Gold drugs history

The gold compounds are used cautiously in patients with a history of hypersensitivity to other drugs, previous kidney or liver disease, diabetes, or hypertension. 

Mahdihassan, S. "Prime matter and ferment-gold." In Essays in the history of alchemy, medicine and drugs, ed. S. Mahdihassan, 39-. Hamdard Foundation, 1982. 

Mahdihassan, S. The earliest history of gold in China as drug of longevity. HamdardMedl3, no. 3-4 (1980) 41-55. 

Gold salts have had a long history of use in rheumatoid arthritis.269,270 The development of orally active auranofin (also known as Ridaura (50), Figure 23) was a major improvement over the early injectable gold preparations which were polymeric (e.g., (51)—(53)). However, use has declined with the popularity of nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) such as indo-methacin a recent estimate of the commercial value for auranofin was 6 million. The mechanism... 

It is imperative that the diagnosis of primary (idiopathic) pulmonary fibrosis not be made until all known and potentially treatable causes of the fibrotic disease have been excluded. This can be accomplished by a systematic, thorough analysis of the patient s occupational history, family history, history of recurrent pneumonias, and history of drug use, including the use of immunosuppressive agents, antimicrobials, and miscellaneous drugs such as hydrochlorthiazide, gold salts, chlorpropamide, sulfapyridine, hydralazine, and amiodarone. 

Recently three case histories have been published of patients with fibrosing interstitial pneumonitis, attributed to gold therapy (50, 51 ). Leading symptoms were dyspnoea on exertion and dry cough. The patients recovered after discontinuation of the drug in 2 patients a relapse occurred after re-instatement of the gold injections. 

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