The impact of age, sex, and gender on polypharmacy and potential prescribing cascades: Lessons from five databases.

Background: Few studies describe how gender-related factors may contribute to polypharmacy and prescribing cascades. Describing these patterns using cross-national comparisons can improve the robustness of findings and provide lessons on the importance of considering age, sex, and gender in pharmacological research. The aim of the study was to explore the intersection of age, sex, and gender with polypharmacy and co-prescribing suggesting a potential prescribing cascade.

Improving the Clinical Utility of Platelet Count for Cancer Detection in Primary Care: A Cohort Study in England, Canada, and Australia.

The platelet count, a component of the full blood count, has been identified as a useful diagnostic marker for cancer in primary care. The reference range for the platelet count is 150 to 400 or 450 × 10/L; this range does not account for natural variation in platelet count by age and sex. This study used three primary care cohorts from England, Canada, and Australia.

Bilateral Mastectomy and Breast Cancer Mortality.

Importance: The benefit of bilateral mastectomy for women with unilateral breast cancer in terms of deaths from breast cancer has not been shown.

Objectives: To estimate the 20-year cumulative risk of breast cancer mortality among women with stage 0 to stage III unilateral breast cancer according to the type of initial surgery performed.

Design, Settings, And Participants: This cohort study used the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program registry database to identify women with unilateral breast cancer (invasive and ductal carcinoma in situ) who were diagnosed from 2000 to 2019.

Risk of Breast Cancer After Diabetes in Pregnancy: A Population-based Cohort Study.

Objectives: Diabetes is associated with an increased risk of several cancers, including postmenopausal breast cancer. The evidence for higher breast cancer risk after diabetes in pregnancy is conflicting. We compared the incidence of breast and other cancers between pregnant women with and without diabetes.

Physical Activity During Adolescence and Early-adulthood and Ovarian Cancer Among Women with a BRCA1 or BRCA2 Mutation.

Unlabelled: In the general population, physical activity has been associated with a lower risk of several cancers; however, the evidence for ovarian cancer is not clear. It is suggested that early-life physical activity may differentially impact risk. Whether this is true among women at high risk due to a pathogenic variant (mutation) in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes has not been evaluated.

Association of a calcium channel blocker and diuretic prescribing cascade with adverse events: A population-based cohort study.

Background: Prescribing cascades occur when a drug adverse event is misinterpreted as a new medical condition and a second, potentially unnecessary drug, is prescribed to treat the adverse event. The population-level consequences of prescribing cascades remain unknown.

Methods: This population-based cohort study used linked health administrative databases in Ontario, Canada.

Survival of Filipino women with breast cancer in the United States.

Background: The survival of women with early-stage breast cancer varies by racial group. Filipino women with breast cancer are an understudied group and are often combined with other Asian groups. We compared clinical presentations and survival rates for Filipino and White women with breast cancer diagnosed in the United States.

Salpingectomy and the Risk of Ovarian Cancer in Ontario.

Importance: A body of pathological and clinical evidence supports the position that the fallopian tube is the site of origin for a large proportion of high-grade serous ovarian cancers. Consequently, salpingectomy is now considered for permanent contraception (in lieu of tubal ligation) or ovarian cancer prevention (performed opportunistically at the time of surgical procedures for benign gynecologic conditions).

Objective: To evaluate the association between salpingectomy and the risk of invasive epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube, and peritoneal cancer.

The association between offspring birthweight and future risk of maternal diabetes: A population-based study.

Aims: As an indicator of maternal cardiometabolic health, newborn birthweight may be an important predictor of maternal type 2 diabetes mellitus (diabetes). We evaluated the relation between offspring birthweight and onset of maternal diabetes after pregnancy.

Methods: This retrospective cohort study used linked population-based health databases from Ontario, Canada.

Contemporary Trends in Breast Reconstruction Use and Impact on Survival Among Women with Inflammatory Breast Cancer.

Background: Breast reconstruction is generally discouraged in women with inflammatory breast cancer (IBC). Nevertheless, reconstruction rates are increasing in this population.

Objective: We aimed to determine contemporary trends and predictors of breast reconstruction use and its impact on mortality among IBC patients.

Trends in platelet count among cancer patients.

An elevated platelet count has been associated with an increased incidence of cancer and poor survival for many cancer types. In this study, platelet levels were captured among cancer patients in the 2 years prior to and following a cancer diagnosis. I investigated if the trends in platelet count differ between patients that died or did not die from their cancer.

Platelet Count and Survival after Cancer.

Thrombocytosis is associated with cancer progression and death for many cancer types. It is unclear if platelet count is also associated with cancer survival. We conducted a cohort study of 112,231 adults in Ontario with a diagnosis of cancer between January 2007 and December 2016.

Analysis of Platelet Count and New Cancer Diagnosis Over a 10-Year Period.

Importance: Individuals with cancer often have an elevated platelet count at the time of diagnosis. The extent to which an elevated platelet count is an indicator of cancer is unclear.

Objective: To evaluate the association of an elevated platelet count with a cancer diagnosis.

Periodic screening for breast and cervical cancer in women with diabetes: a population-based cohort study.

Purpose: Diabetes is associated with poorer cancer outcomes. Screening for breast and cervical cancer is recommended by clinical guidelines; however, utilization of these tests in people with diabetes has been unclear due to methodological limitations in the evidence base. We used administrative data to determine the association between diabetes and the rates of becoming up-to-date with periodic breast and cervical cancer screening over a 20-year period.

Incidence of Cancer Among Adults With Thrombocytosis in Ontario, Canada.

Importance: Individuals with newly diagnosed cancer often have a high platelet count (thrombocytosis). Whether thrombocytosis is associated with the presence of an undiagnosed cancer remains unknown.

Objective: To assess whether a new diagnosis of thrombocytosis is associated with a subsequent risk of cancer among adults.

Evidence of a gabapentinoid and diuretic prescribing cascade among older adults with lower back pain.

Background/objectives: Gabapentinoids are commonly prescribed to relieve pain. The development of edema, an established adverse effect of gabapentinoids, may lead to a potentially harmful prescribing cascade whereby individuals are subsequently prescribed diuretics and exposed to diuretic-induced adverse events. The frequency of this prescribing cascade is unknown.

The risk of contralateral breast cancer: a SEER-based analysis.

Background: We sought to estimate the annual risk and 25-year cumulative risk of contralateral breast cancer among women with stage 0-III unilateral breast cancer.

Methods: We identified 812,851 women with unilateral breast cancer diagnosed between 1990 and 2015 in the SEER database and followed them for contralateral breast cancer for up to 25 years. Women with a known bilateral mastectomy were excluded.

Breast Cancer Mortality among Women with a or Mutation in a Magnetic Resonance Imaging Plus Mammography Screening Program.

Annual breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) plus mammography is the standard of care for screening women with inherited mutations. However, long-term breast cancer-related mortality with screening is unknown. Between 1997 and June 2011, 489 previously unaffected mutation carriers aged 25 to 65 years were screened with annual MRI plus mammography on our study.

The relationship between the predicted risk of death and psychosocial functioning among women with early-stage breast cancer.

Purpose: Many women with early-onset breast cancer experience adverse psychological sequelae which impact on their quality of life. We sought to correlate levels of anxiety and cancer-related distress in women with breast cancer shortly after surgery and one year after treatment with the estimated risk of death.

Methods: We studied 596 women with Stage I to III breast cancer.

A Validation of Methods for the Evaluation of Observational Studies of Screening Mammography: An Exploratory Analysis Based on Simulating Screening Cohorts.

Background: The degree of confidence one should place on non-randomised observational trials studies which estimate the benefit of screening depends on the validity of the analytic method employed. As is the case for all observational trials, screening evaluation studies are subject to bias. The objective of this study was to create a simulated data set and to compare four analytic methods in order to identify the method which was the least biased in terms of estimating the underlying hazard ratio.