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AKICI, AHMET

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AKICI

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AHMET

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Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Publication
    Cardiovascular responses to NMDA injected into nuclei of hypothalamus or amygdala in conscious rats
    (KARGER, 2000) AKICI, AHMET; Goren, MZ; Akici, A; Berkman, K; Onat, F
    The nuclei of hypothalamus and amygdala have been shown to be involved in the central cardiovascular homeostasis. Recent studies suggest that glutamate-containing neurons have an important role in the regulation of the central cardiovascular function. In this study, we demonstrate the roles of the central nucleus of the amygdala and the paraventricular nucleus of the amygdala and the paraventricular nucleus or the dorsomedial nucleus of the hypothalamus in N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) induced blood pressure and heart rate changes in conscious Sprague-Dawley rats. Intracerebroventricular or parenchymal injections of NMDA evoke increases in arterial pressure. The NMDA-induced elevations in brood pressure are more prominent when NMDA is administered into the dorsomedial nucleus of the hypothalamus, Microinjections of NMDA into the dorsomedial hypothalamus exert significant heart rate increases, whereas NMDA when administered into the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus or into the central nucleus of the amygdala has no significant effect on the heart rate. The dorsomedial nucleus of the hypothalamus is found to be the most effective site in this respect, The present study provides strong evidence for the tonic glutamatergic influence on blood pressure and heart rate via NMDA receptors located within the dorsomedial nucleus and to a lesser extent via those located within the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus. Copyright(C) 2000 S. Karger AG, Basel.
  • Publication
    Therapeutic drug monitoring of immunosuppressant drugs in Marmara University Hospital
    (LIPPINCOTT WILLIAMS & WILKINS, 2004) AKICI, AHMET; Karaalp, A; Demir, D; Goren, MZ; Akici, A; Iskender, E; Yananli, HR; Ozyurt, H; Ozkaynakci, A; Berkman, K; Oktay, S; Onat, F
    Immunosuppressive therapy is the most crucial treatment of organ-transplanted patients. Both cyclosporin and tacrolimus have become a part of the standard immunosuppressive therapy for prevention of rejection. However, lower levels of these drugs are associated with insufficient therapy and eventually result in rejection of the organ, and, on the contrary, higher levels are associated with toxicity to certain organs such as liver and kidneys. Therefore, the levels of these drugs in body fluids should be monitored for the prevention of unwanted situations. In this retrospective study, the authors evaluated the 18-month profile of blood drug concentrations of cyclosporin and tacrolimus in patients admitted to the TDM Unit of the Marmara University Hospital (Istanbul, Turkey) between June 2000 and November 2001. A total of 578 blood samples (347 cyclosporin and 231 tacrolimus) from 134 patients (88 for cyclosporin, 46 for tacrolimus) were evaluated in this period. The therapeutic trough ranges were accepted as 100-350 ng/mL for cyclosporin and 5 20 ng/mL for tacrolimus, and levels below or above the identified levels were accepted to be subtherapeutic or toxic. Most of the results were found within the range of therapeutic levels (67.48% for cyclosporin and 82.71% for tacrolimus). Subtherapeutic levels were found in 19.92% of all cyclosporin and 10.53% of all tacrolimus assays, whereas toxic levels were seen in 12.60% and 6.77% of cyclosporin and tacrolimus results, respectively. In conclusion, this study gives information about the TDM practice in institutional clinical laboratory and also indicates the importance of critical information such as sampling time for individual decision making in dosage regiment.