Validation of a claims-based algorithm to identify patients with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension using electronic health record data.

This study aimed to validate an algorithm developed to identify chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) among patients with a history of pulmonary embolism. Validation was halted because too few patients had gold-standard evidence of CTEPH in the administrative claims/electronic health records database, suggesting that CTEPH is underdiagnosed.

Burden of Illness Associated with Tenosynovial Giant Cell Tumors.

Purpose: Little is known about the burden of illness in patients with tenosynovial giant cell tumors (TGCT), which are rare, typically benign, lesions of the synovial tissue including giant cell tumor of the tendon sheath (GCT-TS) and pigmented villonodular synovitis (PVNS). The objective of this study was to describe health care resource use and costs for patients with GCT-TS and PVNS, which are rare and typically benign TGCT.

Methods: A retrospective cohort study design was used to analyze administrative claims for adult commercial and Medicare Advantage health plan enrollees with evidence of GCT-TS and PVNS from January 1, 2006 through March 31, 2015.

Persistence and compliance among U.S. patients receiving pazopanib or sunitinib as first-line therapy for advanced renal cell carcinoma: a retrospective claims analysis.

Background: For first-line therapy options for advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC), clinical trials have demonstrated similar efficacy for pazopanib and sunitinib as well as differing side-effect profiles, which may affect patient persistence in self-administration of these oral medications. However, the treatment patterns of each drug in real-world clinical practice, as opposed to the controlled environment of a trial, have not been directly compared.

Objective: To compare persistence and compliance (adherence) with pazopanib versus sunitinib in a real-world setting.

Predicting waist circumference from body mass index.

Background: Being overweight or obese increases risk for cardiometabolic disorders. Although both body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) measure the level of overweight and obesity, WC may be more important because of its closer relationship to total body fat. Because WC is typically not assessed in clinical practice, this study sought to develop and verify a model to predict WC from BMI and demographic data, and to use the predicted WC to assess cardiometabolic risk.

One-year follow-up healthcare costs of patients hospitalized for transient ischemic attack or ischemic stroke and discharged with aspirin plus extended-release dipyridamole or clopidogrel.

Objective: To examine healthcare costs among patients hospitalized for transient ischemic attack or ischemic stroke (TIA/stroke) and prescribed aspirin plus extended-release dipyridamole (ASA-ERDP) or clopidogrel (CLOPID) within 30 days post-discharge using a retrospective claims database from a large US managed care organization.

Methods: Adult patients with ≥1 hospitalizations for TIA/stroke between January 2007-July 2009 and ≥1 claims for an oral anti-platelet (OAP) were observed for 1 year before and after the first TIA/stroke hospitalization or until death, whichever came first. Cohorts were defined by the first claim for ASA-ERDP or CLOPID within 30 days post-discharge.

Medicare payments, healthcare service use, and telemedicine implementation costs in a randomized trial comparing telemedicine case management with usual care in medically underserved participants with diabetes mellitus (IDEATel).

Objective To determine whether a diabetes case management telemedicine intervention reduced healthcare expenditures, as measured by Medicare claims, and to assess the costs of developing and implementing the telemedicine intervention. Design We studied 1665 participants in the Informatics for Diabetes Education and Telemedicine (IDEATel), a randomized controlled trial comparing telemedicine case management of diabetes to usual care. Participants were aged 55 years or older, and resided in federally designated medically underserved areas of New York State.

Prediction of first events of coronary heart disease and stroke with consideration of adiposity.

Background: Prediction of coronary heart disease (CHD) and cerebrovascular disease (CeVD) can aid healthcare providers and prevention programs. Previous reports have focused on traditional cardiovascular risk factors; less information has been available on the role of overweight and obesity.

Methods And Results: Baseline data from 4780 Framingham Offspring Study adults with up to 24 years of follow-up were used to assess risk for a first CHD event (angina pectoris, myocardial infarction, or cardiac death) alone, first CeVD event (acute brain infarction, transient ischemic attack, and stroke-related death) alone, and CHD and CeVD events combined.