All News

The 12 Democratic candidates for president spent a good deal of time at their debate Tuesday night discussing healthcare; a group of state attorneys general tried to convince a US District Court judge to give them more time to create a settlement in their opioid lawsuits but failed; Alexion Pharmaceuticals agreed to buy small biotech Achillion Pharmaceuticals in a deal initially valued at $930 million.

Rare diseases may affect a small number of people, but they have fiscal impacts beyond just healthcare costs. A new study in Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases used a public economic framework to identify how hereditary transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis has a public economic burden beyond just health costs in the Netherlands.

A medical affairs official with Janssen said physicians may not bring up the option of a long-acting injectable for fear of disrupting the doctor-patient relationship.

Research presented at the 123rd Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology 2019 in San Francisco, California, indicated sleep apnea as a risk factor for diabetic macular edema, a complication of diabetes that can cause vision loss or blindness.

Former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb called for the ban of THC-based vaping products; machine learning tested to prevent drug shortages; study finds link between air pollution and miscarriages in China.

Two recent abstracts presented at the European Respiratory Society International Congress investigated the decision-making and care management for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients.

Patients on Medicare with metastatic breast cancer who receive treatment that is discordant with NCCN guidelines bear a greater burden of patient cost responsibility than patients who do receive care according to treatment guidelines.

Noninvasive nerve stimulation shows potential effectiveness as a novel treatment for vestibular migraine attacks, according to a small, preliminary study.

Enrollment in a high-deductible health plan was shown to be associated with cost-related barriers to care, financial strain, and more frequent emergency department (ED) visits and hospitalizations for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), according to a study.

The authors say their findings align with other analyses showing the cost-effectiveness of sodium glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors.

While antiretroviral therapy (ART) can suppress HIV infection, ART cannot completely eradicate HIV, which remains in a latent reservoir in CD4-positive T cells during treatment; discontinuation of ART leads to rapid rebound of the virus. This reservoir forms even when ART is initiated early on in the infection, and while the most widely accepted model of how the reservoir forms involves infection of a CD4-positive T cell as it transitions to a resting state, the dynamics and timing of the reservoir’s formation have been largely unknown.

Federal judges denied a Trump administration proposal to deny green cards to immigrants requiring public benefits; researchers aim to develop a test to assess hereditary diabetes risk; vaping-related deaths rise to 29 nationwide.

Eighty percent of employers claimed that they are intending to increase their health and wellness budgets this year, more than double compared with 2009 (33%), according to results from the 10th annual Optum Wellness in the Workplace study.

We need to eliminate this data crunch situation. Healthcare as an industry generates mounds of critical data, but our inability to utilize it and make the most out of it serves as a crucial problem.

Two abstracts presented at ECTRIMS 2019, the 35th Annual Congress of the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis, looked at patterns among patients newly diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS).

Declines in global health status and quality of life, physical functioning, fatigue, and pain begin to appear 2 to 3 months before progression of the underlying malignant disease, multiple myeloma researchers said in a new study.

A recent study sought to identify possible differences in subcortical structures between patients who have migraine with aura (MwA) and healthy subjects, and also to determine the correlations between the characteristics of migraine aura and the volumes of subcortical structures.

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) may be considered the gold standard for generating clinical evidence, but there is growing interest in using real-world evidence. However, only a small portion of clinical trials could be replicated in the real world, according to a new study published in JAMA Network Open.

A higher-than-normal body mass index (BMI) at the time of a diagnosis of Parkinson disease (PD) has a protective effect against cognitive decline and the conversion to dementia, a recent study indicated.

This week, the top managed care news included an effort by the Trump administration to bolster Medicare Advantage; an abortion case from Louisiana reached the Supreme Court; the study of adapting to changing oxygen levels wins the Nobel Prize.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) revised its lead and copper rule to better identify elevated lead levels and undertake issues sooner; physicians given advice on how to monitor vaping-related illnesses in patients; a Government Accountability Office (GAO) study finds CMS approved Medicaid work requirements without considering price.

Coverage of our peer-reviewed research and news reporting in the healthcare and mainstream press.

In an effort to educate clinicians about the issue of forcing patients in pain to suddenly halt opioid use, HHS released a guide that emphasizes patient-centered care and recommends against a rapid taper or stopping opioids all at once, while a patient living with chronic pain both welcomed the guide and expressed concern.

Researchers developed a web-based calculator that assists postmenopausal women in determining risk toward conditions like heart attack, stroke, and varying cancers, according to a September study.

FDA clears Dexcom G6 Pro CGM System for use among healthcare professionals; Cleveland Clinic and Oscar expand healthcare coverage to 3 additional Ohio counties; Planned Parenthood announces record-high election spend to support Democratic and pro-abortion candidates.

Previous work has linked psoriasis and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, but this is one of the first studies to tie together the severity of the 2 conditions.

The findings have implications for survivorship care, as more patients are living longer due to the availability of immunotherapies.

Long term e-cigarette impact on humans remains unknown, although studies on mice suggest potentially harmful consequences for users.

In a long-awaited move, HHS announced Tuesday plans to reform federal antikickback statutes and overhaul the so-called Stark Law, which was originally intended as a safeguard against financial incentives that would inappropriately influence physicians’ clinical decisions, in an effort to speed the transition to value-based care.

Pairing a sedative with an antidepressant was shown to be potentially beneficial in patients with suicidal thoughts, chiefly those with severe insomnia, according to a study.