Current pharmaceutical design
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Sexual addiction, which is also known as hypersexual disorder, has largely been ignored by psychiatrists, even though the condition causes serious psychosocial problems for many people. A lack of empirical evidence on sexual addiction is the result of the disease's complete absence from versions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. However, people who were categorized as having a compulsive, impulsive, addictive sexual disorder or a hypersexual disorder reported having obsessive thoughts and behaviors as well as sexual fantasies. ⋯ As with other behavioral addictions, the appropriate treatment of sexual addiction should combine pharmacological and psychological approaches. Psychiatric and somatic comorbidities that frequently occur with sexual addiction should be integrated into the therapeutic process. Group-based treatments should also be attempted.
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Sexual addiction, which is also known as hypersexual disorder, has largely been ignored by psychiatrists, even though the condition causes serious psychosocial problems for many people. A lack of empirical evidence on sexual addiction is the result of the disease's complete absence from versions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. However, people who were categorized as having a compulsive, impulsive, addictive sexual disorder or a hypersexual disorder reported having obsessive thoughts and behaviors as well as sexual fantasies. ⋯ As with other behavioral addictions, the appropriate treatment of sexual addiction should combine pharmacological and psychological approaches. Psychiatric and somatic comorbidities that frequently occur with sexual addiction should be integrated into the therapeutic process. Group-based treatments should also be attempted.
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Review
New tuberculostatic agents targeting nucleic acid biosynthesis: drug design using QSAR approaches.
Worldwide, tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of death among curable infectious diseases. The emergence of multidrug resistant (MDR) and extensively drug resistant (XDR) TB is a growing global health concern and there is an urgent need for new anti-TB drugs. Enzymes involved in DNA and ATP biosynthesis are potential targets for tuberculostatic drug design, since these enzymes are essential for Mycobacterium tuberculosis growth. This review presents the current progress and applications of structure-activity relationship analysis for the discovery of innovative tuberculostatic agents as inhibitors of ribonucleotide reductase, DNA gyrase, ATP synthase, and thymidylate kinase enzymes, highlighting present challenges and new opportunities in TB drug design.
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Since several clinical data have suggested that the incidence of neurological deficit after aortic surgery has not changed appreciably over the last 50 years, anesthesiologists as well as vascular surgeons have attempted to resolve this clinically important issue by employing various strategies to prevent ischemic spinal cord injury. With respect to inhalational anesthetics, it is thought that isoflurane as well as sevoflurane preconditioning might provide neuroprotective effects against spinal ischemia via activation of TWIK-related K channels-1 or the potassium ATP channel. Glutamate receptor antagonists, including ketamine, could also potentially provide some neuroprotection against spinal ischemia. ⋯ Inhaled nitric oxide (iNO) therapy (40-80ppm), a common treatment for pulmonary hypertension, has been reported to prevent ischemic brain injury in animal studies by selective dilation of collateral arterioles. The vasodilating effects of iNO on the central nervous system might enhance the "collateral network" in the spinal cord during aortic cross-clamp, potentially protecting the spinal cord. In conclusion, some anesthetics, especially inhalational anesthetics, may provide neuroprotective effects against spinal cord ischemia, but administration of neuraxial opioid after spinal cord ischemia might exacerbate neurological dysfunction.
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Tuberculosis (TB) is the second cause of death from a single infectious agent, the M. tuberculosis bacillus. Nearly two billion people are infected and about 8.7 million new cases and 1.4 million deaths were reported by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2013. ⋯ The aim of this review is to summarize the current status of different QSAR based strategies for the design of novel anti-TB drugs based upon the most active anti-TB agent known, INH. A case study puts in evidence that the judicious application of quantitative structure- activity relationships can be successfully used to rationally design new INH-based derivatives, active against INH-resistant strains harboring mutations in the most frequent resistance related target (katG), and therefore develop candidate-compounds against MDR-TB, thus revisiting the unique effectiveness of INH against TB.