General and neurological complications of targeted therapy

Exploring the potential of drug repurposing for liver diseases: A comprehensive study

Drug repurposing involves the investigation of existing drugs for new indications. It offers a great opportunity to quickly identify a new drug candidate at a lower cost than novel discovery and development. Despite the importance and potential role of drug repurposing, there is no specific definition that healthcare providers and the World Health Organization credit. Unfortunately, many similar and interchangeable concepts are being used in the literature, making it difficult to collect and analyze uniform data on repurposed drugs. This research was conducted based on understanding general criteria for drug repurposing, concentrating on liver diseases. Many drugs have been investigated for their effect on liver diseases even though they were originally approved (or on their way to being approved) for other diseases. Some of the hypotheses for drug repurposing were first captured from the literature and then processed further to test the hypothesis. Recently, with the revolution in bioinformatics techniques, scientists have started to use drug libraries and computer systems that can analyze hundreds of drugs to give a short list of candidates to be analyzed pharmacologically. However, this study revealed that drug repurposing is a potential aid that may help deal with liver diseases. It provides available or under-investigated drugs that could help treat hepatitis, liver cirrhosis, Wilson disease, liver cancer, and fatty liver. However, many further studies are needed to ensure the efficacy of these drugs on a large scale.

Seizures in low-grade gliomas: natural history, pathogenesis, and outcome after treatments

Seizures represent a common symptom in low-grade gliomas; when uncontrolled, they significantly contribute to patient morbidity and negatively impact quality of life. Tumor location and histology influence the risk for epilepsy. The pathogenesis of tumor-related epilepsy is multifactorial and may differ among tumor histologies (glioneuronal tumors vs diffuse grade II gliomas). Gross total resection is the strongest predictor of seizure freedom in addition to clinical factors, such as preoperative seizure duration, type, and control with antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). Epilepsy surgery may improve seizure control. Radiotherapy and chemotherapy with alkylating agents (procarbazine + CCNU+ vincristine, temozolomide) are effective in reducing the frequency of seizures in patients with pharmacoresistant epilepsy. Newer AEDs (levetiracetam, topiramate, lacosamide) seem to be better tolerated than the old AEDs (phenobarbital, phenytoin, carbamazepine), but there is lack of evidence regarding their superiority in terms of efficacy.