Adjusting for Mismeasured Categorical Variables
Paul Gustafson in MEASUREMENT ERROR and MISCLASSIFICATION in STATISTICS and EPIDEMIOLOGY, 2003
Section 5.1 focussed on treating the sensitivity and specificity of the exposure assessment as known, while Section 5.2 considered assigning highly informative priors to these quantities. It may be possible and desirable to avoid both of these approaches, if two different techniques can be used to assess exposure. Such a strategy is fairly common in epidemiological studies. For instance, Hui and Walter (1980) give an example where the exposure of interest is the presence of tuberculosis, with two different diagnostic tests, the Mantoux test and the Tine test, being applied to study subjects. In a case-control study of sudden infant death syndrome, Drews, Flanders and Kosinski (1993) use patient interviews and medical records to provide two assessments of whether subjects are ‘exposed’ to various putative binary risk factors. Joseph, Gyorkos and Coupal (1995) consider a study in which both a serology test and stool examination are used to test for a particular parasitic infection. And, in a somewhat more complicated setting, Iversen, Parmigiani and Berry (1999) consider a lab test and a family history ‘test’ for genetic susceptibility to breast cancer.
Candida and parasitic infection: Helminths, trichomoniasis, lice, scabies, and malaria
Hung N. Winn, Frank A. Chervenak, Roberto Romero in Clinical Maternal-Fetal Medicine Online, 2021
A description of the classification system for helminths is followed by review of the more commonly identified helminths. The chapter is completed by a description of the commonly used anthelmintic agents and their status for use in pregnancy and lactation. Treatment recommendations for all of the helminths detailed in this chapter are based on (i) the current treatment guidelines in the CDC parasites A to Z Web site (www.cdc.gov/parasites/az/index.html) section for each organism (obtained by selecting the organism from the index and then selecting “Resources for Health Care Professions”) or (ii) The Medical Letter article entitled “Drugs for Parasitic Infections” available at The Medical Letter Web site (www.medicalletter.org). Additional information regarding laboratory diagnosis of helminthic infections can be obtained at the DPDx Web site (www.dpd.cdc.gov/dpdx/HTML/DiagnosticProcedures.htm), which is a service of the CDC Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria. Links to the applicable sections of the Medical Letter “Drugs for Parasitic Infections” may also be accessed via the treatment tab for each organism on the DPDx Web site.
Nutritional and Medicinal Benefits of Ficus carica
Mehwish Iqbal in Complementary and Alternative Medicinal Approaches for Enhancing Immunity, 2023
According to the World Health Organization, only some of the drugs are frequently consumed by human beings to manage helminths. These drugs are recognised as antihelminths which play an essential role in the management of parasitic infections. The antihelminthic activity of alcoholic, water-based, ether, petroleum and chloroform extract of Ficus carica leaves was studied against Pheritima posthuma in contrast with mebendazole as a standard medicine (Patil et al., 2010). This kind of activity is also stated in other varieties of ficus, i.e., Ficus racemosa Linn and Ficus benghalensis Linn (Latha et al., 2008). One of the chemical constituent coumarins has been separated from the alcoholic extract of fig leaves by bioassay-guided isolation, and the segregated coumarin demonstrated the most potent nematicidal activity in opposition to the nematodes Caenorhabditis elegans, Bursaphelenchus xylophilus and Panagrellus redivivus within three days (Liu et al., 2011).
Signal peptide peptidase: a potential therapeutic target for parasitic and viral infections
Published in Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Targets, 2022
Christopher Schwake, Michael Hyon, Athar H. Chishti
Parasitic infections continue to cause severe health and economic burden in regions where transmission is endemic. Drug resistance, ineffective standards of therapy, lack of new therapeutics in the pipeline, and cost of treatment prevent affected regions from containing transmission and treating people afflicted with these diseases. Given that we have identified SPP as a new target for future therapy, efforts should be focused to understand the efficacy of these drugs in inhibiting SPP. This approach would prove to be cost-effective and pragmatic for the treatment of many neglected tropical diseases across the world. Aspartyl proteases used in HIV therapy are not without adverse effects, but considering the potentially high risks for mortality from these disease with few alternative options, repurposing known drugs with established safety and efficacy profiles is a logical next step. HIV protease inhibitors have been shown to be effective against malaria, Babesia, and Trypanosoma infections. Unlike P. falciparum, a major challenge for screening large libraries of therapeutic compounds against B. microti remains with the lack of continuous in vitro culture systems to facilitate identification of promising hits for further development. Development of parasite-specific SPP inhibitors would provide a new class of antiparasitic compounds to regions where effective treatments remain elusive.
Improvement of solubility, dissolution and stability profile of artemether solid dispersions and self emulsified solid dispersions by solvent evaporation method
Published in Pharmaceutical Development and Technology, 2018
Muhammad Tayyab Ansari, Muhammad Sohail Arshad, Altaf Hussain, Zeeshan Ahmad
Malaria is one of the most prevalent global parasitic infections. The causative agent is a protozoon from genus Plasmodium, which harbors in the female Anopheles mosquito1,2. Five species of the genus Plasmodium (P. falciparum, P. vivax, P. ovale, P. malariae and P. knowlesi) are responsible for the cause of the disease. From these, malarial infection caused by P. falciparum is most dangerous and frequently affects children, non-immune travelers and pregnant women3. Approximately 3.3 billion of the world’s population is at risk of malarial disease. Every year, between ∼515 and 600 million cases of malarial disease are documented worldwide. In 2010, 655,000 human deaths were recorded from malaria and 86% of these cases were children under the age of the 5 years4.
Novel therapeutic opportunities for Toxoplasma gondii, Trichomonas vaginalis, and Giardia intestinalis infections
Published in Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents, 2023
Francesca Arrighi, Arianna Granese, Paola Chimenti, Paolo Guglielmi
Toxoplasma gondii, Trichomonas vaginalis, and Giardia intestinalis are protozoan infections affecting millions of people worldwide. Even if these infections are usually controlled by immune system in immunocompetent patients, they could represent a threatening health for immunocompromised people. One of the main aspects that has to be considered about the treatments currently employed for the management of these infections is the absence of novel and effective drugs, where ‘novel’ has not to be exclusively intended for the chemical scaffold, but also (and maybe mainly) for novel mechanisms of actions. Drugs with innovative mechanisms are needed and this urgence arises from the increasing drug resistance along with cross resistance, affecting antibiotic as well as antiprotozoal therapies, parasites developing innovative and creative mechanisms to escape from drugs, which needs more research and investment to fight it. In this regard, some of the drugs employed for the treatment of these infections have been discovered in the second half of last century (for example the anti-T. gondii drugs), thus underlying the insufficient efforts spent in these years for the research and discovery of novel therapies. Along with this, also a scarce knowledge of these infections contributed to their spread, toxoplasmosis and trichomoniasis being considered neglected parasitic infections by U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), on the bases of infected numbers of people, severity of the illnesses, and the ability to prevent and treat them.
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