Heart health
‘Heart health at your fingertips’ (2nd edition), by Dr Graham Jackson.
Pp viii + 294. Price £14.99. London: Class Publishing Ltd; 2000. ISBN
1 85959 009 8.
This book probably benefits from being a second edition. Written by
an eminent cardiologist, it acknowledges that an update was required because,
in the past two years, lessons have been learnt, advice has changed and
major developments have occurred. It is primarily written for patients,
to inform, explain, reassure and answer questions about the prevention,
development, treatment and consequences of coronary heart disease. However,
from the point of view of a pharmacy practitioner working in primary care,
it helps to explain and map the process of diagnostic procedures (normally
the realm of secondary care), which need to be understood in order to
help and support patients.
It covers the whole of this complex disease area in great detail and,
in attempting to give answers to over 400 questions that patients ask
doctors, it further explains many detailed issues that may be helpful
to pharmacists. Because each point has been thought through, excellent
examples are given of how to answer such in-depth, difficult questions.
I would recommend this book for busy pharmacists, especially in today’s
climate, with the national emphasis on coronary heart disease. I found
the book easy to read. It reinforced and added to my existing knowledge,
and would be a useful reference source to use in the pharmacy when counselling
patients, because it is written for patients.
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History of pharmacy
‘Murder, magic and medicine’ (2nd edition), by John Mann. Pp 256.
Price £9.99. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2000. ISBN 0 9 850744 5.
This is the second edition of Professor Mann’s book, first published
in 1992. Despite its somewhat florid title, it is a serious work of pharmacy
history and pharmacology. This edition is revised to include recent developments.
The former section on antibiotics has been omitted, to appear in the author’s
more recent work, ‘The magic bullet’. This detracts somewhat from the
otherwise comprehensive nature of the second edition and contrasts with
the detailed treatment afforded to other therapeutic groups. In form,
the book follows its title, treating first the classical poisons, arrow
poisons and other toxins used in accidental or deliberate poisoning. A
section follows which covers stimulants, psychotomimetics and inebriants
that have appeared in “magic”, religious and other activities.
The second half of the book is devoted to medicines. A brief history of
pharmacy is followed by coverage of a range of therapeutic areas, including
antibacterial and anti-inflammatory agents, drugs affecting the heart,
circulation and central nervous and reproductive systems, and anti-asthma,
parasitic and cancer agents. Therapeutic groups are accompanied by a review
of their basic pharmacology, with illustrations. Finally, the author notes
the debt owed to the natural world in the search for new medicines and
regrets the loss of species by destruction of the rain forests: “The destruction
of Nature will be Man’s last mistake.” The author has aimed to make this
book understandable to non-scientists, but pharmacists will find it a
useful review and source of references.
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Injectable drugs
‘Handbook on injectable drugs’ (11th edition), edited by Lawrence
A. Trissel. Pp xxii + 1,432. Price $169.95. Washington DC: American Society
of Health-System Pharmacists; 2001. ISBN 1 58528 016 X.
The 11th edition of this book brings together a wealth of information
on 297 parenteral drugs that are commercially available in the United
States, plus an additional 25 parenteral drugs available in other countries.
The section on drugs available outside the US has been completely updated
and expanded. Five new drug monographs (clarithromycin, omeprazole, propafenone,
tramadol and tropisetron) have been added to this section.
Information has been accumulated from over 2,230 references, of which
174 are new to this edition. As in previous editions, each monograph has
been completely updated.
The monographs are arranged alphabetically by non-proprietary name with
the drug names following the style of the USP Dictionary of Drug Names.
The section on “Products” lists the sizes, strengths, volumes and pharmaceutical
forms along with the other components of the formulation and instructions
for reconstitution. The pH and the osmotic value of the resultant solutions
are also presented along with miscellaneous information, such as sodium
content.
The “Administration” section deals with routes of administration and flow
rates and “Stability” describes storage requirements and aspects of drug
stability relating to pH, freezing and exposure to light.
Four types of table are used to describe compatibility information: the
first provides information on the compatibility of a drug in various infusion
solutions; the second, information on the combination of two or more drugs
in an infusion solution; the third, information on two or more drugs in
a syringe; and the fourth, information on drugs administered into the
Y-sites of administration sets.
Concentrations of drugs in infusion solutions are expressed in terms of
“per litre” to facilitate comparisons between studies. However, this may
be confusing as in some cases the total quantity of drug expressed is
greater than the maximum recommended dose.
The first edition of this book was published in 1977 and over the past
23 years the aim of the publication has remained unchanged: to organise
and summarise, in a concise and standardised format, the results of the
primary research into drug stability and compatibility and to facilitate
the use of parenteral drugs in clinical practice for the benefit of patients.
This 11th edition, like the previous 10, achieves this aim. It is an essential
reference source for those professionals involved in the formulation and
clinical use of parenteral drugs.
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Clinical pharmacy
‘Churchill’s clinical pharmacy survival guide’, edited by Nick Barber
and Alan Willson. Pp xii + 409. Price £14.95. London: Churchill Livingstone;
1999. ISBN 0 443 06477 6.
This pocketbook aims to provide a quick reference guide for pharmacists
to all aspects of clinical pharmacy and appears to emulate the highly
successful Oxford handbook series for doctors. In practice, the predominant
need for such a handbook arises when pharmacists are working within the
hospital setting. The principle of a quick reference guide should be to
provide support for pharmacists in situations where they either need a
rapid response to a problem or need to access information when they are
working away from their standard reference sources.
The guide has a wide range of high quality contributions from experienced
practitioners. However, not all of the content is appropriate for quick
reference; some would be better placed in a more general text about clinical
pharmacy. In particular, the section on “Policy” seems out of place. Space
within the publication could have been better used expanding the section
on drug choice to reflect more of the situations faced by pharmacists
in ward and clinical settings.
The section entitled “Reference” fulfils the need of a pocketbook, with
valuable contributions that include intravenous drug administration, laboratory
tests and medical abbreviations. Similarly, the section on “Monitoring”
provides useful advice on monitoring patients with liver and renal disease
and drug removal by continuous replacement therapies. As pharmacists become
more responsible for monitoring patient outcomes, there is also potential
to widen the scope of this section of the guide.
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This week's reviewers
Gillian Hawksworth is an independent
proprietor pharmacist in Mirfield, West Yorkshire, and a member of the
Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Council
John Hunt is a retired industrial pharmacist
and a past president of the British Society for the History of Pharmacy
Laurence Goldberg is a consultant pharmacist
in Bury, Lancashire
Judith Cantrill is clinical senior lecturer
at the school of pharmacy, University of Manchester
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