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Abstract
Platelet activating factor (PAF) is an inflammatory mediator produced by a variety of cells in response to inflammatory and immune stimuli. It has been implicated in a wide range of pathological conditions such as septic shock, asthma, ischaemia/reperfusion injury, pancreatitis, inflammatory bowel disease and rhinitis. For this reason it has been postulated that an agent antagonising the action of PAF might have therapeutic value. Despite the longstanding effort of a number of pharmaceutical companies to bring a PAF antagonist to market and the fact that there are still a number of antagonists undergoing clinical trials in a variety of disease states, success in this field may not be realised in the near future. This review examines the PAF antagonist patent literature from 1995 to early 1998 with some discussion of the related literature articles. An attempt has been made to update the status of several older PAF antagonists that are or have been assessed in clinical trials.