Background: Interactions between industry and prescribers have raised concerns regarding conflicts of interest. To the best of the authors' knowledge, quantitative data measuring these interactions have been limited until recently. In the current study, the authors sought to determine whether an association exists between industry payments and prescriber behavior with regard to abiraterone and enzalutamide.
Methods: Two Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services databases were combined to analyze oncologists and urologists who received industry payments and/or prescribed abiraterone and enzalutamide. Correlation analysis was constructed on prescription count and industry payments. Multivariable median regression examined predictors of change in prescription count per dollar of industry payment. Stratifying prescribers by quantile evaluated threshold effects on prescribers.
Results: The number of prescriptions was similar between prescribers who did and those who did not receive industry payment for both drugs. The median industry payment amount to prescribers differed between prescribers and nonprescribers for abiraterone ($72 vs $56) and enzalutamide ($59 vs $31). Although no statistical association was found to exist between industry payment amount and prescription count for abiraterone prescribers, an association was found to exist for enzalutamide prescribers (rho = 0.31). A small change was found with regard to prescription count per dollar of industry payment for abiraterone (0.0007 prescriptions) and enzalutamide (0.0006 prescriptions). The amount of industry payment needed to predict one additional prescription was found to be lower in the fourth and fifth quantiles compared with the first through third quantiles.
Purpose: To assess and compare, through a retrospective cohort study, the relationships between frailty, comorbidity, multimorbidity, and levels of adherence to lipid-lowering drugs (LLDs), antihypertensives and antidepressants.
Methods: In a primary care database, we selected a cohort of patients aged 60 or older on December 31, 2022. The date of the first prescription of the aforementioned medications was the study index date.
COVID-19 and hepatitis B disease are significant global pandemics, both of which can lead to liver damage. This study aims to report the clinical course of liver function and disease prognosis of COVID-19 patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV) super-infections. A total of 249 outpatients with COVID-19 were enrolled in this study from December 1, 2023 to February 28, 2024.
Background And Aim: Asthma in early life has been linked to subsequent development of COPD and according to GOLD 2023 COPD may be divided into distinct subtypes. We aimed to investigate factors associated with the GOLD classification COPD-A (asthma in childhood) and COPD-C (tobacco exposure) in a cohort of adults with a history of severe childhood asthma.
Patients And Methods: In a cohort of Danish adults with a history of severe childhood asthma and a previous 4-month stay during childhood at the asthma care facility in Kongsberg, Norway, we divided participants in a long-term follow-up examination into COPD-A and COPD-C, defined as post-bronchodilator FEV/FVC < 0.
Background: Hip arthroscopy (HA) procedures have continued to increase worldwide. However, no data are currently available regarding the increasing HA case volume and trends in Turkey.
Purpose: To identify trends in postoperative care habits and incidence of HA in Turkey using data from the national Health Coding Reference Server (SKRS) database.
Introduction: Patients with uncontrolled, moderate-to-severe asthma have a higher risk for exacerbations, negatively impacting lung function and quality of life. Dupilumab, a fully human monoclonal antibody, blocks interleukins 4 and 13, key and central drivers of type 2 inflammation. Dupilumab has been effective in the treatment of certain types of moderate-to-severe asthma across several clinical trials.
