Hepatitis, treatment, specific agents

Alkaloids such as berberine are known to be anti-microbial. They inhibit estarases as well as DNA and RNA polymerases. Moreover, berberine inhibits cellular respiration and acts in DNA intercalation. As a strong anti-microbial agent, berberine may be used in the treatment of AIDS, as it inhibits HIV-I reverse transcriptase. Berberine also has uses in the treatment of infections, specifically eye infections and hepatitis. 

Protease inhibitors are often incorporated into the comprehensive treatment of people with HIV infection. Use of these drugs in combination with other anti-HIV agents is discussed in more detail later in this chapter (see HIV and the Treatment of AIDS ). In addition, a specific protease inhibitor can be combined with a low dose of ritonavir—a process known as protease-inhibitor boosting. 34,69 Ritonavir inhibits the hepatic breakdown of the other (primary) protease drug, thereby enabling the primary drug to exert better therapeutic effects at a lower dose.34... 

The first method developed for resin microspheres was clinically derived with the added data of intraoperative activity calculations [24-26,38]. There are important details regarding the differences in these patients and those now treated worldwide with resin microspheres. First, patients were previously untreated by chemotherapy or early in a course of standard 5-fluorouracil and Leucovorin. Typical patients with breast, colorectal and primary cancers of the liver have often received multiagent chemotherapy reducing overall and liver-specific tolerance to additional anticancer therapies. Second, the volume treated included both lobes at the same time. This is not much different to current treatment approaches which try to treat all of the tumors in each lobe with placement of microcatheters in more than one position or at the bifurcation of the right and left hepatic arteries. However, if less than the whole liver is intended for treatment, this must be accounted for with a proportional reduction in the calculated activity planned for delivery. Third, concurrent infusion of the vasoactive agent angiotensin II shifted... 

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