Impact of Vanessa's Law on the Reporting of Serious Adverse Events: A Retrospective Study Among Antiplatelet Users in a Tertiary-Care Cardiology Centre.

Background: Antiplatelet drugs, such as clopidogrel, ticagrelor, prasugrel, and acetylsalicylic acid, may be associated with a risk of adverse events (AEs). Vanessa's Law was enacted to strengthen regulations to protect Canadians from drug-related side effects (with mandatory reporting of serious adverse events [SAEs]).

Objective: To determine whether Vanessa's Law has led to an increase in SAE reporting among antiplatelet users.

[Kieron O'Connor's scientific contribution to the characterization and treatment of Tourette's syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorders].

Background Researcher and psychologist Kieron Philip O'Connor (1950-2019) pioneered the cognitive and behavioural approach at the Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal (IUSMM). It was there that he began a career as a clinical researcher studying Tourette's syndrome (TS) and obsessive-compulsive and related disorder (OCD). At the time, apart from some behavioural approaches, little cognitive intervention was available to treat chronic tics and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Underreporting of adverse events to health authorities by healthcare professionals: a red flag-raising descriptive study.

Background: An adverse event (AE) is any undesirable medical manifestation in an individual who has received pharmacological treatment. To be considered serious (SAE), it needs to meet minimally one of the severity criteria by Health Canada. The most recent data (2006) suggested that AEs were underreported (<6%) to health authorities.

Medication Exposure and Mortality in Patients With Schizophrenia.

Importance: The use of antipsychotics, antidepressants, and benzodiazepines may influence the risk of mortality in people with schizophrenia. However, many observational studies have not accounted for immortal time bias (ITB), which occurs when there is a period during which patients in the exposed group are necessarily alive and misclassified as exposed (the period between start of follow-up and initiation of drug). Ignoring ITB may lead to misinterpretation of the association between these drugs and mortality.

Performance of the GeneXpert® MRSA/SA SSTI test in periprosthetic joint infections: rate of failure, outcomes and risk factors.

Background: The GeneXpert® MRSA/SA SSTI test allows early detection of methicillin-resistant staphylococci in intraoperative samples of prosthetic joint infections (PJI) in order to stop early broad-spectrum antibiotics.

Questions/purpose: (1) What is the rate of false-negative GeneXpert® MRSA/SA SSTI test results? (2) Does a false-negative GeneXpert® MRSA/SA SSTI test result increase the risk of treatment failure for the patient with a PJI? (3) What are the risk factors of a false-negative result?

Method: A retrospective study was carried out to compare all GeneXpert® assays to conventional cultures in prosthetic joint infections from April 1st, 2012 to October 1st, 2016. False-negative (FN) results (absence of methicillin-resistant staphylococci (MRS) with GeneXpert® test, but presence in the culture) were identified.