International Journal of Pharmaceutical Medicine 

About: International Journal of Pharmaceutical Medicine is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Pharmaceutical medicine & Clinical trial. It has an ISSN identifier of 1364-9027. Over the lifetime, 338 publications have been published receiving 2194 citations.

European Respiratory Society

Abstract: The mission of the European Respiratory Society (ERS) is to advance respiratory medicine by stimulating and coordinating the actions of its members, in order to achieve the highest possible medical, paramedical and social standards in the treatment of respiratory disease in Europe. The society’s 2005 congress had approximately 16 000 registered participants from 100 countries and with over 110 scientific and clinical sessions, the congress was Europe’s largest annual scientific gathering in respiratory medicine.

American Thoracic Society 100 Years of Advances in the Treatment and Science of Respiratory Diseases; 20-25 May 2005; San Diego, California, USA

Abstract: This document is an update of the original 1993 statement on community-acquired pneumonia, incorporating new information about bacteriology, patient stratification, diagnostic evaluation, antibiotic therapy, and prevention. The statement includes a summary of the available literature, as well as evidence-based recommendations for patient management, developed by a multidisciplinary group composed of pulmonary, critical care, general internal medicine, and infectious disease specialists. The sections of this document are as follows: an overview of the purpose of our efforts and the methodology used to collect and grade the available data; a review of the likely etiologic pathogens causing community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), including a discussion of drug-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae (DRSP); a proposed approach to patient stratification for the purpose of predicting the likely etiologic pathogens of different patient populations with CAP; a summary of available and recommended diagnostic studies; suggestions on how to define the need for hospitalization and admission to the intensive care unit (ICU) for patients with CAP; guidelines for antibiotic therapy of CAP, including principles of therapy and specific recommendations for each patient category; an approach to the nonresponding patient, as well as a discussion of when to switch to oral therapy and when to discharge an admitted patient with CAP who is responding to initial therapy; and recommendations for the use of pneumococcal and influenza vaccines.

Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities (MedDRA)

Abstract: Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities (MedDRA), as the ICH approved standard terminology for all drug regulatory activities, is in many aspects different from previously used terminologies, mainly in size, specificity, structure, rules and conventions. All these aspects impact on retrieval strategies, analysis and presentation of the coded data. After shortly describing the key features of MedDRA and their theoretically anticipated impact on data analysis and presentation, two examples for display of MedDRA coded data are described, one from a clinical study project and one from spontaneous reporting. The first example compares the adverse drug reaction (ADR) profile of the same data coded in WHO Adverse Reaction Terminology (WHO-ART) and recorded in MedDRA; the second example demonstrates different ways of presenting the ADR profile of an antibacterial, using different elements in MedDRA with the aim of presenting the ADR profile in a way that best transports the medical concepts reported with this drug. Based on some results obtained from these examples and based on analysis of the content of MedDRA version 6.0, the following limitations of MedDRA for data analysis have been identified: (i) the Preferred Term level is generally too granular, bearing the danger of underestimating risks, and the midlevels are currently not a robust, consistent and non-ambiguous level for data aggregation; and (ii) the rules relating to multiaxiality add complexity for data aggregation because related medical concepts may be split into different System Organ Classes, which may mislead frequency analysis. In the absence of guidance from regulatory agencies and with the growing need for analysis of MedDRAencoded data, there is a risk of diminishing the benefits of MedDRA as a standard terminology through the use of user-specific and non-standardised data analysis and presentation strategies. MedDRA would benefit from a redesign of the group terms (High Level Group Terms/High Level Terms) to become a robust, consistent and non-ambiguous level for data analysis and aggregation. This should be done in an interdisciplinary effort coordinated by the MedDRA Maintenance Supply and Support Organisation (MSSO).