Publications by authors named "Tamuno Alfred"

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected marginalized groups in the United States. Although most children have mild or asymptomatic COVID-19, some experience severe disease and long-term complications. However, few studies have examined health disparities in severe COVID-19 outcomes among US children.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: This study aims to describe the healthcare resource utilization (HCRU) and direct medical cost of influenza-related hospitalizations to illustrate the persistent economic burden of influenza among adults in the US.

Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted using the PINC AI Healthcare Database. Adults hospitalized with a diagnosis of influenza between August 1-May 31 from 2016-2023 were identified and stratified by age (18-49, 50-64 and ≥65 years).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Patients with active cancer and venous thromboembolism (VTE) face increased risks of recurrent VTE and major bleeding, especially those with a history of bleeding events or renal disease.
  • A study analyzed data from over 30,000 VTE cancer patients treated with anticoagulants (apixaban, warfarin, or low molecular weight heparin) to assess the risks associated with these medications in high-risk groups.
  • The findings revealed that major bleeding events were more frequent among patients with prior bleeding or renal issues, but the anticoagulant type had little effect on these risks.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • * The study found that there were generally no significant differences in treatment outcomes across different cancers, like prostate, breast, lung, pancreatic, and multiple myeloma.
  • * A few significant interactions were noted specifically for lung and pancreatic cancers, suggesting that there may be tumor-specific effects of anticoagulants, warranting further investigation.*
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Importance: No data comparing the estimated effectiveness of coadministering COVID-19 vaccines with seasonal influenza vaccine (SIV) in the community setting exist.

Objective: To examine the comparative effectiveness associated with coadministering the BNT162b2 BA.4/5 bivalent mRNA COVID-19 vaccine (BNT162b2-biv [Pfizer BioNTech]) and SIV vs giving each vaccine alone.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: We compared hospitalization outcomes of young children hospitalized with COVID-19 to those hospitalized with influenza in the United States.

Methods: Patients aged 0-<5 years hospitalized with an admission diagnosis of acute COVID-19 (April 2021-March 2022) or influenza (April 2019-March 2020) were selected from the PINC AI Healthcare Database Special Release. Hospitalization outcomes included length of stay (LOS), intensive care unit (ICU) admission, oxygen supplementation, and mechanical ventilation (MV).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Recommendations for adult pneumococcal vaccination in the U.S. were revised in 2022 after the introduction of 15- and 20-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCV15 and PCV20) to call for routine PCV use among immunocompetent adults with risk conditions aged 19-64 years.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • People with Down syndrome (DS) have a significantly higher incidence of pneumonia compared to those without DS, with rates showing a 4.7-5.7 fold increase.
  • Those with DS are also more likely to be hospitalized or admitted to the ICU due to pneumonia, and one-year mortality rates following pneumonia are notably higher in this group.
  • Specific health conditions, like heart disease in children and neurological disorders in adults, are linked to pneumonia, but they only partially explain the increased risk associated with DS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Older age and certain medical conditions are known to modify the risk of pneumococcal disease among adults. We quantified the risk of pneumococcal disease among adults with and without medical conditions in the United States between 2016 and 2019.

Methods: This retrospective cohort study used administrative health claims data from Optum's de-identified Clinformatics Data Mart Database.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Patients with brain cancer are at a high risk of developing venous thromboembolism (VTE) and are underrepresented in clinical trials. This study compared the risk of recurrent VTE (rVTE), major bleeding (MB), and clinically relevant non-major bleeding (CRNMB) among VTE cancer patients initiating apixaban, low molecular weight heparin (LMWH), or warfarin stratified by patients with brain vs other cancer types.

Materials And Methods: Active cancer patients initiating apixaban, LMWH, or warfarin within 30 days after VTE diagnosis were identified from 4 US commercial and the Medicare databases.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: A 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13) was licensed to protect against emerging Streptococcus pneumoniae serotypes. Healthcare services, including routine childhood immunizations, were disrupted as a result of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This study compared PCV13 routine vaccination completion and adherence among US infants before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and the relationship between primary and booster dose completion and adherence.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Little is known about the relationship between coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) severity and subsequent risk of experiencing a cardiovascular event (CVE) after COVID-19 recovery. We evaluated this relationship in a large cohort of United States adults.

Methods: Using a claims database, we performed a retrospective cohort study of adults diagnosed with COVID-19 between 1 April 2020 and 31 May 2021.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: US attributable Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) mortality and cost data are primarily from Medicare fee-for-service populations, and little is known about Medicare Advantage Enrollees (MAEs). This study evaluated CDI incidence among MAEs from 2012 to 2019 and determined attributable mortality and costs by comparing MAEs with and without CDI occurring in 2018.

Methods: This retrospective cohort study assessed CDI incidence and associated mortality and costs for eligible MAEs ≥65 years of age using the de-identified Optum Clinformatics Data Mart database (Optum; Eden Prairie, Minnesota, USA).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Several underlying medical conditions have been reported to be associated with an increased risk of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and related hospitalization and death. Population attributable fractions (PAFs) describing the proportion of disease burden attributable to underlying medical conditions for COVID-19 diagnosis and outcomes have not been reported.

Methods: A retrospective population-based cohort study was conducted using Optum's de-identified Clinformatics Data Mart database.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

This retrospective single-arm study assessed real-world treatment patterns and clinical outcomes in patients with hormone receptor-positive/human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative (HR+/HER2-) advanced/metastatic breast cancer (A/MBC) who received palbociclib plus an aromatase inhibitor as first-line therapy in US community health systems. Using electronic health records from the Syapse Learning Health Network, 242 patients were identified as having received first-line palbociclib plus an aromatase inhibitor between 3 February 2015, and 31 July 2019 (data cutoff 1 February 2020) resulting in a minimum potential 6-month follow-up period. In total, 56.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Real-world studies have evaluated the use of anticoagulants in obese patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF), but they have been limited by sample size or the use of diagnosis codes on claims to define obesity. This retrospective study used body weight data of ≥100 kg or a body mass index of ≥30 kg/m to identify elderly (aged ≥65 years) NVAF patients with obesity in dually enrolled Veterans Affairs and fee-for-service Medicare patients. It evaluated the risk of stroke/systemic embolism (SE) and major bleeding (MB) in patients that initiated apixaban versus warfarin.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Elevated blood pressure (BP), a leading cause of global morbidity and mortality, is influenced by both genetic and lifestyle factors. Cigarette smoking is one such lifestyle factor. Across five ancestries, we performed a genome-wide gene-smoking interaction study of mean arterial pressure (MAP) and pulse pressure (PP) in 129 913 individuals in stage 1 and follow-up analysis in 480 178 additional individuals in stage 2.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Body-fat distribution is a risk factor for adverse cardiovascular health consequences. We analyzed the association of body-fat distribution, assessed by waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for body mass index, with 228,985 predicted coding and splice site variants available on exome arrays in up to 344,369 individuals from five major ancestries (discovery) and 132,177 European-ancestry individuals (validation). We identified 15 common (minor allele frequency, MAF ≥5%) and nine low-frequency or rare (MAF <5%) coding novel variants.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In the version of this article originally published, one of the two authors with the name Wei Zhao was omitted from the author list and the affiliations for both authors were assigned to the single Wei Zhao in the author list. In addition, the ORCID for Wei Zhao (Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA) was incorrectly assigned to author Wei Zhou. The errors have been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In the published version of this paper, the name of author Emanuele Di Angelantonio was misspelled. This error has now been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Genome-wide association analysis advanced understanding of blood pressure (BP), a major risk factor for vascular conditions such as coronary heart disease and stroke. Accounting for smoking behavior may help identify BP loci and extend our knowledge of its genetic architecture. We performed genome-wide association meta-analyses of systolic and diastolic BP incorporating gene-smoking interactions in 610,091 individuals.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified >250 loci for body mass index (BMI), implicating pathways related to neuronal biology. Most GWAS loci represent clusters of common, noncoding variants from which pinpointing causal genes remains challenging. Here we combined data from 718,734 individuals to discover rare and low-frequency (minor allele frequency (MAF) < 5%) coding variants associated with BMI.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aims/hypothesis: Elevated levels of fasting glucose and fasting insulin in non-diabetic individuals are markers of dysregulation of glucose metabolism and are strong risk factors for type 2 diabetes. Genome-wide association studies have discovered over 50 SNPs associated with these traits. Most of these loci were discovered in European populations and have not been tested in a well-powered multi-ethnic study.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF