NEO-KIDDILETS

Whenever I hear the word “ASPIRIN” I can’t help myself not to think of “NEO-ASPILETS”. I’m sure you too are very much familiar with this medicine. When I was still young.. uhhh, I’m still young by the way. What I mean is when I was still even younger, every time I catch fever, she would always give me NEO-ASPILETS. I can still remember how I love this medicine for its sweet taste. As far as I can remember this OTCD (over the counter drug) is very much cheap, plus their advertisement made the Unilab a big bang in the market. For so many years I though this drug contains ASPIRIN, which cause so many adverse effect (to be discuss later on). But NEO-ASPILETS did not derive their brand name to aspirin. This made people very much confused. So Unilab change NEO-ASPILETS into NEO-KIDDIELETS which sounds safer.

I’ve mention about ASPIRIN. For the benefit of others who are not so familiar about this drug, Aspirin or acetylsalicylic acid is the common drug used to cure inflammations and antipyretic (fever). My professor in Clinical Chemistry, Mrs. Virginia Gases, categorizes aspirin as the most common drug that causes toxic effect among children. Maybe because it’s an OTCD and some of which are flavors so as the children to wont be too hard to please to take. I also remember how our Hematology 2 and Clinical Chemistry (both Laboratory) professor, Mr. Abner Canlas gave, us an ATAQ during our reporting about coagulation system. He asked us about the substance which makes aspirin prolong the coagulation. Too bad we weren’t able to answer it. The answer is Cyclooxygenase------decrease thromboxane and prostaglandin formation.
Since it’s an acid excess dose intake will cause metabolic acidosis such as academia and low blood pH. This is very fatal and may lead to death. See how these little tablets can risk our precious life when taken as a big tablet. If you have encounter aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) toxicity electrolyte balance and eliminating the excess acid will serve as the treatment for it.

There are several test to determine the levels of aspirin toxicity. One is HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatography) or the gas chromatography, according to Calbreath, it separates the specific metabolites and provides high degree of specificity. But this test requires long duration reason why it’s not commonly use. Another test would be the rapid chromatography or the Trinders test, it is composed of mercuric chloride, hydrochloric and ferric acid. According to Calbreath the protein present in the serum are precipitated by the mercuric salt in acid medium. The ferric ions will form a colored complex and this will be measure spectrophotometry at 540nm.

n.v: <15-30>