Introduction: Omalizumab is a recombinant monoclonal anti-IgE antibody approved in the US as add-on treatment in moderate-to-severe allergic asthma (in severe allergic asthma [SAA] in Europe). A 2016 review of 24 real-world effectiveness studies in SAA published between 2008–2015 concluded that omalizumab was associated with significant improvements in objective and subjective outcomes with benefits extending beyond 2 years. Several new real-world studies have been published since, bringing the total to 42 studies. Areas covered: This systematic review of 42 studies published since 2008 updates and extends the 2016 review on the real-word evidence on omalizumab in SAA. It offers greater granularity as to time windows within which outcomes are reported and includes studies extending well beyond 4 years post omalizumab initiation. Expert commentary: This review firmly establishes the short-term effectiveness of omalizumab in adolescent and adult patients with SAA at 1 year, and provides strong evidence of long-term effectiveness up to 4 years and emergent evidence of effectiveness beyond 4 years. In the aggregate, these 42 studies underscore the long-term effectiveness of omalizumab in terms of: reducing exacerbations and symptoms, achieving asthma control, improving lung function, enhancing quality of life, decreasing emergency department visits and hospitalizations, and promoting concomitant medication-sparing.

COVID-19 pandemic has caused a global health crisis, resulting in endless efforts to reduce infections, fatalities, and therapies to mitigate its after-effects. Currently, large and fast-paced vaccination campaigns are in the process to reduce COVID-19 infection and fatality risks. Despite recommendations from governments and medical experts, people show conceptions and perceptions regarding vaccination risks and share their views on social media platforms. Such opinions can be analyzed to determine social trends and devise policies to increase vaccination acceptance. In this regard, this study proposes a methodology for analyzing the global perceptions and perspectives towards COVID-19 vaccination using a worldwide Twitter dataset. The study relies on two techniques to analyze the sentiments: natural language processing and machine learning. To evaluate the performance of the different lexicon-based methods, different machine and deep learning models are studied. In addition, for sentiment classification, the proposed ensemble model named long short-term memory-gated recurrent neural network (LSTM-GRNN) is a combination of LSTM, gated recurrent unit, and recurrent neural networks. Results suggest that the TextBlob shows better results as compared to VADER and AFINN. The proposed LSTM-GRNN shows superior performance with a 95% accuracy and outperforms both machine and deep learning models. Performance analysis with state-of-the-art models proves the significance of the LSTM-GRNN for sentiment analysis.

The SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in late 2019 triggered a shift in healthcare priorities globally, with pharmacies playing a pivotal role in supporting the healthcare system throughout the pandemic. This study aimed to assess the preparedness and service delivery of community pharmacies in Saudi Arabia during the COVID-19 crisis. A cross-sectional study was conducted from July to November 2020, using an electronic questionnaire distributed to community pharmacists across the country. The survey focused on assessing preventive measures, public knowledge, and the impact of the pandemic on pharmacy operations. A total of 315 pharmacists participated in the study. The majority of respondents (81.9%) participated in COVID-19 educational programs, with 56.6% attending mandatory sessions. Key preventive actions implemented in pharmacies included hand sanitization (90.8%), face mask usage (89.2%), and body temperature checks (85.1%). The pandemic significantly impacted pharmaceutical counseling and public education, with 52.1% and 49.5% of pharmacists noting substantial changes in these areas. The findings suggest that there is a strong adherence to preventive measures in community pharmacies, though many actions were carried out voluntarily and adjusted to meet local needs.

The latest outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic has placed a significant effect on health care system around the world. This article discusses the role of pharmacists in Saudi Arabia during the current Covid-19 pandemic. Pharmacists are an important part of everyday healthcare in Saudi Arabia. Pharmacists helped to protect the public from Covid-19 pandemic disease by participating in various initiatives including health education and promotion, medication dispensing, medication reconciliation, medication and patient counselling, training for self-management in current outbreak and emergency preparedness. Full utilization of skills of pharmacists boosted the safety response of Saudi Arabia to Covid-19 pandemic.

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between treatment-resistant depression (TRD) and inflammation in humans and experimental models. For the human study, a retrospective cohort study was conducted with 206 participants; half were on antidepressants for major depressive disorder. The patients were divided into healthy and depressed groups. Inflammation was assessed based on the values of the main inflammatory biomarkers (CRP, WBC and ESR). For the animal experiments, 35 adult male Wistar rats were assigned to stressed and non-stressed groups. Inflammation and stress were induced using lipopolysaccharide and chronic unpredictable mild stress. A 10 mg/kg intraperitoneal injection of fluoxetine (FLX), a known antidepressant, was simultaneously administered daily for 4 weeks. Behavioral tests were performed. The plasma levels of inflammatory and stress biomarkers were measured and were significantly higher in the stressed and non-responsive groups in both studies. This study provides evidence of the link between inflammation and TRD. We further observed a possible link via the Phosphorylated Janus Kinase 2 and Phosphorylated Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription 3 (P-JAK2/P-STAT3) signaling pathway and found that chronic stress and high inflammation hinder the antidepressant effects of FLX. Thus, non-response to antidepressants could be mitigated by treating inflammation to improve the antidepressant effect in patients with TRD.

Objective: This study examined the incidence of drug-related problems (DRPs) in different inpatient departments along with the medical team response to pharmacist’s action in addressing DRPs at Jazan Hospital, Saudi Arabia. Patients and Methods: This retrospective study was conducted among inpatients at Ministry of Health hospital in Jazan, a region in southwestern Saudi Arabia. We collected data for a 2-year period (from 2016 to 2017). For any detected DRP of the ordered medications for dispensing, the inpatient pharmacist is sending report for that particular DRP with recommendation to the medical team which in turn might accept or reject such recommendation. Serious drug–drug interactions, as part of DRP, were assessed by utilizing three different online DDI checkers, including Lexi-Comp, Medscape, and Drugs.com. Results: The most common type of DRP was serious drug–drug interactions (49%). Over the study period, most incidences of DRPs were decreased. Of the DRPs in 2016 and 2017, antibiotics were the most commonly involved (51% and 69.5%) of cases, respectively, followed by proton pump inhibitors (25.3% and 14.1%) and statins (12.9% and 9.4%). Interestingly, of the 241 interventions for DRPs in 2016, 199 (82.5%) were accepted, resulting in a change in drug therapy (p=0.006). In 2017, 90 (70.3%) interventions out of 128 were accepted by the physician and the drug therapy changed (p=0.029). Conclusion: Pharmacist interventions appear to decrease the incidence of DRPs, which emphasize the importance of an optimal pharmaceutical care plan for clinical care settings.