To prevent medical errors, especially drug-related ones, clinical pharmacists have to play an important role in multidisciplinary team care. We have investigated the pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and molecular biology of several drugs and have applied theˆndings obtained in our studies to therapeutic drug monitoring. Theˆrstˆnding is that achieving vancomycin (VCM) concentrations at an appropriate concentration contributes to a decreased incidence of VCM-induced nephrotoxicity and a

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... sed duration of VCM therapy. From this result, we have constructed a system to provided recommendations for VCM doses to attending medical staŠ as soon as possible. The secondˆnding is that we clariˆed the risk factors for steroid-induced diabetes in patients with neurologic diseases, indicating a close relationship among postprandial hyperglycemia, advanced age, and hypercholesterolemia in these patients. We also determined that monitoring plasma glucose concentrations 2 hours after lunch could be useful to detect diabetes in these patients. Finally, we identiˆed the mechanism of 3′ -azido-3′ -deoxythymidine and dacarbazine photogenotoxicity, including the speciˆc site of DNA damage. Theseˆndings may provide useful information to prevent phototoxicity of drugs and to develop new photodynamic therapies.