Third-Line Antidiabetic Therapy Intensification Patterns and Glycaemic Control in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes in the USA: A Real-World Study.

Background: Third-line antidiabetic drug (ADD) intensification patterns and glycemic control post intensification in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) have not been thoroughly explored in a real-world setting.

Objective: This study explored the patterns and risks of third-line ADD intensification post second-line ADDs and the probability of desirable glucose control over 12 months by third-line ADD classes at the population level.

Methods: We used the electronic medical records of 255,236 patients with T2DM in the USA initiating a second-line ADD post metformin from January 2013 to evaluate the rates and risks of third-line intensification and the probability of desirable glycemic control with different ADDs after addressing inherent heterogeneity using appropriate methodologies.

A Robust Statistical Approach to Analyse Population Pharmacokinetic Data in Critically Ill Patients Receiving Renal Replacement Therapy.

Background And Aim: Current approaches to antibiotic dose determination in critically ill patients requiring renal replacement therapy are primarily based on the assessment of highly heterogeneous data from small number of patients. The standard modelling approaches limit the scope of constructing robust confidence boundaries of the distribution of pharmacokinetics (PK) parameters, especially when the evaluation of possible association of demographic and clinical factors at different levels of the distribution of drug clearance is of interest. Commonly used compartmental models generally construct the inferences through a linear or non-linear mean regression, which is inadequate when the distribution is skewed, multi-modal or effected by atypical observation.

Effectiveness of biologic and non-biologic antirheumatic drugs on anaemia markers in 153,788 patients with rheumatoid arthritis: New evidence from real-world data.

Background: To evaluate the impact of treatment with disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs), including IL-6 receptor inhibitor tocilizumab (TCZ), on anaemia markers in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

Methods: Using the Centricity Electronic Medical Records from USA, patients with rheumatoid arthritis diagnosed between January 2000 and April 2016, who initiated TCZ (n = 3732); tofacitinib (TOFA, n = 3126); other biologic DMARD (obDMARD, n = 55,964); or other non-biologic DMARD (onbDMARD, n = 91,236) were identified. Changes in haemoglobin (Hb) and haematocrit (Hct) over 2 years of treatment initiation were evaluated, adjusting and balancing for confounders.

A Bayesian Modelling Approach with Balancing Informative Prior for Analysing Imbalanced Data.

When a dataset is imbalanced, the prediction of the scarcely-sampled subpopulation can be over-influenced by the population contributing to the majority of the data. The aim of this study was to develop a Bayesian modelling approach with balancing informative prior so that the influence of imbalance to the overall prediction could be minimised. The new approach was developed in order to weigh the data in favour of the smaller subset(s).