Antidiabetic Drug Prescription Pattern in Hospitalized Older Patients with Diabetes

Objective: To describe the prescription pattern of antidiabetic and cardiovascular drugs in a cohort of hospitalized older patients with diabetes. Methods: Patients with diabetes aged 65 years or older hospitalized in internal medicine and/or geriatric wards throughout Italy and enrolled in the REPOSI (REgistro POliterapuie SIMI—Società Italiana di Medicina Interna) registry from 2010 to 2019 and discharged alive were included. Results: Among 1703 patients with diabetes, 1433 (84.2%) were on treatment with at least one antidiabetic drug at hospital admission, mainly prescribed as monotherapy with insulin (28.3%) or metformin (19.2%). The proportion of treated patients decreased at discharge (N = 1309, 76.9%), with a significant reduction over time. Among those prescribed, the proportion of those with insulin alone increased over time (p = 0.0066), while the proportion of those prescribed sulfonylureas decreased (p < 0.0001). Among patients receiving antidiabetic therapy at discharge, 1063 (81.2%) were also prescribed cardiovascular drugs, mainly with an antihypertensive drug alone or in combination (N = 777, 73.1%). Conclusion: The management of older patients with diabetes in a hospital setting is often sub-optimal, as shown by the increasing trend in insulin at discharge, even if an overall improvement has been highlighted by the prevalent decrease in sulfonylureas prescription

Studying niobium pentachloride to obtain triarylmethane and anthracene derivatives via Friedel-Crafts and Bradsher-type reactions and photophysical studies of the obtained compounds

Nesta dissertação de mestrado, são descritos os resultados obtidos no estudo do uso do pentacloreto de nióbio como ácido de Lewis na síntese de triarilmetanos simétricos e de derivados de 9-antraldeído. Os triarilmetanos foram obtidos a partir de reações de Friedel-Crafts envolvendo aldeídos aromáticos e arenos. O pentacloreto de nióbio mostrou-se um excelente ácido de Lewis para esse tipo de reação e possibilitou a obtenção de mais de 25 compostos com rendimentos elevados em tempos reacionais curtos, demonstrando grande vantagem sobre outros métodos já existentes. Ainda, o escopo reacional abrangeu aldeídos aromáticos contendo vários tipos de grupos doadores e retiradores de elétrons. No entanto, não foi possível usar aldeídos alifáticos, já que estes não originam carbocátions suficientemente estáveis para que a reação prossiga. Posteriormente, diversos derivados de 9-antraldeído foram obtidos a partir de triarilmetanos, do diclorometil metil éter e do pentacloreto de nióbio, por meio de uma reação do tipo Bradsher envolvendo formilação seguida de ciclização intramolecular. Os tempos reacionais extremamente curtos, os rendimentos reacionais elevados e os compostos inéditos sintetizados, demonstraram a eficiência do método desenvolvido neste trabalho. Levando em conta a carência de métodos sintéticos para obter essa classe de compostos, o desenvolvimento de novas metodologias sintéticas se torna necessário. Devido as diversas propriedades fotofísicas apresentadas pelos derivados de antraceno, na parte final deste trabalho foram descritos os estudos da fluorescência dos derivados de 9-antraldeído visando verificar potenciais aplicações na área de materiais luminescentes.We have synthesized several triarylmethane derivatives and 9- antraldehyde derivatives by using niobium pentachloride as Lewis acid. We obtained the triarylmethanes via Friedel-Crafts hydroxyalkylation reaction involving aromatic aldehydes and arenes. Niobium pentachloride proved to be an excellent Lewis acid for this type of reaction: the reaction produced more than 25 compounds in high yields and short reaction times, being advantageous over other existing methods. Furthermore, the reaction scope encompassed aromatic aldehydes containing various types of donating and withdrawing groups in the aromatic ring. However, aliphatic aldehydes could not be used because they do not generate sufficiently stable carbocations for the reaction to proceed. Subsequently, we obtained several 9-antraldehyde derivatives by reacting triarylmethanes, dichloromethyl methyl ether, and niobium pentachloride through a Bradsher-type reaction involving formylation followed by intramolecular cyclization. The short reaction times, the high reaction yields, and the novel synthesized compounds demonstrated that the methodology developed here was efficient. Taking into account the lack of synthetic methods to obtain this class of compounds, the development of new synthetic methodologies becomes necessary. Because the anthracene derivatives present different photophysical properties, we conducted fluorescence studies to verify their potential applications in the area of luminescent materials

The Cerambycidae (Coleoptera: Chrysomeloidea) of Sicily: Recent records and updated checklist

This paper compiles an updated checklist of Sicilian (including the circumsicilian islets) species of Cerambycidae based on historical bibliographical data along with new Sicilian material collected by the authors and other entomologists in the last few decades. A total of 133 species are reported, including new data for many taxa often rare in Sicily and the first record of Axinopalpis gracilis (Krynicki, 1832)