To Treat or Not to Treat? Effect of Urate-Lowering Therapy on Renal Function, Blood Pressure and Safety in Patients with Asymptomatic Hyperuricemia: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis.

Purpose: Hyperuricemia is associated with increased cardiovascular risk. Because patients with asymptomatic hyperuricemia (AH) experience no immediate discomfort and there are possible side effects of urate-lowering drugs, treatment for AH is controversial. We aimed to perform a network meta-analysis (NMA) to investigate the effects of different urate-lowering therapies (ULTs) on serum uric acid level, renal function, blood pressure (BP), and safety in AH patients.

Drug repurposing? Cardiovascular effect of colchicine on patients with coronary artery disease: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) are at high risk of atherosclerotic events. The aim of this meta-analysis is to evaluate the cardiovascular protective effect of colchicine on patients with CAD.

Methods: In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched PubMed and Embase for studies published until April 28, 2020.

The relationship between contralateral prophylactic mastectomy and breast reconstruction, complications, breast-related procedures, and costs: A population-based study of health insurance data.

Background: Increasingly, women are undergoing contralateral prophylactic mastectomy for the treatment of unilateral breast cancer. The relationship between contralateral prophylactic mastectomy and breast reconstruction, postsurgical complications, additional breast-related procedures, and cost has not received the attention it deserves.

Methods: Data from the New York comprehensive, all-age, all-payer, Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System were queried to identify patients undergoing unilateral mastectomy or contralateral prophylactic mastectomy from 2008 to 2010.

A simple and efficient feeder-free culture system to up-scale iPSCs on polymeric material surface for use in 3D bioprinting.

The 3D bioprinting and cell/tissue printing techniques open new possibilities for future applications. To facilitate the 3D bioprinting process, a large amount of living cells are required. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) represent a promising cell source for bioprinting.

Racial-Ethnic Disparities in Opioid Prescriptions at Emergency Department Visits for Conditions Commonly Associated with Prescription Drug Abuse.

Prescription drug abuse is a growing problem nationally. In an effort to curb this problem, emergency physicians might rely on subjective cues such as race-ethnicity, often unknowingly, when prescribing opioids for pain-related complaints, especially for conditions that are often associated with drug-seeking behavior. Previous studies that examined racial-ethnic disparities in opioid dispensing at emergency departments (EDs) did not differentiate between prescriptions at discharge and drug administration in the ED.

Variation in geographic access to chemotherapy by definitions of providers and service locations: a population-based observational study.

Background: An aging population, with its associated rise in cancer incidence and strain on the oncology workforce, will continue to motivate patients, healthcare providers and policy makers to better understand the existing and growing challenges of access to chemotherapy. Administrative data, and SEER-Medicare data in particular, have been used to assess patterns of healthcare utilization because of its rich information regarding patients, their treatments, and their providers. To create measures of geographic access to chemotherapy, patients and oncologists must first be identified.

Geographic variation in the use of adjuvant therapy among elderly patients with resected non-small cell lung cancer.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to assess to what extent geographic variation in adjuvant treatment for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients would remain, after controlling for patient and area-level characteristics.

Materials And Methods: A retrospective cohort of 18,410 Medicare beneficiaries with resected, stage I-IIIA NSCLC was identified from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare linked database. Adjuvant therapies were classified as adjuvant chemotherapy (ACT), postoperative radiation therapy (PORT), or no adjuvant therapy.

Treatment of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in the elderly: regimens without anthracyclines are common and not futile.

Anthracycline-containing regimens (ACRs) are recommended for patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). However, over 40% of elderly patients do not receive ACRs, possibly due to expected toxicities. We characterized treatment choices and compared the 3-year overall survival (OS) rates of 8262 Medicare beneficiaries diagnosed with DLBCL in 2000-2006 identified from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare linked database.

The association between class of antipsychotic and rates of hospitalization: results of a retrospective analysis of data from the 2005 Medicare current beneficiary survey.

Background: When second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs), also called atypical antipsychotics, were introduced in the 1990s, early research suggested that these drugs offered better tolerability and adherence than first-generation antipsychotics (FGAs), or typical antipsychotics. This presumably would reduce the need for hospital services. However, health research to test this hypothesis has focused mostly on psychiatric readmissions.