The US Food and Drug Administration recently licensed a new Salk-type injectable polio vaccine (Poliovirus Vaccine Inactivated - Connaught) that is more potent in its antigenicity than any other inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) previously available in the USA. Live oral polio vaccine (OPV) has been the preferred vaccine for routine immunization in the USA since the early 1960's. Its advantages over IPV have included ease of administration, superior immunogenicity, induction of gastrointestinal immunity, increased immunization through spread of vaccine virus to unimmunized susceptible ...

The US Food and Drug Administration recently approved the marketing of a cervical cap (Prentif Cavity-Rim Cervical Cap - Lamberts Ltd, England), a contraceptive device that has been used in one form or another for many years (JP Koch, Contraception, 25:161, 1982). The cap is being distributed in the USA and Canada by Cervical Cap (CxC), Ltd, PO Box 38003-292, Los Gatos, CA 95031, telephone 408-358-6264; the distributor will make the caps available only to practitioners who have attended training seminars.

Most patients with diabetes mellitus now test their own blood glucose. In recent years, meters commercially available for self-testing have become smaller and easier to use.

The FDA has approved marketing of Plan B (Women's Capital Corporation), an emergency contraceptive "pill pack"that contains two 0.75-mg tablets of levonorgestrel.

A cyclosporine 0.05% ophthalmic emulsion (Restasis - Allergan) has been approved by the FDA for use in patients with dry eye disease (keratoconjunctivitis sicca). This review begins with a discussion of the causes of dry eye disease and includes sections on the pharmacology, adverse effects and clinical trial results for ophthalmic cyclosporine. Cost information and recommendations for administering the drug are also presented. The review concludes with an overall assessment of the drug's efficacy, safety and cost.

The FDA has approved axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta – Kite) for treatment of adults with relapsed or refractory CD19+ large B-cell lymphoma after ≥2 lines of systemic therapy. Yescarta is an individualized cellular product prepared from the patient's own T cells, which are genetically modified to express chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) and then infused back into the patient. It is the second CAR T-cell immunotherapy to become available in the US. Tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah), a CAR T-cell product previously approved for treatment of relapsed or refractory B-cell...

The FDA has approved the oral Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitor baricitinib (Olumiant) for treatment of COVID-19 in hospitalized adults who require supplemental oxygen, mechanical ventilation, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO). Baricitinib was previously available for this indication under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA); it remains available under an EUA for use in children 2-17 years old hospitalized with COVID-19 who require oxygen support.

The FDA has authorized use of the Valeda Light Delivery System (LumiThera), a multiwavelength photobiomodulation (PBM) device, to improve visual acuity in patients with dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD) who have best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) of 20/32 to 20/70.

Testosterone is now available in a 1% gel (AndroGel - Unimed) for treatment of hypogonadism in men. AndroGel, which is rubbed on the skin, is the fourth transdermal preparation of testosterone to be marketed in the USA.

FluMist (MedImmune), the first live-attenuated and first intranasally administered influenza vaccine, has been approved by the FDA to prevent influenza in healthy people 5-49 years old. Given as a nasal spray, it stimulates immunity by viral replication in the upper respiratory tract. This vaccine apparently will be advertised directly to the public as a "needle-free" alternative to intramuscular influenza vaccine.