rheumatologic conditions. This article discusses rheumatologic disease activity during the postpartum period and reviews the safety during lactation of commonly used medications for the management of rheumatic diseases. Fortunately, many of the commonly used medications are compatible with breastfeeding.

Medications and Breast-Feeding: A Guide for Pharmacists, Pharmacy Technicians, and other Healthcare Professionals Part I

Objective:

To provide a guide for practicing pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and other healthcare professionals so that they are able to counsel and advise breast-feeding mothers and fellow healthcare professionals on the safety and use of common ambulatory care, analgesic, and anesthetic medications during breast-feeding.

Data Sources:

Primary texts used by the breast-feeding community were searched, as well as Micromedex, MEDLINE, PubMed, Embase, and Embase2 (1984–July 2003).

Study Selection and Data Extraction:

Multiple sources were utilized whenever available to validate the data, and primary articles were used to verify all tertiary source information. Search terms included breast feeding, lactation, nursing, and medications, as well as specific drug names.

Data Synthesis:

Concerns regarding medication use during breast-feeding have caused mothers to either discontinue nursing or not take necessary medications. Complete avoidance of medications or cessation of breast-feeding is often unnecessary. Although there are medications that can be harmful to nursing infants, breast milk concentrations of most drugs are insufficient to cause any harm.

Conclusions:

Having objective and reliable information on medications enables pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, other healthcare providers, and mothers to make educated decisions regarding drug therapy and breast-feeding.

Utility of noninvasive biomatrices in pharmacokinetic studies

Blood and plasma are the biomatrices traditionally used for drug monitoring and their pharmacokinetic profiling. Blood is the circulating fluid in contact with all organs and tissues of body and thus is the most representative fluid for measuring systemic drug levels. However, venipuncture suffers from the caveat of being an invasive technique which often makes people reluctant to participate in clinical studies. Thus, there is a need for noninvasive bio-fluids that are ethically appropriate, cost-efficient and toxicologically relevant. These alternate bio-fluids may prove clinically useful as alternatives to plasma/serum in therapeutic drug monitoring, pharmacokinetic and toxicokinetic studies, doping control in sports medicine and to monitor local adverse effects. These may be of particular interest in the case of special population groups such as neonates, children, the elderly, terminally ill patients and pregnant or lactating women, and offer the advantage of circumvention of the demand for specialized personnel for sample collection. This review describes such noninvasive bio-fluids (saliva, sweat, tears and milk) that have been considered for pharmacokinetic drug analysis, emphasizing their sample preparation, its associated difficulties and their correlation with plasma.

Therapy insight: the use of antirheumatic drugs during nursing

In 90% of cases, women with rheumatoid arthritis suffer a disease flare within 3 months of delivery of their baby. Drug treatment is, therefore, required; however, such therapies have implications for mothers who decide to nurse their infants. Unfortunately, because of a paucity of data, little is known about the transfer of antirheumatic drugs into breast milk, and even less is known about whether small amounts of these agents ingested during nursing could harm the infant. Our review of the literature indicates that paracetamol, prednisone, antimalarial agents, sulfasalazine and most NSAIDs can safely be used by lactating mothers. Expert opinions differ regarding the use of azathioprine, ciclosporin, and methotrexate during lactation because of varying views on the potential for short-term and long-term adverse effects. Evidence regarding the transfer of leflunomide and biologic drugs into breast milk is insufficient; therefore, until more studies are conducted, the use of these drugs in breastfeeding mothers should be restricted. At present, many patients feel they have to choose between postpartum disease control and lactation. Extended studies of the transfer of antirheumatic drugs into breast milk and the resulting consequences are, therefore, urgently needed.

Analgesics and breast-feeding: safety considerations

The issue of prescription of analgesics during lactation is clinically important but also complex. Most of the information available is based on single dose or short term studies, and for many drugs only a single or a few case reports have been published. As great methodological problems exist in the assessment of possible adverse drug reactions in neonates and infants, there is limited knowledge about the practical impact of the, often very low, concentrations found. Nevertheless, some recommendations can be made. Breast-feeding during maternal treatment with paracetamol (acetaminophen) should be regarded as being safe. Short term use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs seems to be compatible with breast-feeding. For long term treatment, short-acting agents without active metabolites, such as ibuprofen, should possibly be preferred. The use of aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) in single doses should not pose any significant risks to the suckling infant. Use of codeine is probably compatible with breast-feeding, although the effects of long term exposure have not been fully elucidated. For propoxyphene, it seems unlikely that the suckling infant will ingest amounts that will cause any detrimental effects during short term treatment. However, it cannot be excluded that significant amounts of the metabolite norpropoxyphene may arise in the suckling infant during long term exposure. Treatment of the mother with single doses of morphine or pethidine (meperidine) is not expected to cause any risk for the suckling infant. Repeated administration of pethidine, in contrast to morphine, affects the suckling infant negatively. Thus, morphine should be preferred in lactating mothers. However, during long term treatment with morphine, the importance of uninterrupted breast-feeding should be assessed on an individual basis against the potential risk of adverse drug effects in the infant. If it is decided to continue breast-feeding the infant should be observed for possible adverse effects. In general, if treatment of a lactating mother with an analgesic drug is considered necessary, the lowest effective maternal dose should be given. Moreover, infant exposure can be further reduced if breast-feeding is avoided at times of peak drug concentration in milk. As breast milk has considerable nutritional, immunological and other advantages over formula milk, the possible risks to the infant should always, and on an individual basis, be carefully weighed against the benefits of continuing breast-feeding.

Fat content and xenobiotic concentrations in human milk: validation of an enzymatic assay of milk fat

This study reports the validation of an automatic assay for milk triglycerides, as well as the association between milk xenobiotic concentrations and milk triglycerides. The correlation between this assay and a gravimetric reference method for total fat was good (r = 0.997). Triglycerides and xenobiotics were measured in breast milk sampled from one mother. She received two water-soluble drugs, tetracycline and doxycycline in two courses. The levels of organochlorines (DDE, PCB) were also measured and related to those of fat in milk samples from this mother. These and previous results indicate that milk triglyceride variations influence the concentrations of lipophilic xenobiotics in milk.

Antirheumatic drugs in pregnancy and lactation

The natural inclination of patients with rheumatic diseases wishing to become pregnant or to breast feed will be to take as few medications as possible. The guidelines outlined above can be used to balance the risk of drug effect on the fetus or neonate with the risk of inducing a flare in disease activity by stopping the drug. Although there are situations where no information on drug behaviour during pregnancy or lactation exists, some guidelines can be developed from a knowledge of the drug's inherent metabolism. In the majority of the rheumatic diseases, disease activity can be reduced to a minimum using the smallest possible dose of drugs known to be safe in pregnancy and lactation, thus providing minimum risk to mother, fetus and neonate.