Cough is considered as an unconditional reflex adaptive defense response to irritating agents such as aeropollutants, foreign bodies, sputum, and is supposed to ensure adequate airway patency for normal gas exchange. Unfortunately, this mechanism is often transformed from a protective to a pathological one, lacking an adaptive function, causing suffering to the patient and exacerbating his poor condition. The line between physiological and pathological cough is often blurred and is perceived differently by both patients and physicians. In most cases, cough, including persistent cough, is treated with neglect by the general population - as an everyday occurrence with no major problems, and with a lack of awareness of tuberculosis, cancer and a number of other serious diseases. There are a large number of medicines on the market that are positioned as effective cough medicines. However, the wide variety of ways to treat this pathology demonstrates that there is no ideal cough medicine that combines universality, high efficacy and safety. Many drugs can cause serious side-effects, imposing severe restrictions on their use. Another difficulty is that the triggers and pathways of the cough reflex are extremely varied. Identifying the causes of persistent cough requires a thorough medical history, often with a multidisciplinary approach: extended examination, doctors such as otorhinolaryngologist, cardiologist, gastroenterologist, pulmonologist, oncologist, phthisiatrician, clinical pharmacologist (druginduced cough, drug-drug interactions). This article focuses on the differential diagnosis of cough and the selection of cough medicines based on their proven efficacy and safety. This information becomes particularly relevant during the seasonal increase in the incidence of acute respiratory infections.

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In patients with pneumonia and concomitant diseases, the administration of antimicrobial agents together with other medications accompanied by the risk of side effects and drug-drug interactions. We studied the pharmacokinetics (PK) of levofloxacin when combined with a herbal preparation (common St. Johns wort extract) in healthy volunteers and in patients with community-acquired pneumonia on the days 1 and 5 of the drugs intake. Individual differences in the average concentrations (AUC analog) of the antibiotic before and after the course of administration of the St. Johns wort extract within each group were quite significant; however, the group-average differences were statistically insignificant. Intergroup differences in PK with St. Johns wort intake were also statistically insignificant. To search for factors that make a significant contribution to the variations observed in PK indices, we used a statistical multivariate analysis of variance which included factors such as gender, age, body mass index, smoking history, and cardiovascular system parameters. We found that smoking only and, to a lesser extent, the patients gender had an effect on levofloxacin PK, while the intake of St. Johns wort completely eliminated this effect. Other factors played an insignificant role in the antibiotic PK regardless of the St. Johns wort administration.

Vancomycin is prescribed to patients in serious condition with infections caused by Gram-positive microorganisms; however, if the therapeutic plasma concentration of the medicinal product is exceeded, it can have a nephrotoxic effect.The aim of the study was to demonstrate the possibility of using therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) to reduce the risk of developing nephropathy in intensive care unit patients with sepsis.Materials and methods: the study comprised a retrospective analysis of four clinical cases of patients with sepsis admitted to intensive care units of I.V. Davydovsky City Clinical Hospital in 2021 and treated with vancomycin. TDM of vancomycin plasma levels was performed by reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography with mass spectrometric detection.Results: using the four cases of septic patients, the study demonstrated that vancomycin at adequate case-specific doses may result in plasma concentrations beyond the therapeutic range. TDM of vancomycin concentrations helped to prevent further deterioration of renal dysfunction in one septic patient having developed acute kidney injury and to control the achievement of therapeutic vancomycin concentrations or timely adjust the dose to that effect in the other three cases.Conclusions: a timely correction of vancomycin dosing with plasma TDM allows for achieving high antimicrobial efficacy in patients with sepsis and minimising the nephrotoxic effect of the medicinal product. Studies of the feasibility of using TDM as a treatment personalisation tool for patients in serious condition will continue in the future.