A randomized trial comparing gentamicin/citrate and heparin locks for central venous catheters in maintenance hemodialysis patients.

Background: Central venous catheters (CVCs) are used for vascular access in hemodialysis patients who have no alternative access or are awaiting placement or maturation of a permanent access. The major complications of CVCs are catheter-related bloodstream infection and clotting in the catheter lumen.

Study Design: Parallel-group, randomized, multicenter clinical trial, with patients blinded to study intervention.

Survey nonresponders to a medication-beliefs survey have worse adherence and persistence to chronic medications compared with survey responders.

Objective: The primary objective of this study was to investigate whether nonresponders to a medication-beliefs survey exhibited different adherence and persistence patterns than survey responders.

Methods: A medication-beliefs survey was mailed to 7795 adults aged from 40 to 88 years, who filled a qualifying index prescription (cardiovascular, dyslipidemia, oral-antihyperglycemic, oral-bisphosphonate, and asthma-controller medications) in June 2008 at 1 national and 2 regional retail pharmacies. Adherence and persistence to the index drug class was measured using pharmacy-claims data over 12 months.

Asymmetric responsiveness of physician prescription behavior to drug promotion of competitive brands within an established therapeutic drug class.

This article examines the impact of direct-to-physician, direct-to-consumer, and other marketing activities by pharmaceutical companies on a mature drug category which is in the later stage of its life cycle and in which generics have accrued a significant market share. The main objective of this article is to quantitatively estimate the impact of pharmaceutical promotions on physician prescribing behavior for three different statin brands, after controlling for factors such as patient, physician and physician practice characteristics, generic pressure, et cetera. Using unique panel data of physicians, combined with patient pharmacy prescription records, the authors developed a physician level generalized linear regression model.

The role of patient inexperience in medication discontinuation: a retrospective analysis of medication nonpersistence in seven chronic illnesses.

Background: Previous studies have reported that patients who are medication naive in some medication classes have a higher risk of medication discontinuation during the first 30 days of treatment and shorter median times to discontinuation than do medication-experienced patients.

Objectives: This study compared the risk of discontinuation during the first 30 days after the index fill and the median time to discontinuation for medication-naive and medication-experienced patients who were prescribed drugs for asthma, diabetes mellitus, high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, breast cancer, glaucoma, or osteoporosis.

Methods: Deidentified outpatient pharmacy records from 4 large US retail chains were searched for patients who had obtained a prescription for one of the index medications between January 1, 2007, and January 31, 2007.