Article
Clinical Neurology
Quanhe Yang, Xin Tong, Sallyann Coleman King, Benjamin S. Olivari, Robert K. Merritt
Summary: Hospitalizations for stroke among Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries aged >= 65 significantly decreased during the initial weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic (March 1-June 6) with a reduction of 22.3%-12.1%. Reductions were similar across different age, sex, and race/ethnicity groups. Variability in stroke hospitalization reductions was observed among different states.
Article
Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
Kaci Kennedy McDade, Wenhui Mao, Annalisa Prizzon, Ro W. Huang, Osondu Ogbuoji
Summary: The UK government's 30% cut in aid budget for 2021 might have negative impacts on the financing of health systems in UK aid recipient countries, especially those highly dependent on UK aid.
FRONTIERS IN PUBLIC HEALTH
(2023)
Article
Cardiac & Cardiovascular Systems
Bin Yu, Igor Akushevich, Arseniy P. Yashkin, Julia Kravchenko
Summary: This study systematically investigated the epidemiology of geographic disparities in myocardial infarction (MI) among older adults in the U.S. from 2000 to 2017. The results showed higher MI mortality, incidence, and prevalence, as well as lower survival and remaining life expectancy at age 65 in lagging states compared to leading states. The lagging states had a greater risk of MI incidence and death after MI diagnosis, signaling a concerning trend in MI outcomes among older adults.
FRONTIERS IN CARDIOVASCULAR MEDICINE
(2021)
Article
Medicine, General & Internal
Stefano Ciardullo, Francesca Zerbini, Rosa Cannistraci, Emanuele Muraca, Silvia Perra, Alice Oltolini, Gianluca Perseghin
Summary: Sex hormones have different impacts on body composition in men and women. This study aimed to evaluate the association between testosterone, estradiol, and body fat distribution in the general population. The results showed that testosterone was positively associated with lean body mass and negatively associated with fat mass and the android/gynoid ratio in men, while estradiol showed the opposite trend. Among women, testosterone did not have an impact on body composition, but estradiol was positively associated with lean mass and negatively associated with fat mass. These findings highlight the varying effects of sex hormones on specific fat depots between men and women.
JOURNAL OF CLINICAL MEDICINE
(2023)
Article
Medicine, General & Internal
Alexander C. Egilman, Benjamin N. Rome, Aaron S. Kesselheim
Summary: The study examined the added therapeutic benefit ratings of the top-selling brand-name drugs in Medicare in 2020 by health technology assessment organizations in Canada, France, and Germany. It found that many of these drugs received low added benefit ratings. Therefore, Medicare should ensure reasonable pricing compared to alternative treatments when negotiating prices for these drugs.
JAMA-JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION
(2023)
Letter
Medicine, General & Internal
Jemma Alarcon, Moon Kim, Dawn Terashita, Kusha Davar, Jacob M. Garrigues, Jack P. Guccione, Mark G. Evans, Peera Hemarajata, Noah Wald-Dickler, Paul Holtom, Rodrigo Garcia Tome, Lovelyn Anyanwu, Naman K. Shah, Matthew Miller, Todd Smith, Audrey Matheny, Whitni Davidson, Christina L. Hutson, Jonathan Lucas, Odey C. Ukpo, Nicole M. Green, Sharon E. Balter
Summary: A case of mpox-related death in the United States is reported, where the patient had a compromised immune system, and evaluation indicated widespread viral infection.
NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE
(2023)
Article
Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Mohammad A. Karim, Mahin Ramezani, Todd Leroux, Hye-Chung Kum, Amit G. Singal
Summary: This study aimed to assess the financial burden of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in the United States. Through analyzing a cohort of 4525 adult patients diagnosed with HCC between 2011 and 2015, it was found that HCC patients had significantly higher healthcare costs and patient liabilities in the first year after diagnosis. Additionally, early-stage HCC patients had lower incremental costs compared to those with larger tumor burden.
CLINICAL GASTROENTEROLOGY AND HEPATOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Emily K. Burchfield, Katherine S. Nelson
Summary: The study revealed that human activities have reinforced the geographical distribution of agricultural yields in the United States, but these gains have not directly translated into net income for farmers. Differences in yield gains were observed among operators, input expenditures and yields, as well as major regions. Increased input expenditures may lead to marginal decreases in yields, raising important questions about the interaction between yields and farmer livelihoods.
ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH LETTERS
(2021)
Article
Medicine, General & Internal
Hemalkumar B. Mehta, Shuang Li, James S. Goodwin
Summary: This study shows that booster vaccinations are highly effective in reducing the risk of hospitalization with COVID-19 in the Medicare population, especially when boosters are received between 6 and 9 months after the initial vaccinations.
MAYO CLINIC PROCEEDINGS
(2022)
Letter
Medicine, General & Internal
Louis B. Polish, Elise M. O'Connell, Roger Ramirez-Barrios
Summary: This report describes the identification of a more virulent European haplotype of Echinococcus multilocularis in both humans and animals (foxes) in the United States, suggesting the zoonotic spread of this parasite.
NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE
(2022)
Article
Endocrinology & Metabolism
Min Kim, Tzu-Chieh Lin, Tarun Arora, Hong Zhao, Akhila Balasubramanian, Robert Kees Stad, James O'Kelly, Leslie Spangler, Brian D. D. Bradbury, Jeffrey R. R. Curtis
Summary: Comparability between treatment groups can be assessed by using negative control outcomes, which provide evidence for residual confounding between groups. This retrospective study evaluated the comparability of postmenopausal women treated with different mechanisms of action osteoporosis medications. According to the predetermined comparability decision rules, patients initiating denosumab were comparable to those initiating zoledronic acid or alendronate.
JOURNAL OF BONE AND MINERAL RESEARCH
(2023)
Article
Health Care Sciences & Services
Emefah Loccoh, Karen E. Joynt Maddox, Jiaman Xu, Changyu Shen, Jose F. Figueroa, Dhruv S. Kazi, Robert W. Yeh, Rishi K. Wadhera
Summary: The study revealed a decline in all-cause mortality rates among low-income Medicare beneficiaries dually enrolled in Medicaid in rural areas from 2004 to 2017, but the decrease was smaller compared to urban counterparts. Urban beneficiaries experienced more pronounced declines in mortality, leading to an increased gap in mortality rates between rural and urban regions over time.
Article
Nutrition & Dietetics
Natascha Schweighofer, Caterina Colantonio, Christoph W. Haudum, Barbara Hutz, Ewald Kolesnik, Ines Mursic, Stefan Pilz, Albrecht Schmidt, Vanessa Stadlbauer, Andreas Zirlik, Thomas R. Pieber, Nicolas Verheyen, Barbara Obermayer-Pietsch
Summary: Sarcopenia is associated with increased risks of falls, osteoporosis, and mortality. However, there is no consensus on the gold standard DXA index for determining muscle mass in the diagnosis of sarcopenia. This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence, agreement, and reliability of sarcopenia diagnosis using various DXA-derived muscle mass indices, and examine the effects of different parameters, adjustments, and cut-off values on these outcomes. The results showed significant variation in sarcopenia prevalence depending on the index and cut-off values used. Height-adjusted parameters exhibited higher agreement in diagnosis, while unadjusted and adjusted indices showed lower agreement. The investigated indices demonstrated comparable reliability in follow-up examinations.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Estee Y. Cramer, Yuxin Huang, Yijin Wang, Evan L. Ray, Matthew Cornell, Johannes Bracher, Andrea Brennen, Alvaro J. Castro Rivadeneira, Aaron Gerding, Katie House, Dasuni Jayawardena, Abdul Hannan Kanji, Ayush Khandelwal, Khoa Le, Vidhi Mody, Vrushti Mody, Jarad Niemi, Ariane Stark, Apurv Shah, Nutcha Wattanchit, Martha W. Zorn, Nicholas G. Reich
Summary: During the COVID-19 pandemic, academic researchers, government agencies, industry groups, and individuals have generated a large amount of forecasts. To make use of these forecasts, the CDC partnered with the University of Massachusetts Amherst to establish the US COVID-19 Forecast Hub. This hub provides point and probabilistic forecasts of incident cases, hospitalizations, deaths, and cumulative deaths at county, state, and national levels in the United States, allowing for the development of ensemble models, communication of forecasts, model comparisons, and policy-making.
Article
Rheumatology
Anju Murayama
Summary: This study reveals a significant association between receipt of meal payments from manufacturers of brand-name colchicine and an increased rate of prescriptions for these brand-name drugs, resulting in higher Medicare expenditures in the United States.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RHEUMATIC DISEASES
(2023)
Article
Rheumatology
Bryant R. England, Huifeng Yun, Lang Chen, Jared Vanderbleek, Kaleb Michaud, Ted R. Mikuls, Jeffrey R. Curtis
Summary: This study aims to investigate the association between multimorbidity and treatment changes as well as achieving target disease activity thresholds in patients with active rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
ARTHRITIS CARE & RESEARCH
(2023)
Article
Rheumatology
Huifeng Yun, Lang Chen, Jason A. Roy, Jeffrey Greenberg, Leslie R. Harrold, Michael D. George, Jeffrey R. Curtis
Summary: This study aims to investigate the association between disease activity and infection risk among patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Through observation and data analysis of RA patients, it was found that patients with low or moderate disease activity have a higher risk of infection, while those in remission have a lower risk.
ARTHRITIS CARE & RESEARCH
(2023)
Article
Rheumatology
Emily A. Smitherman, Rouba A. Chahine, Timothy Beukelman, Laura B. Lewandowski, A. K. M. Fazlur Rahman, Scott E. Wenderfer, Jeffrey R. Curtis, Aimee O. Hersh
Summary: The objective of this study was to characterize short-term kidney status and describe variation in early care utilization in pediatric systemic lupus erythematosus (cSLE) patients with nephritis. The study found that male sex and older age at cSLE diagnosis were associated with abnormal short-term kidney status. Furthermore, there was substantial variation in contemporary medication use for pediatric lupus nephritis between pediatric rheumatology centers.
ARTHRITIS CARE & RESEARCH
(2023)
Article
Rheumatology
Jeffrey R. Curtis, Kunihiro Yamaoka, Yi-Hsing Chen, Deepak L. Bhatt, Levent M. Gunay, Naonobu Sugiyama, Carol A. Connell, Cunshan Wang, Joseph Wu, Sujatha Menon, Ivana Vranic, Juan J. Gomez-Reino
Summary: This study evaluated malignancies and their associations with baseline risk factors and cardiovascular risk scores in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) treated with tofacitinib and tumour necrosis factor inhibitors (TNFi). The results showed that the risk of malignancies was increased with tofacitinib compared to TNFi, and the highest incidence was observed in patients with a history of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (HxASCVD) or increasing cardiovascular risk.
ANNALS OF THE RHEUMATIC DISEASES
(2023)
Article
Rheumatology
Jeffrey R. Curtis, Bradley Stolshek, Paul Emery, Boulos Haraoui, Elaine Karis, Greg Kricorian, David H. Collier, Priscilla K. Yen, Vivian P. Bykerk
Summary: This study aimed to investigate the effect of treatment withdrawal on patient-reported outcomes in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. The results showed that patient-reported outcomes deteriorated following medication withdrawal, and patients receiving etanercept monotherapy had less deterioration compared to those receiving methotrexate monotherapy.
JCR-JOURNAL OF CLINICAL RHEUMATOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Rheumatology
David Singer, Philippe Thompson-Leduc, Sara Poston, Deepshekhar Gupta, Wendy Y. Cheng, Siyu Ma, Francesca Devine, Mei S. Duh, Jeffrey R. Curtis
Summary: This study aimed to compare the incidence of herpes zoster (HZ) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and the general population in the USA. The results showed that RA patients had a higher incidence of HZ, especially those aged 65 years and above. The highest incidence of HZ was observed in RA patients using corticosteroids and Janus kinase inhibitors.
JOURNAL OF RHEUMATOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Rheumatology
Anne R. Bass, Eliza Chakravarty, Elie A. Akl, Clifton O. Bingham, Leonard Calabrese, Laura C. Cappelli, Sindhu R. Johnson, Lisa F. Imundo, Kevin L. Winthrop, Reuben J. Arasaratnam, Lindsey R. Baden, Roberta Berard, S. Louis Bridges Jr, Jonathan T. L. Cheah, Jeffrey R. Curtis, Polly J. Ferguson, Ida Hakkarinen, Karen B. Onel, Grayson Schultz, Vidya Sivaraman, Benjamin J. Smith, Jeffrey A. Sparks, Tiphanie P. Vogel, Eleanor Anderson Williams, Cassandra Calabrese, Joanne S. Cunha, Joann Fontanarosa, Miriah C. Gillispie-Taylor, Elena Gkrouzman, Priyanka Iyer, Kimberly S. Lakin, Alexandra Legge, Mindy S. S. Lo, Megan M. Lockwood, Rebecca E. Sadun, Namrata Singh, Nancy Sullivan, Herman Tam, Marat Turgunbaev, Amy S. Turner, James Reston
Summary: This guideline provides evidence-based recommendations on the use of vaccinations in children and adults with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMDs). It includes expanded indications for some vaccines in patients with RMDs and addresses the safe use of live attenuated vaccines in patients taking immunosuppressive medications.
ARTHRITIS CARE & RESEARCH
(2023)
Editorial Material
Rheumatology
Stanley Cohen, Jeffrey R. Curtis, Theodore Mellors, Lixia Zhang, Johanna B. Withers, Alex Jones, Susan D. Ghiassian, Viatcheslav R. Akmaev
Summary: A blood-based precision medicine test called MSRC was developed and validated to identify rheumatoid arthritis patients who are unlikely to respond to TNFi therapy. The study found that both gene expression features and clinical components significantly contributed to the MSRC results.
RHEUMATOLOGY AND THERAPY
(2023)
Article
Rheumatology
Thomas Huizinga, Ernest Choy, Amy Praestgaard, Hubert van Hoogstraten, Patrick R. R. LaFontaine, Patricia Guyot, Daniel Aletaha, Ulf Mueller-Ladner, Yoshiya Tanaka, Jeffrey R. R. Curtis, Roy Fleischmann
Summary: In the MAIC and STC analyses from the TARGET and SELECT-BEYOND trials, the efficacy of sarilumab and upadacitinib were comparable.
RHEUMATOLOGY AND THERAPY
(2023)
Article
Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Theresa Hunter Gibble, April N. Naegeli, Michael Grabner, Keith Isenberg, Mingyang Shan, Chia-Chen Teng, Jeffrey R. Curtis
Summary: The aim of this study was to assess the frequency of inadequate response to advanced therapy in patients with CD or UC in the US and analyze factors associated with inadequate response. Using claims data analysis, it was found that over 60% of CD or UC patients had an inadequate response to their index advanced therapy within 1 year, mostly due to low adherence.
BMC GASTROENTEROLOGY
(2023)
Article
Rheumatology
Brent A. Luedders, Brendan J. Cope, Daniel Hershberger, Matthew DeVries, W. Scott Campbell, James Campbell, Punyasha Roul, Yangyuna Yang, Jorge Rojas, Grant W. Cannon, Brian C. Sauer, Joshua F. Baker, Jeffrey R. Curtis, Ted R. Mikuls, Bryant R. England
Summary: In this study, algorithms were developed to identify RA-ILD using administrative data, and the addition of ILD-related terms identified through text mining from chest CT reports improved the PPV of these algorithms. The increased PPVs allow for the use of these algorithms in large data sets for epidemiologic and comparative effectiveness research.
SEMINARS IN ARTHRITIS AND RHEUMATISM
(2023)
Article
Rheumatology
Clifton O. Bingham, Shawn Black, Natalie J. Shiff, Stephen Xu, Wayne Langholff, Jeffrey R. Curtis
Summary: This study assessed changes in patient-reported outcomes related to social, mental, and physical well-being after one year of intravenous golimumab or infliximab treatment in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. The results showed that both treatment groups achieved comparable improvements in social, mental, and physical well-being PROMIS measures, and PROMIS detected meaningful clinical changes in patient-reported outcomes.
RHEUMATOLOGY AND THERAPY
(2023)
Article
Rheumatology
Sharon Dowell, Huifeng Yun, Jeffrey R. Curtis, Lang Chen, Fenglong Xie, Manuela Pedra-Nobre, Dianne Wollaston, Sawsan Najmey, Cynthia Lawrence Elliott, Theresa Lawrence Ford, Heather North, Robin Dore, Soha Dolatabadi, Thaila Ramanujam, Stacy Kennedy, Stephanie Ott, Ilona Jileaeva, Amina Richardson, Jeffrey Kaine, Grace Wright, Gail S. Kerr
Summary: The objective of this study was to evaluate the factors associated with regional variation of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) disease burden in the US. The study found that African American patients, those from Southern regions with Medicaid or Medicare coverage had higher disease activity, and higher comorbidity burden. Less than 10% of rheumatology practices cared for over 50% of Medicaid recipients. Further studies are needed to establish more equitable distribution of specialty care for RA patients in high-deprivation areas.
ACR OPEN RHEUMATOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Medicine, Research & Experimental
Gigi Hirsch, Priscilla Velentgas, Jeffrey R. Curtis, Kay Larholt, Jay J. H. Park, Chris L. Pashos, Ludovic Trinquart
Summary: This study explores the potential of using an adaptive point-of-care (APoC) platform trial for studying chronic disease treatment regimens. The findings suggest that this approach can improve the efficiency of real-world evidence (RWE) production and enhance clinical decision-making.
CONTEMPORARY CLINICAL TRIALS
(2023)
Meeting Abstract
Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
N. Poudel, J. Qian, K. B. Garza, P. Zeng, J. Curtis, S. Ngorsuraches
RESEARCH IN SOCIAL & ADMINISTRATIVE PHARMACY
(2023)
Review
Endocrinology & Metabolism
Linsey U. Gani, Chanika Sritara, Robert D. Blank, Weiwen Chen, Julia Gilmour, Ruban Dhaliwal, Ranjodh Gill
Summary: Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) is the gold standard method for measuring bone mineral density (BMD), which is strongly associated with fracture risk. The International Society for Clinical Densitometry (ISCD) has released new official positions on follow-up DXA examinations, highlighting the importance of considering the clinical context and individualized testing intervals.
JOURNAL OF CLINICAL DENSITOMETRY
(2024)
Article
Endocrinology & Metabolism
Andia Cheneymann, Josephine Therkildsen, Simon Winther, Louise Nissen, Jesper Thygesen, Bente L. Langdahl, Ellen-Margrethe Hauge, Morten Bottcher
Summary: Osteoporosis is often overlooked, and contrast-enhanced CT scans used for other diseases may overestimate bone mineral density. Adjustments for this effect are necessary before contrast-enhanced images can be clinically utilized for BMD screening.
JOURNAL OF CLINICAL DENSITOMETRY
(2024)