Performance of claims-based algorithms for identifying incident thyroid cancer in commercial health plan enrollees receiving antidiabetic drug therapies.

Background: Thyroid cancer incidence is increasing in the United States (US) and many other countries. The objective of this study was to develop and evaluate algorithms using administrative medical claims data for identification of incident thyroid cancer.

Methods: This effort was part of a prospective cohort study of adults initiating therapy on antidiabetic drugs and used administrative data from a large commercial health insurer in the US.

Identification of abacavir hypersensitivity reaction in health care claims data.

Purpose: Abacavir is associated with an infrequent but potentially serious hypersensitivity reaction (HSR) that can include a wide range of signs and symptoms. Identification of this reaction through medical insurance claims could provide a simple and efficient means of monitoring the incidence of abacavir hypersensitivity in large populations of patients.

Methods: Using data from a safety study of 948 abacavir users with 22 hypersensitivity events identified from claims and validated through medical record review, we used a recursive partitioning analysis to construct an algorithm to differentiate between patients with and without validated adverse events.

Variation in serotonergic and dopaminergic neuronal survival in the central nervous system of adult Drosophila.

Loss of serotonergic and dopaminergic neurons may have serious implications for normal brain function. Drosophila models of neurodegenerative diseases utilize the short life-span and simple anatomy of the fly to characterize the molecular and genetic processes characteristic of each dysfunctional state. In fly embryonic and larval ventral nerve cords, serotonergic and dopaminergic neurons are positioned in a stereotypic pattern that is reorganized during metamorphosis.