Providers

President Joe Biden will provide an update today on his administration’s response to the Omicron COVID-19 variant; marked rise in lung transplants for patients with COVID-19 sparks ethical questions; an independent panel of experts will advise FDA tomorrow on the use of Merck’s COVID-19 antiviral pill.

Robert J. Hopkin, MD, clinical geneticist, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, details various known and understudied health-related quality-of-life factors in patients with Fabry disease.

Moderate-to-severe disease, childhood onset, and systemic treatments were all associated with a greater risk of conjunctivitis in patients with atopic dermatitis, whereas use of soft and hard contact lenses were linked with risk of keratitis.

In Icelandic patients, obstructive sleep apnea were associated with a 2-fold increased risk of severe COVID-19 that required hospitalization or led to death after accounting for obesity and other comorbidities.

The high cost of specialty drugs makes it important to use companion diagnostics and other tests to make sure the drug is going to the right patient, said George Van Antwerp, MBA, managing director, Deloitte Consulting.

Daniel Wolfson, executive vice president and chief operating officer of the ABIM Foundation, speaks on factors influencing mistrust of the health care system and efforts to improve quality care.

Findings of a machine learning-based deep phenotyping approach found a myriad of factors associated with severe disease in atopic dermatitis, including age between 12 and 21 years or older than 52 years, lack of physical activity, and incidence of alopecia areata.

The White House will invest $1.5 billion to bolster the nation's health care workforce; new data reveal long-term Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine efficacy in children; Idaho deactivates crisis standards of care for some portions of the state.

Discussions regarding health equity and access to care have long been implicated in breast cancer. Here, key opinion leaders discuss the latest progress in clinical trial access, digital therapeutics, and other efforts that aim to ameliorate these care gaps.

A new analysis of data from the HOMAGE study addresses previous mixed results on the use of aspirin among patients who may be at risk of heart failure (HF).

The announcement of a "strategic refresh" for payment models under the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation offered no details on what practices should expect when the Oncology Care Model (OCM) expires in 2022.

Preventing addiction is key to ending the opioid epidemic—2020 alone saw more than 93,000 overdose deaths—as are expanding access to treatment, promoting recovery, and building a multifaceted strategy that incorporates nonopioid alternative and their coverage by providers. Although appropriate in certain situations, opioids are not a one-size-fits-all approach.

Daniel Greer, PharmD, BCPP, clinical assistant professor, Rutgers Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, discusses the use of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) as a first-line treatment for chronic insomnia and barriers limiting its use.

Robert J. Hopkin, MD, clinical geneticist, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, discusses current and emerging therapeutic and technological advancements in the management of Fabry disease.

Patients with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and obesity had a reduced risk of major adverse liver outcomes and major adverse cardiovascular (CV) events after they underwent bariatric surgery compared with patients who did not have surgery.

Patients with asthma were found to have a more than 3-fold greater risk of developing narcolepsy than those without asthma, with use of inhaled corticosteroids indicated to decrease risk.

Wanting more data on the benefits of sacubitril/valsartan vs renin angiotensin system inhibitor background therapy, investigators conducted a large randomized study among persons with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF).

Jonathan Silverberg, MD, PhD, MPH, associate professor of dermatology, director of clinical research and patch testing, George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, explains efficacy and safety implications of JAK inhibitor use for atopic dermatitis.

Phase 3 findings of the DISCOVER-2 trial presented at the 2021 American College of Rheumatology Annual Meeting indicated that guselkumab (Tremfya) provided long-term improvement in joint manifestations, disease activity, and physical function among patients with psoriatic arthritis who had no prior biologic treatment.

Prior to chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy for relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), patients experienced a decrease in health-related quality of life (HRQOL), which was further impaired during and immediately after CAR T therapy.

Posters presented at the American Academy of Ophthalmology 2021 annual meeting showed that even patients with mild inflammation with their thyroid eye disease benefitted from teprotumumab and that real-world adherence was consistent with the pivotal clinical trials.

Among many presentations during a hot topics session at the American Academy of Ophthalmology 2021 annual meeting, speakers discussed the first FDA approved therapy for thyroid eye disease and the latest in enhanced monofocal intraocular lenses (IOLs).

The field of ophthalmology had already been moving toward telehealth and artificial intelligence (AI) before the COVID-19 pandemic, but these changes are being accelerated now, making it crucial for ophthalmologists to learn to adapt.

Genetic profiling in recurrent and advanced breast cancer can yield actionable, smoking-gun biomarkers, Stanford Cancer Institute pathologists explained at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network 2021 Virtual Congress: Biomarkers in Solid Tumors.

Emergency department utilization for nonemergent ophthalmic conditions is on the rise in the United States, but presentation types vary significantly based on patient demographics, according to 2 posters presented at the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) 2021 meeting.