Iranian Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences

Medication Errors (MEs) as one of the most important medical errors in hospitals are common, expensive, and sometimes harmful to patients. Several strategies, such as Computerized Provider Order Entry (CPOE) and wristband barcoding are used for decreasing MEs. The role of new technologies is emphasized in the policies and planning in the health system in Iran. Worldwide, CPOE is a new technology to improve patients' care and safety, increase patients' satisfaction and user productivity, decrease MEs and costs in hospitals. This system appears as an effective tool in reducing MEs. Elimination of eligibility errors, ensuring completeness in prescribing fields, and reduction in transcription errors are other benefits of CPOE system. CPOE has been implemented in Namazi Teaching Hospital and had impressive impact on the reduction of MEs. The use of this system is changing to a policy in hospitals in Iran and it is emphasized in the vision of Iran for 1404.

Cancer can be treated by surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, hormonal therapy, and targeted therapy. The choice of treatment depends on the type and stage of the cancer. Chemotherapy drugs play an important role in cancer treatment. The objective of this interview-questionnaire study is to explore what influences Iranian hematologists-oncologists’ prescription when prescribing chemotherapy drug. Data collection can be divided into two categories: the interview and the questionnaire. The qualitative part consists of depth interviews, utilizing closed- and open-ended questions, were conducted with oncologists, selected through theoretical sampling. The interview questions consisted of two parts, in the first part; open-ended questions were posed about factors influencing prescription. In the second part, the oncologists were asked to rate predefined factors that might influence their prescription decisions. The quantitative part of the study consists of questionnaire included two parts; the first part consisted of general questions including gender, age, membership in scientific committees and professional background. The second part consisted of 24 specialized questions that covered all the indexes of the effective factors on oncologists’ prescription decisions. Ten oncologists were interviewed. Factors affecting chemotherapy drug prescription were grouped into three categories based on qualitative studies carried out and is presented as they were mentioned and rated by the hematologists-oncologists: 1) Products properties, 2) Pharmaceutical marketing, 3) Scientific, experimental confirmation. The findings from the questionnaire suggest products properties particularly (clinical effectiveness) is the most important factor considered in drug prescription choice. Also, the socialized medicine sponsorship and clinical trial respectively are the most effective on increasing the frequency of prescribing. Whilst, prescribing by brand name or higher prices for a drug are not necessarily justified. The results of this study provide new insights to the nature prescribing behavior driven to develop measures which could be used to achieve greater clinical effectiveness and economic efficiency from drug prescribing.

Liposomes are widely used as drug delivery systems in different forms including osmotic pumps, infusion and IV injection. In spite of these, there is no data available about their behavior under convective flow (e.g. infusion or osmotic pumps) and upon stagnation in such drug delivery systems. As a part of a series of investigations in this area, the present study investigates the effects of viscosity and flexibility on liposomes separation upon stagnation.Here, liposomes with different bilayer flexibility and medium viscosity were encountered gravity (separating force) in a designed sedimentation model and changes in their properties were monitored over time. Rigid liposomes in the low viscosity formulation showed significant phase separation (three times reduction in size) and decreased lipid content over time. Increasing the bilayer flexibility of large liposomes, prevented them from phase separation. Neither size reduction nor decreased lipid content was observed. Increasing viscosity of the liposomal formulation of 3.4 cP to 45.2 cP also prevented sedimentation of liposomes and phase separation in the system. These results indicate that bilayer flexibility and viscosity affect the separation of large liposomes in pre-administrational steps and even stagnation during administration in systems such as infusion pumps.

This study describes a biological investigation of methanolic extract of Jatropha gossypiifolia, a plant belonging to the family Euphorbiaceae. The aim of this investigation is to expose the viable phytochemical constituents properly as their contribution towards the antioxidant, anthelmintic and membrane stabilizing activities. The anthelmintic test was conducted on earthworm Pheritima phosthuma using five unique concentrations of the extract and albendazole as standard drug. The extracts were used for the investigation of antioxidant activity followed by DPPH (Diphenylpicrylhydrazyl) assay and using BHT (tert-butyl-1-hydroxytoluene) as a standard. The crude methanolic stem and leaves extract of J. gossypiifolia (Jatropha gossypiifolia) was conducted to attempt for membrane stabilizing activities using standard protocols. The leaves and the stems portions considerably have the antioxidant property of 3.186 μg/ml and 10.56 μg/ml respectively. According to the absorbance values of the various extract solutions, results of the colorimetric analysis of total phenolic contents are that the leaves cover the highest Phenolic content (65.66mg/g in GAE (Galic Acid Equivalent)) rather than the stem portion (33.332mg/g in GAE). The leaves and stem methanolic extract was found both at hypotonic solution and heat induced conditions, inhibit 39.19±0.26%, 38.17±0.14 and 27.39±0.15%, 26.97±0.47% hemolysis of erythrocyte membrane respectively, when comparing with standard acetyl salicylic acid. The preliminary phytochemical evaluation of methanolic extract of J. gossypiifolia confirmed the presence of glycosides, tannins, phytosterols, triterpenoids, diterpenes, saponins and phenols both at its leaves and stem portions. The results of the study showed that the plant extract has potential membrane stabilizing, anthelmintic, antioxidant activities with significant phytochemicals.

This study was conducted to evaluate the possible antioxidant activity and neuroprotective effects of aqueous and methanolic extracts of Althaeaofficinalis flowers against H2O2-induced oxidative stress in PC12 cells.
The antioxidant potential of extracts was evaluated by radical scavenging activity using 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay. For cytoprotective activity, the cells were pretreated with different concentrations (12.5, 25, 50, 100, 200and 400 μg/ml) of the extracts for 24h and then incubated with H2O2(480 μM) for 3 h. In co-treatment protocol, cells were simultaneously treated with H2O2 (480 μM) and the same concentrations of extracts, used in pretreatment protocol. Percentage of viability was measured using MTT assay. The aqueous and methanolic extracts did not show strong DPPH radical scavenging activity (IC50 value of 128 and 255 μg/ml respectively) in comparison with ascorbic acid (IC50 value of 6.1 μg/ml). The cytoprtection study revealed that neither the methanolic, northe aqueous extractsat tested concentrations could protect the cells against H2O2-induced cytotoxicity compared to H2O2 alone, in either co-treatment or pre-treatment experiments. Despite reporting the antioxidant activity of A. officinalis L. flowers, it seems that such a negligible cytoprotective activity may be related to some other factors. On the other hand, the presence of moderate antioxidant activity does not guarantee the protective activity against oxidative stress.

The principle of this method was to screen the pharmacological activity of six prepared polyphyto formulations by using high throughput screening method for their nootropic action. The study was performed in three stages using one, two and three animals, respectively in a group. Test formulations were given p.o daily at the dose of 50 and 100 mg/kg body weight. The test formulations were compared with the standard drug Bacopa monnieri for learning and memory enhancement. The pharmacological response shown in single experimental animal was compared with that shown in two animals by using regression analysis. R2 value was determined by Least squares linear regression analysis to interpret as the proportion of the variance in the dependent variable that is predictable from the independent variable. Of the six formulations, three were considered for further evaluation in three groups (n=3). Finally, one formulation that showed maximum response was tested in a group of 12 animals. One way ANOVA was used for estimating the statistical significance. The best formulations FM-06 (compose of Celastrus paniculatus, Habiscus rosasinensis, Bacopa monnieri, Convolvulus pluricaulis, Phyllanthus emblica, and Mentha piperita) was selected by high throughput screening and results for twelve animals in a group were found to be statistically similar.

Unfavorable conditions can have effect on secondary metabolites production in the plants. The aim of present study was to evaluate the effect of heavy metals accumulation on antibacterial potential of Chenopodium murale L., Senecio glaucus L., Malva parviflora L. and Calendula arvensis L. grown in an industrial area of steel production in Ahvaz, southwest of Iran. The cadmium (Cd), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn) values were analyzed in different parts of these medicinal herbs. The antibacterial activity of methanol and ethanol extracts of the plants was surveyed in standard disc diffusion method against Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. In addition, minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) of these extracts were determined. High concentration of Cd was found in the roots of M. parviflora and S. glaucus. The concentration of other metals in these plants was within the allowed limits. Both of ethanolic and metanolic extracts exhibited the highest antibacterial effect against E. coli and P. aeruginosa. MIC and MBC values of alcoholic extracts were determined against E. coli and P. aeruginosa as the most sensitive bacterial species. It seems that antibacterial activity of studied plants is not essentially correlated with their heavy metal concentration.

The impact of corporate reputation uses, including value creation, corporate communication, and strategic resources on branding strategies such as segmentation and producing intangible assets for different industries is investigated in western countries in the past few years, but there is a gap for the generalizability of findings to countries out of the United States and Europe. To establish the western researcher‟s external validity of theories in other countries and to obtain a better understanding of the influences of branding and corporate reputation in pharmaceutical business markets, the researchers applied this study for Iran, as a country in the Middle East. The obtained results using SEM (by P.L.S. 2.0 software) showed a weak relation between value creation and brand segmentation (β = 3.007 and t-value = 1.806) and no significant relation between corporate communication and strategic resources with brand segmentation (β = 0.199 and t-value = 1.301) and (β = 3.046 and t-value = 1.465). Based on these findings; and previous researches in this field, it seems that pharmaceutical managers and marketers need to change their thoughts and practices regarding segmentation and reputation.This study is a pioneering attempt in Iran to evaluate the impact of corporate reputation on brand segmentation strategy.