Utilization and prescribing patterns of direct oral anticoagulants.

Background: Scant literature exists evaluating utilization patterns for direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs).

Objectives: The primary objective was to assess DOAC prescribing in patients with venous thromboembolism (VTE) and nonvalvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) in outpatient clinics. Secondary objectives were to compare utilization between family medicine (FM) and internal medicine (IM) clinics, characterize potentially inappropriate use, and identify factors associated with adverse events (AEs).

Prevalence of Anticholinergic Medication Use in the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly.

Objectives: Evaluate the prevalence of anticholinergic medication use in the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE).

Design: Cross-sectional, retrospective chart review.

Setting: The Basics at Jan Werner PACE, Amarillo, Texas.

Mirtazapine-Associated Hypertriglyceridemia and Hyperglycemia.

The patient is a 75-year-old male who was admitted to the long-term care unit because of advancing dementia and was being treated with mirtazapine to improve his mood and stimulate his appetite. This case report outlines an interesting occurrence of hypertriglyceridemia followed by hyperglycemia, which resembled diabetes mellitus and required insulin therapy. The patient continued to have elevated triglyceride levels that persisted despite discontinuation of mirtazapine therapy.

Institutional review board barriers and solutions encountered in the Collaboration Among Pharmacists and Physicians to Improve Outcomes Now Study: a national multicenter practice-based implementation trial.

Study Objective: To categorize institutional review board (IRB) challenges and solutions encountered in a multicenter practice-based research network (PBRN) study and to assess the impact of IRB requirements on the willingness of individual principal investigators (PIs) to participate in future PBRN studies.

Design: Descriptive analysis of IRB challenges and solutions encountered in the Collaboration Among Pharmacists and Physicians to Improve Outcomes Now (CAPTION) trial, a multicenter prospective cluster-randomized study conducted by the National Interdisciplinary Primary Care PBRN, and a correlational analysis from a survey of individual site PIs.

Measurements And Main Results: IRB barriers encountered and solutions were categorized for study sites.

Risk of renal failure in cancer patients with bone metastasis treated with renally adjusted zoledronic acid.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the incidence of acute renal failure (ARF) in patients with mild to moderate renal dysfunction, receiving renally adjusted zoledronic acid (ZA) and compare it to patients with normal baseline renal function, receiving standard-dose ZA.

Methods: This was a retrospective study of patients receiving ZA for the treatment of bone metastasis due to cancer. Patients were divided into two groups: (1) normal group with baseline creatinine clearance (CrCl) of greater than 60 mL/min and standard ZA dose; (2) impaired group with baseline CrCl of 30-60 mL/min and renally adjusted ZA dose.