Shortages of antiseizure medications in Australia and the association with patient switching, and adherence in a community setting.

Purpose: To quantify sponsor-reported shortages of oral antiseizure medications in Australia, estimate the number of patients impacted, and the association between shortages and brand or formulation switching, and changes in adherence.

Methods: A retrospective cohort study of sponsor-reported shortages (defined as where the supply of a medicine will not or will not be likely to meet the demand over a 6-month period) of antiseizure medications reported to the Medicine Shortages Reports Database (Therapeutic Goods Administration, Australia); cross-referencing shortages to the IQVIA-NostraData Dispensing Data (LRx) database, a deidentified, population-level dataset collecting longitudinal dispensation data on individual patients from ∼75% of Australian community pharmacy scripts.

Results: Ninety-seven sponsor-reported ASM shortages were identified between 2019 and 2020; of those, 90 (93%) were shortages of generic ASM brands.

Attainment of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol goals in patients treated with combination therapy: A retrospective cohort study in primary care.

Background: The attainment of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) therapeutic goals in real-world settings among patients receiving combination lipid-lowering therapy (LLT, statins plus non-statins) is not well characterised.

Objective: To evaluate LDL-C levels and LDL-C goal attainment in patients treated with combination LLT in real-world primary care settings.

Methods: A retrospective cohort study of patients treated with combination LLT.

Attainment of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol goals in statin treated patients: Real-world evidence from Australia.

Little is known about the attainment of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) targets in patients treated with statins in Australian primary healthcare setting that are at increased risk of cardiovascular disease. A retrospective cohort study was conducted using data from electronic medical records of patients treated by general practitioners across Australia. LDL-C target attainment was defined as LDL-C levels ≤ 2 mmol/L for all risk groups, in line with Australian guidelines.