Transdermal drug delivery treatment for overactive bladder

Overactive bladder is commonly treated with oral anticholinergic drugs such as oxybutynin chloride. Although oral anticholinergic agents have been effective in controlling urinary urgency and incontinence, adverse events, particularly dry mouth, often cause patients to discontinue oral therapy and to endure incontinence. Oxybutynin can be delivered transcutaneously, maintaining the efficacy of oral oxybutynin while significantly minimizing side effects (e.g., dry mouth) that may complicate therapy. By avoiding hepatic and gastrointestinal metabolism of oxybutynin, less N-desethyloxybutynin (N-DEO) is produced and this compound is deemed to be responsible for anticholinergic side effects such as dry mouth. This novel oxybutynin formulation offers patients with OAB and urge urinary incontinence a well-tolerated option for managing the symptoms of overactive bladder

Beyond ΛCDM: Problems, solutions, and the road ahead

Despite its continued observational successes, there is a persistent (and growing) interest in extending cosmology beyond the standard model, ΛCDM. This is motivated by a range of apparently serious theoretical issues, involving such questions as the cosmological constant problem, the particle nature of dark matter, the validity of general relativity on large scales, the existence of anomalies in the CMB and on small scales, and the predictivity and testability of the inflationary paradigm. In this paper, we summarize the current status of ΛCDM as a physical theory, and review investigations into possible alternatives along a number of different lines, with a particular focus on highlighting the most promising directions. While the fundamental problems are proving reluctant to yield, the study of alternative cosmologies has led to considerable progress, with much more to come if hopes about forthcoming high-precision observations and new theoretical ideas are fulfilled