Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting prophylaxis in pediatric patients at a teaching hospital: assessment of adherence to guidelines

Aims: Describing the adherence rate of antiemetic prophylaxis in pediatric patients using antineoplastic agents and possible associated factors. Methods: It is a retrospective cross-sectional study, which took place in a teaching hospital at Belo Horizonte. There were included pediatric patients that received chemotherapy at the hospital from January to June, 2022. The demographic, clinical and pharmacotherapeutic data were collected from physicians’ prescriptions and patients’ charts. Descriptive analysis was performed and the results were expressed by absolute and relative frequency for categorical variables and by measures of central tendency and dispersion for numeral variables. Univariate analysis was done in order to assess the association between chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting and exposure variables. It was calculated through Pearson’s chi-square test. It was considered statistically significant a p-value less than 0,05. Results: It was observed that the prescription practice was closer to recommendations made by guidelines of American Society of Clinical Oncology and Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer | European Society of Medical Oncology with 62% of adherence, meanwhile Pediatric Oncology Group of Ontario had 4,6% of concordance. Underuse of antiemetics was the principal reason for discordance. In particular the lack of dexamethasone prescription. It was identified statistically significance association between nausea and vomiting registers and vincristine and cyclophosphamide use. Conclusions: This study detected high adherence to the American Society of Clinical Oncology and Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer | European Society of Medical Oncology guidelines, even though, the number of observed nausea and vomiting events flag up a potential failure in the antiemetic prophylaxis. The associative analyses between nausea and vomiting registers and vincristine and cyclophosphamide use were statistically significant

Antinociceptive and anti-inflammatory properties of 7-epiclusianone, a prenylated benzophenone from Garcinia brasiliensis

Abstract7-Epiclusianone, a natural prenylated benzophenone, was extracted from Garcinia brasiliensis Planch. & Triana (Clusiaceae), a native plant commonly known as bacupari and used in traditional Brazilian medicine for the treatment of inflammatory diseases. As a result of the wide spectrum of biological activities attributed to polyisoprenylated benzophenones, the aim of this study was to evaluate the analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects of 7-epiclusianone using two animal models. Carrageenan-induced paw oedema and peritonitis were used to investigate the anti-inflammatory activity of 7-epiclusianone in rats. The acetic acid-induced writhing, formalin and hot-plate tests were used to investigate its antinociceptive activity in mice. At test doses of 5, 10 and 15mg/kg p.o., 7-epiclusianone had an anti-inflammatory effect as demonstrated by the reduction of paw oedema induced by carrageenan and the inhibition of leukocyte recruitment into the peritoneal cavity. At the same doses, 7-epiclusianone inhibited nociception induced by an intraperitoneal injection of acetic acid, observed by the decrease in the number of writhing episodes. Additionally, 7-epiclusianone decreased licking time caused by a subplantar injection of formalin. Moreover, the hot plate test produced a significant increase in latency reaction, demonstrating an antinociceptive effect. The experimental data demonstrated that the polyisoprenylated benzophenone 7-epiclusianone has remarkable anti-inflammatory and antinociceptive activities

Design, synthesis and evaluation of novel feruloyl-donepezil hybrids as potential multitarget drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease

A novel series of feruloyl-donepezil hybrid compounds were designed, synthesized and evaluated as multitarget drug candidates for the treatment of Alzheimer's Disease (AD). In\uc2\ua0vitro results revealed potent acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitory activity for some of these compounds and all of them showed moderate antioxidant properties. Compounds 12a, 12b and 12c were the most potent AChE inhibitors, highlighting 12a with IC50\uc2\ua0=\uc2\ua00.46\uc2\ua0\uce\ubcM. In addition, these three most promising compounds exhibited significant in\uc2\ua0vivo anti-inflammatory activity in the mice paw edema, pleurisy and formalin-induced hyperalgesy models, in\uc2\ua0vitro metal chelator activity for Cu2+and Fe2+, and neuroprotection of human neuronal cells against oxidative damage. Molecular docking studies corroborated the in\uc2\ua0vitro inhibitory mode of interaction of these active compounds on AChE. Based on these data, compound 12a was identified as a novel promising drug prototype candidate for the treatment of AD with innovative structural feature and multitarget effects