Prevention of Radiocontrast-Induced Nephropathy after Coronary Angiography: N-Acetylcysteine plus Saline Hydration versus Saline Hydration

Purpose: To compare the incidence of radiocontrast-induced nephropathy (RCIN) in patients undergoing coronary angiography pretreated with N-acetylcysteine NAC plus saline hydration or saline hydration alone and to determine the association between various risk factors and RCIN.Methods: Patients were retrospectively evaluated over a one-year period. RCIN was defined as an acute rise in serum creatinine of at least 0.5 mg/dl or more than 25 % from baseline value. SPSS software, version 13 was used for data analysis.Results: Overall, 299 patients were studied. Thirteen patients (4.3%) developed RCIN. RCIN was 3.3 % in patients treated with hydration, and 8.3 % in patients treated with NAC plus hydration (p = 0.09). Inpatients with RCIN, the changes in creatinine and % change in creatinine after 24 h were significantly lower in the NAC plus hydration group (p = 0.039 and p = 0.042, respectively). RCIN was significantly associated with male gender (p = 0.017), history of renal failure (p = 0.006), ischemic heart disease (p =0.003), and diuretic treatment (p = 0.013).Conclusion: NAC plus saline hydration may not be more effective than saline hydration alone in decreasing RCIN after coronary angiography. Additional efforts to find an ideal preventive treatment are needed

A Bibliometric Study of Community Pharmacy-Based Research Activity in Middle Eastern Arab Countries: 2003 - 2012

Purpose: To analyze community pharmacy based research in Arab countries.Methods: Comprehensive review of the literature indexed by Scopus was conducted. Data from Jan 01, 2003 till December 31, 2013 was searched for documents with specific words pertaining to “community pharmacy” in any one of the 13 Middle Eastern Arab countries. The quality of publication was assessed using h-index obtained from Scopus and Impact Factor (IF) obtained from Journal Citation Report (JCR)Results: A total of 93 documents were retrieved with an h-index of 9. Thirty eight documents (40.9 %) were published in journals not listed in JCR and therefore had no IF. The sum of the IF of the 93 documents was 64.9 with a mean of 1.3 ± 2.01. The total number of citations was 338 with a mean of 3.6 ± 6.4 citations per document. The highest community  pharmacy-based research was from Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) (32.3 %) followed by United Arab Emirates (UAE) (17.2 %), Jordan (16.1 %),Kuwait (11.8 %) and Qatar (10.8 %). International cooperation was highest with Malaysia (9.7 %) followed by Pakistan (7.5 %), United Kingdom (UK) (8.6 %), and Australia (6.5 %).Conclusion: The quantity and quality of community pharmacy-based research originating from Middle Eastern Arab countries was low. More effort is needed to bridge the gap in community pharmacy-based research and to promote better community pharmacy services in Middle Eastern Arab countries.Keywords: Community pharmacy, Middle East, Bibliometric revie