Publications by authors named "W B Bilker"
Objective: Prior studies demonstrate that some untoward clinical outcomes vary by outdoor temperature. This is true of some endpoints common among persons with diabetes, a population vulnerable to climate change-associated health risks. Yet, prior work has been agnostic to the antidiabetes drugs taken by such persons.
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- * A study using Medicaid claims from 2003 to 2020 assessed the overdose rates among users of methadone and different statins, specifically comparing P-gp-inhibiting statins (simvastatin, atorvastatin, lovastatin) with rosuvastatin as a control.
- * Results showed no significant association between the use of P-gp-inhibiting statins and opioid overdose risk, indicating that using these statins alongside methadone may not increase the risk compared to using rosuvastatin.
In a prior screening study, saxagliptin, a dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitor (DPP-4i), was found to have an increased rate of serious bleeding when used concomitantly with several oral anticoagulants (OACs). We aimed to confirm or refute the associations between concomitant use of individual OACs and DPP-4is and serious bleeding in a large US database, using self-controlled case series (SCCS) and case-crossover (CCO) designs. The study population was eligible Medicare beneficiaries co-exposed to a DPP-4i (precipitant) and either an OAC (object drug) or lisinopril (negative control object drug) in 2016-2020.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOutcomes in patients requiring prolonged inotropes (PI) following surgery for congenital heart disease (CHD) have not been well studied. We aimed to describe the burden of PI use in the immediate postoperative period after CHD surgery and identify risk factors for in-hospital mortality. We conducted a retrospective cohort study using the Pediatric Health Information System® (PHIS) database.
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- The self-controlled case-series (SCCS) design is used in studies to evaluate drug-drug interactions (DDIs), focusing on the comparison of incidence rates when taking two drugs together versus one alone.
- Inaccuracies can arise when inferring day-level drug exposure from dispensing claims, which may lead to biased incidence rate ratios (IRRs), particularly when using grace periods that assume treatment effects continue after medication runs out.
- Research findings indicate that misclassifying the precipitant (the drug causing the interaction) consistently biases the IRR towards null, while misclassifying the object drug can bias it in various directions; to reduce bias, it is recommended to avoid grace periods for object drugs and include a washout period after