Quinidine Mefloquine

Hydroxychloroquine may reduce insulin requirements by about 25%, and a case of hypoglycaemia has been reported. Similarly, hypoglycaemia has occurred in a patient taking chloroquine and insulin. Reduced glucose levels or hypoglycaemia have been reported with mefloquine, quinidine, quinine, and sulfadoxine-py-rimethamine. Note that falciparum malaria per se can result in severe hypoglycaemia, and quinine in particular may contribute to this. 

The loading dose of quinidine should be omitted in those patients who have received quinine or mefloquine. 

Antimalarial drugs are designed to prevent or treat malaria. Antimalarial drugs currently used for treatment for prophylaxis are mefloquine, primaquine, chloroquine, pyrimethamine, amodiaquin, quinine/quinidine, chloroguanide. 

Mefloquine is effective in treating most falciparum malaria. The drug is not appropriate for treating individuals with severe or complicated malaria, since quinine, quinidine, and artemisinins are more rapidly active, and since drug resistance is less likely with those agents. The combination of artesunate plus mefloquine showed excellent antimalarial efficacy in regions of Southeast Asia with some resistance to mefloquine, and this regimen is now one of the combination therapies recommended by the WHO for the treatment of uncomplicated falciparum malaria (Table 52-4). Artesunate-mefloquine is the first-line therapy for uncomplicated malaria in a number of countries in Asia and South America. 

Following the development of synthetic antimalarial agents, such as chloroquine and mefloquine, the use of Cinchona alkaloid quinine declined. However, with the emergence of chloroquine-resistant and multiple-drug-resistant strains of malarial parasites, its use has become firmly reestablished. Quinine is the drug of choice for severe chloroquine-resistant malaria due to Plasmodium falciparum. In the U.S., the related alkaloid quinidine is recommended because of its wide availability and use as an antiarrhythmic agent. In many clinics in the tropics, quinine is the only effective treatment for severe malaria unfortunately, decreasing sensitivity of P. falciparum to quinine has already been reported from Southeast Asia. 

Peytavin et al. [17] have reported on the chiral resolution of mefloquine, halofantrine, enpiroline, quinine, quinidine, chloroquine, and primaquine by subcritical fluid chromatography on a (S) naphthylurea column (250 X 4.6 mm ID). The mobile phase consisted of carbon dioxide, methanol, and triethylamine at a 3-ml/min flow rate. Except for primaquine and... 

The loading dose shovild not be given if the patient has received quinine, quinidine or mefloquine in the previous 24 h see also warnings about halofantrine (below). 

It has tentatively been suggested that mefloquine can exacerbate psoriasis (as can other antimalarial drugs, such as quinidine, chloroquine, and proguanil) (38). 

In P. falciparum (chloroquine-resistant) infections, a dose of 750 mg mefloquine followed by 500 mg 12 hours later is recommended. The pediatric dose of mefloquine is 15 mg/kg (<45 kg) followed by 10 mg/kg 8 to 12 hours later.Intravenous quinidine gluconate followed by oral quinine should be administered for severe illness, as already indicated.A second drug needs to be administered in chloroquine-resistant P. falciparum, and this second drug should follow the oral quinidine regimen either a single dose of three tablets of pyrimethamine-sulfadoxine (Fansidar) on the last day of intravenous quinidine or clindamycin 900 mg three times daily for 3 to 5 days. An alternative oral treatment for chloroquine-resistant P falciparum infection in adults, especially in those with a history of seizures or psychiatric disorders, is the combination of atovaquone 250 mg and proguanil 100 mg (Malarone) (4 tablets daily... 

Quinoline compounds and the plants that contain them have historically anchored the antimalarial arsenal, and they remain principal drugs today. Quinine and its diastereomer, quinidine, are quinoline alkaloids which were isolated in 1820 from the bark of the Cinchona tree, by virtue of the traditional South American use of this bark to treat intermittent fevers. Quinine is an effective schizonticide (i.e., it kills the form of the parasite in peripheral blood), but because it also affects mammalian lysosomes, the drug has been associated with significant adverse toxicity (48,50). The development of synthetic derivatives of quinine has resulted in improvement in potency and selectivity over the parent compound. Chloroquine and mefloquine are more potent and less toxic than quinine (49,51), thus, chloroquine had largely replaced quinine in clinical use however, resistance of P. falciparum to chloroquine has been reported... 

---