According to this study, patient transfer is both a risk marker (associated with several known risk factors) and independently associated with nosocomial infection. The origin of a transferred patient is readily known at admission. It would be useful to adopt specific measures for such patients, particularly if they have other risk factors of nosocomial infection, both to protect them and to prevent transmission of the infection to other hospitalized patients.

Background: Improving medication appropriateness is a priority of French national campaigns in nursing homes. A pilot study was conducted to evaluate the impact of a medication review in a French nursing home with a 3-month follow up. Method: A medication review was conducted in 2015 using version 2 STOPP and START criteria. The number and type of drugs meeting a STOPP that were reintroduced and the number and type of drug meeting a START that were stopped during follow up were measured. An expert committee adjudicated whether 3-month hospitalizations and deaths were related to medication review. The impact of medication review on the cost related to drug consumption was calculated for 3 months. Results: The 52 residents (age 84 ± 9 years, 83% female) fulfilled, on average, 2 ± 1.4 of the STOPP criteria and 0.7 ± 0.6 of the START criteria. A total of 101 drugs were stopped and 34 drugs were started. Five deaths occurred during follow up and were judged as not related to medication review. Five drugs stopped were reintroduced in five residents for a rebound effect or a symptom occurrence and one resident had stopped a START medication (aspirin) for a minor adverse drug reaction. At 3 months, a gain of 20.21 ± 31.34 euros per resident was observed. Conclusion: The medication review using version 2 STOPP and START criteria and involving the physician in charge seems useful for detecting and correcting inappropriate prescribing in a nursing home.

No abstract

Plasma exchange (PE) is currently being used to treat a variety of disorders involving immune complexes, such as polyarteritis nodosa. This procedure removes endogenous toxic components that accumulate in patients with this disease, but it also removes drugs. Plasma-protein binding and the volume of distribution (V) are two kinetic parameters which strongly affect the efficiency of drug removal by PE. Drugs that are highly bound to plasma proteins and have a low V may show a marked decrease in plasma levels as a result of PE. Because ceftriaxone exhibits saturable plasma-protein binding, which influences its pharmacokinetic parameters, particularly its V, we evaluated its removal during PE therapy in this nonrandomized crossover study. Twelve polyarteritis nodosa patients undergoing PE were studied. Each patient was given ceftriaxone intravenously in doses of 1 and 3 g on days 4 and 11, respectively, immediately before (n = six patients; group I) and 6 h before (n = six patients; group II) PE. Plasma was assayed for ceftriaxone by high-pressure liquid chromatography. The mean amounts eliminated +/- standard deviations were 230.8 +/- 38.5 mg (1 g) and 750.0 +/- 168.5 mg (3 g) for group I and 161.0 +/- 66.0 mg (1 g) and 347.0 +/- 121.0 mg (3 g) for group II. The drug fractions eliminated by PE were 23.0% +/- 3.9% (1-g dose) and 24.9% +/- 5.6% (3-g dose) for group I (P > 0.05), and 16.6% +/- 5.9% (1-g dose) and 11.5% +/- 4.0% (3-g dose) for group II (P < 0.05). These results showed that the drug fraction eliminated decreased when V increased only when the distribution phase of ceftriaxone had been completed (group II). These findings suggest that PE may influence ceftriaxone disposition and that it would be better to administer the drug after PE to assure its therapeutic efficacy.

Since plasma exchange (PE) represents a major treatment for patients suffering from systemic diseases, its influence on the kinetics of three drugs was investigated: vidarabine, used in patients with polyarteritis nodosa associated with hepatitis B virus (eight subjects), and diclofenac and paracetamol for investigative purposes (five subjects). This study confirmed that vidarabine is so rapidly deaminated to form hypoxanthine arabinoside (Hx-Ara) that no detectable concentrations were measured. Hx-Ara levels were used to evaluate vidarabine kinetics; 19.5 +/- 14.6 mg of Hx-Ara were removed by one PE during the first week of treatment (15 mg kg-1 d-1, continuous infusion) and 7.8 +/- 10.2 mg were eliminated by one PE during the second week of treatment (7.5 mg kg-1 d-1, continuous infusion). Based on the vidarabine intake per hour and the resulting quantity of Hx-Ara removed per hour, PE recovery was quite important (ca. 30 per cent), during both the first and second weeks of continuous infusion. Data were subject to large interindividual variability. However, these results do not favor vidarabine dosage supplementation in this indication because the duration of PE is less than 8 per cent of a daily administration period. For paracetamol (1 g, single oral dose) and diclofenac (100 mg, single oral dose), the fractions of drug removed during PE effected within 2 h of drug intake, were respectively 5.0 +/- 3.1 per cent and 13.6 +/- 9.5 per cent, while plasmapheretic clearance reached, respectively, 13.0 +/- 10.7 per cent of the systemic clearance for paracetamol and 23.0 +/- 1.0 per cent for diclofenac.