Abstract Background and aims. Desloratadine is a tricyclic, potent, rapidly effective, long acting, non-sedative antihistamine, which has a selective and peripheral H1 receptor antagonist action, used to treat the allergies. The availability of several brands of Desloratadine tablets in Libyan pharmacies today places health practitioners and a pharmacist in a problem of drug substitution in case of a particular brand is not available. The aim of the present study was the evaluation and comparison of pharmaceutical equivalence of five different Desloratadine tablets 5 mg, which are commercially available in the private pharmacies in Tripoli city with different price ranges, produced by various pharmaceutical companies. Methods. The pharmaceutical evaluation of five brands of Desloratadine tablets were done using official and unofficial quality control tests prescribed in different Pharmacopoeia including uniformity of weight, thickness, hardness, disintegration time, drug content as well as dissolution rate and identification test. Acceptable external features as well as uniformity in diameter and thickness were revealed for all the tablets. Results. The entire selected brands complied with the official specifications for uniformity of weight, hardness and disintegration, more than 80% of their drug dissolved in the medium within 60 minutes. Conclusion. It can be concluded that all the brands could be regarded as bioequivalent and therefore can be interchanged in the clinical practice; this sort of study is good indicator for the evaluation of the idealness of commercial products and showed the importance of post marketing investigation for the drugs imported and distributed in Libya.
tamader youssef salem elghnimi, Wadiaa Abubaker Ali Ben Amer, Rehab Rmadan Ibrahim Walli(12-2022)

Insulin Pump Therapy in Libya: Assessment of medical staff knowledge
Mufida Ahmed Mohamed Yamane, Eman Abdulmagid Mohamed Elmahjoubi(1-2022)

ABSTRACT Normal pregnancy is associated with metabolic changes leading to decreased insulin sensitivity and reduced glucose tolerance. However, 3-5% of pregnant women proceed to develop gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Researchers elsewhere studied the use of metformin in many fields and the benefit to risk balance of using metformin during pregnancy and the risk of fetotoxic. In this study, the use of Metformin to control Glucose in pregnant women with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) was examined and its safety use during the first trimester of pregnancy was evaluated.A group of pregnant patients with gestational diabetes mellitus from the first trimester of pregnancy, non-smoking with no family history of congenital malformation disease, aged between (20-45 years) and have no liver diseases and who had indicating good compliance at more than one visit over several month until delivery put on Metformin were participated in this trial. The results show that all the studied group of pregnant women using metformin 500mg daily delivered healthy babies.Meta-analysis by mother risk program showed no increase in incidence of malformations by use of Metformin during the first trimester of pregnancy.A hundred outpatients were participated in the survey on the general knowledge and awareness of diabetic patients to their illness and medication used their aged between 20-40 years old. It was realized that 90% of physicians are not giving patients full information about their illness and the use of Metformin during pregnancy. Also, about 65% of patients did not know about the nutritionist in the hospital, the right control diet for diabetes, courses on first aid, rapid diagnosis of poisoning and follow the written procedures to dealing with such cases.
Ebtisam AYAD SASI BENOMRAN, abdulraoof mohamed emhemed alqusbi(1-2015)