Erasmus University Medical Center

About: Erasmus University Medical Center is a healthcare organization based out in Rotterdam, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Medicine. The organization has 8162 authors who have published 11395 publications receiving 517117 citations.

Liposome-encapsulated aminoglycosides in pre-clinical and clinical studies

Abstract: Liposome-encapsulated amikacin has recently entered clinical trials. The rationale for liposome encapsulation of aminoglycosides is the possibility to increase the therapeutic index of this class of antibiotics by increasing aminoglycoside concentrations at the site of infection and/or by reducing the toxicity of these drugs. Three approaches can be distinguished: the use of liposomes as a depot formulation for local drug administration; targeting of (relatively) short circulating conventional liposomes to the cells of the mononuclear phagocyte system (MPS) for treating intracellular bacterial infections; and targeting of long-circulating liposomes to infectious foci localized outside the MPS. This review discusses the pre-clinical and clinical data in connection with recent developments in liposome technology.

Coronary artery bypass grafting: Part 1--the evolution over the first 50 years.

Abstract: Surgical treatment for angina pectoris was first proposed in 1899. Decades of experimental surgery for coronary artery disease finally led to the introduction of coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) in 1964. Now that we are approaching 50 years of CABG experience, it is appropriate to summarize the advancement of CABG into a procedure that is safe and efficient. This review provides a historical recapitulation of experimental surgery, the evolution of the surgical techniques and the utilization of CABG. Furthermore, data on contemporary clinical outcomes are discussed.

A dictionary to identify small molecules and drugs in free text

Abstract: Motivation: From the scientific community, a lot of effort has been spent on the correct identification of gene and protein names in text, while less effort has been spent on the correct identification of chemical names. Dictionary-based term identification has the power to recognize the diverse representation of chemical information in the literature and map the chemicals to their database identifiers. Results: We developed a dictionary for the identification of small molecules and drugs in text, combining information from UMLS, MeSH, ChEBI, DrugBank, KEGG, HMDB and ChemIDplus. Rule-based term filtering, manual check of highly frequent terms and disambiguation rules were applied. We tested the combined dictionary and the dictionaries derived from the individual resources on an annotated corpus, and conclude the following: (i) each of the different processing steps increase precision with a minor loss of recall; (ii) the overall performance of the combined dictionary is acceptable (precision 0.67, recall 0.40 (0.80 for trivial names); (iii) the combined dictionary performed better than the dictionary in the chemical recognizer OSCAR3; (iv) the performance of a dictionary based on ChemIDplus alone is comparable to the performance of the combined dictionary. Availability: The combined dictionary is freely available as an XML file in Simple Knowledge Organization System format on the web site http://www.biosemantics.org/chemlist. Contact: k.hettne@erasmusmc.nl Supplementary information:Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Current understandings on complex regional pain syndrome.

Abstract: The mechanisms underlying complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) have been increasingly studied over the past decade. Classically, this painful and disabling disorder was considered to emerge from pathology of the central nervous system. However, the involvement of additional peripheral disease mechanisms is likely, and recently these mechanisms have also attracted scientific attention. The present article provides an overview of the current understandings regarding pathology of the autonomic and somatic nervous system in CRPS, as well as the roles of neurogenic inflammation, hypoxia, and the contribution of psychological factors. Potential connections between the separate disease mechanisms will be discussed. Additionally, currently known risk factors for CRPS will be addressed. Insight into risk factors is of relevance as it facilitates early diagnosis and tailored treatment. Moreover, it may provide clues for further unraveling of the pathogenesis and etiology of CRPS.