Talk:Artemisinin
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I have merged the contents of Artemisinin and malaria to this article and in lesser extent to Artemisia annua. I don't know much about this topic and didn't verify anything from external sources, so it would be nice if some MD Wikipedian would continue from here. jni 06:41, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
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[edit] Used since when?
I replaced the sentence "Artemisinin has been used in traditional Chinese medicine since 340s for the treatment of fever." with a better worded, but apparently less precise sentence from the Artemisinin article. Unfortunately, it isn't clear where the date comes from; it was merged from the old Artemisisin and malaria article which has been deleted since, so we have no history. — Sebastian (talk) 02:52, September 11, 2005 (UTC)
I added details of a recent study that uncovered the mode of action of artemisinin using a yeast model. - Anon
I am not widely familiar with the use of artemisinin compounds for malaria, but the New England Journal has carried reports of seizures with its use and when compared to intravenous quinine for the treatment of severe malaria (that is, patients in coma or otherwise requiring ICU-level care), artemether clears the malarial parasites from the blood just as quickly, but patients remain comatose longer than those treated with quinine and had a higher rate of acute lung injury, with similar overall mortality and morbitity rates in the two groups. (Free text with complete citations: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/335/25/1922?hits=20&andorexactfulltext=and&where=fulltext&searchterm=artemether&search_tab=articles&sortspec=Score%2Bdesc%2BPUBDATE_SORTDATE%2Bdesc&sendit=GO&excludeflag=TWEEK_element&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT). That being said, artemisinin compounds such as artemether are the drugs of choice for severe malaria in whenever quinine resistance has been reported (South Asia) or when quinine is unavailable--but that doesn't make them "best ever."
More recent data could, of course, prove me wrong. Matdaddy 02:20, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Pronunciation
How is Artemisinin pronounced? Particularly, where does the stress go?
- I've added the pronunciation to the intro (IPA per WP:MOS). Hope that helps. -Techelf 12:15, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] How it works
Since I am a layman, it is difficult to read the text in the subchapter "How it works" but what I can discern is that there are several things mentioned that do not directly correlate to each other. The subchapter needs to be rewritten.
[edit] link
[edit] Different pages
Can we have different drug pages for artesunate and artemether instead of a re-direct, please? Any objections? --Gak 19:52, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Artemether longer acting than artemisinin
The article states: "Because artemisinin itself has physical properties such as poor bioavailability that limit its effectiveness, semi-synthetic derivatives of artemisinin, including artemether and artesunate, have been developed. However, their activity is not long lasting, with significant decreases in effectiveness after one to two hours."
I'm not sure exactly how the second sentence is supposed to be read. However, if it is intended to mean that both artesunate and artemether are shorter acting than artemisinin, then it is only half-right. From what I have read, while artesunate has a shorter half-life ( < 1 hour) than artemisinin (2-5 hours), artemether has a substantially longer half-life (3-11 hours) than either of the other two compounds. For instance, see: http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=2488974 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.101.193.186 (talk) 08:29, 10 January 2007 (UTC).
