News

An investigational free-radical trapping agent, NXY-059, significantly reduced disability when given within 6 hours of acute ischemic stroke, said Kennedy R. Lees, MD, at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2006 in Kissimmee, Fla.

Withdrawing statins during the acute phase of ischemic stroke is associated with worse neurologic outcomes and larger brain injury compared with acute stroke patients who remain on their statins, said Florentino Nombela, MD, at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2006 in Kissimmee, Fla.

An observational study of 51 outpatient practices found that about7 in 1,000 outpatients were administered a prescription thatviolated an FDA black box warning and that <1% of those patientshad an adverse drug event (ADE) as a result.

Cyclobenzaprine tablets 5 mg (equiv to Flexeril tablets)

Parathyroid hormone (rDNA origin) (Preos, NPS Pharmaceuticals) for the treatment of osteoporosis.

Sodium phosphate monobasic monohydrate/sodium phosphate dibasic anhydrous tablets (OsmoPrep, Salix) were approved by FDA for cleansing of the colon prior to colonoscopy in patients aged 18 years or older.

Despite systemic challenges in caring for stroke patients, a care program developed by the American Stroke Assn. has shown promise in improving outcomes.

HMO-offered DM programs are in transition, according to Art Taft, president of MedWorks, a DM consulting firm in Greensboro, N.C.

Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are the future of health information management, and today the calls for a massive industrywide transition to EHRs are even louder.

The push for electronic health records (EHRs) and their physician-originated counterpart, electronic medical records (EMRs), gained significant momentum in 2005. In fact, today's discussions now include subcategories to distinguish the interests of one group over another. We can expect the implementation of some versions of the EHR?including portable EHRs, payer-based EHRs, ambulatory EHRs and inpatient EHRs?to become more widespread.

When you try to describe a disease management (DM) program offered by an HMO, it is important to realize that there is a large amount of variation from program to program and HMO to HMO, according to industry experts.

About 60 million Americans a year experience insomnia often, or for extended periods of time, leading to problems in job performance and other activities. Insomnia affects about 40% of women and 30% of men.

Oh, to be in that generation that feels immortal--the generation of college students. Unfortunately, that feeling of immunity often can lead students to some poor decisions when considering healthcare benefits. "It is a healthy population without a perceived need for insurance," says Don Atherton, president of Integrated Benefit Solutions in Houston. "They have to be motivated to seek out coverage when they would rather pay the rent than buy health insurance."

Reinsurance is often called "insurance for insurers." It involves a contract whereby one insurer (the reinsurer) agrees, for a portion of the premium, to indemnify another insurer (the ceding company or primary insurer) for losses paid by the ceding company under insurance policies it has issued to its policyholders. Notwithstanding the heavy regulation of insurance and the products that are issued by primary insurers, reinsurance is largely an unregulated business.

Healthcare has been documented as a cottage industry time and time again, and Janet Marchibroda, CEO of Washington, D.C.-based eHealth Initiative, keeps witnessing how well that cottage industry structure has worked to drive the most concentrated effort of all: interconnectivity. Ironically, it's the small groundswell that is driving the massive execution toward widespread, interconnected information exchanges.

John Poelman, student body vice president and a senior at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, is concerned about the rising cost of healthcare benefits and the number of uninsured who have no safety net if some unforeseen illness or injury should occur. He says that the university would adopt a hard waiver policy if enough students supported the idea.

Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a progressive disease affecting more than 18 million Americans. Incretin mimetics and DPP-IV inhibitors are new classes of antihyperglycemic agents that may improve glycemic control in patients with type 2 diabetes. The incretin hormone, glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1), stimulates glucose-dependent insulin secretion, suppresses inappropriate glucagon secretion, and slows gastric motility. GLP-1 levels are decreased in type 2 diabetes. GLP-1 is rapidly inactivated by the enzyme dipeptidyl peptidase-IV (DPP-IV), resulting in a half-life of <2 minutes. Strategies to increase GLP-1 activity include the development of incretin mimetics that are resistant to DPP-IV degradation and the development of DPP-IV inhibitors. Clinical trials have demonstrated that the incretin mimetics exenatide and liraglutide, as well as the DPP-IV inhibitor vildagliptin, improve glycemic control, reduce weight, and are fairly well tolerated. Exenatide (Byetta, Amylin/Lilly) was approved by FDA in April 2005..

Lubiprostone (Amitiza, Sucampo/Takeda) was approved on January 31, 2006, for the treatment of chronic idiopathic constipation in adults when the cause of the condition is unknown. The agent has a unique mechanism of action compared with current therapies on the market in that it locally activates specific chloride channels (ClC-2) in the lining of the small intestines after oral administration, thereby increasing intestinal fluids and softening bowel movements. In double-blind, placebo-controlled trials, lubiprostone demonstrated efficacy in improving the frequency of spontaneous bowel movements and other related constipation symptoms. Lubiprostone was reported to be well tolerated in clinical trials; the most common adverse effects were mild-to-moderate nausea and headache.

FDA began 2006 by unveiling a long-anticipated final rule that significantly overhauls approved labeling for drugs and biologics. This new rule has been in the works for years, delayed by manufacturer concerns that the revisions will expose companies to more liability suits. Although the new labeling's basic framework came as no surprise, compliance will require significant investments by manufacturers to meet the new design and content requirements, which will double the length of many package inserts (PIs).

A single day of famciclovir started within 6 hours of a genital herpes outbreak shortens the duration of recurrent genital herpes lesions, said Fred Y. Aoki, MD, at the 45th ICAAC meeting in Washington, DC.

Vancomycin may be overused for the treatment of hospital-acquired pneumonia, perhaps because of physicians' perceptions that patients are at high risk for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), according to a study by Robert H. Eng, MD, and colleagues at the Veterans Affairs New Jersey Health Care System in East Orange, NJ. The study was presented at the 45th ICAAC meeting in Washington, DC.

The use of acid-suppressive drugs, particularly proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), was associated with an increase in the risk of community-acquired Clostridium difficile-associated disease (CDAD) in the United Kingdom, reported Sandra Dial, MD, MSc, at the 45th ICAAC meeting in Washington, DC.

A study analyzing pharmacy claims among patients who receive chronic medications via 3-tier prescription drug plans found that patients who were prescribed generic or preferred medications by their physicians were the most likely to adhere with their treatments.

A study of 155 patients examining the effects of statins on patients diagnosed with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) suggests that statin therapy may increase survival rates and potentially extends the results of larger, recently performed randomized trials to those with low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels of 80 mg/dL and below.

Rheumatoid arthritis patients, hindered by an inadequate response to tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) inhibitors, may find some relief in the form of a drug that belongs to a new class of selective costimulation modulators.

A prospective, double-blind, randomized, controlled trial comparing the effectiveness of levofloxacin and moxifloxacin in treating community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) among 394 hospitalized elderly patients (aged 65 years and older) demonstrated that moxifloxacin resulted in faster recovery than levofloxacin.

Topiramate safely decreases body mass, hypertension. Topiramate reduces body weight and blood pressure with generally mild-to-moderate adverse effects, according to a randomized, placebo-controlled trial involving obese subjects with hypertension.

A recent meta-analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that statins have no effect on cancer risk. The finding is in contrast with at least 7 retrospective analyses that suggest that statins reduce the risk of developing cancer.

Colesevelam/fenofibrate combination boosts efficacy in treatment of hyperlipidemia. Fenofibrate significantly reduced low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) in patients with mixed hyperlipidemia when used in combination with the specifically engineered bile acid sequestrant (SE-BAS) colesevelam, according to a study published in Current Medical Research and Opinion.

Two recent studies in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) focused on the breast cancer drug trastuzumab, a recombinant monoclonal antibody (Herceptin, Genentech/Roche).