Citations

Abstract Background Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most prevalent arrhythmia among adults worldwide and is associated with an increased risk of heart failure, stroke, and death. Prior studies have highlighted the healthcare burden associated with AF; however, contemporary data is lacking. As AF incidence and prevalence continue to increase due to the aging of the population, current estimates are needed for adequate healthcare resource allocation and policy decisions. Purpose The purpose of our study was to examine the healthcare utilization and cost burden associated with a diagnosis of incident AF in the United States (US). Methods Using the 2017–2020 Optum Clinformatics database, an administrative claims data of commercially insured individuals in the US, adult patients with an incident diagnosis of AF were identified. Adults with AF were matched on demographic and comorbid characteristics to those without AF using a propensity score greedy-matching algorithm with a 1:1 case to control ratio. Outcomes including medical services (inpatient admissions, emergency room [ER] visits, outpatients admissions, other services), utilization (all-cause, cardiovascular [CV]-related), and healthcare costs (sum of all medical services and prescription costs; adjusted for medical inflation and reported in 2021 US $) in the one-year post-incident diagnosis of AF were then compared among the matched cohort. Logistic and general linear modeling assessed healthcare utilization and cost outcomes. Results A total of 159,242 matched participants (79,621 AF cases and 79,621 non-AF controls) were identified. Among patients with AF, the mean age was 74 years, and 51% were females. Among the non-AF controls, the mean age was 73 years, and 50% were females. Patients with incident AF had significantly higher all-cause inpatient visits (relative risk [RR] 1.72; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.71–1.73), cardiovascular-related inpatient visits (RR 2.42; 95% CI: 2:41–2:44), as well as cardiovascular-related ER visits (RR: 2.36; 95% CI: 2:30–2:42) as compared to non-AF controls in the 1-year following diagnosis (Figure 1). The one-year mean total healthcare costs were $25,006 (95% CI $24,357-$26,912) higher among patients with AF as compared to non-AF controls ($63,031 vs $38,025, p<0.001). Conclusion Patients with AF had significantly higher medical services use than non-AF controls. The higher medical services utilization among the AF cohort translated into a considerably higher economic burden in this cohort. Timely management and treatment remain critical in alleviating the significant financial and health burden imposed by AF on patients, payers, and providers. Funding Acknowledgement Type of funding sources: Other. Main funding source(s): Johnson and Johnson

The purpose of our evaluation is to provide an example of how public health schools can use service-learning courses to teach students about health equity. By ensuring that the future workforce has a comprehensive understanding of regions such as the U.S./Mexico border, students will be better equipped to provide public health services. Specifically, our objectives were to (1) understand how student perceptions of the border evolve during the 1-week Border Health Service-Learning Institute (BHSLI) course and (2) understand how the service-learning experience impacted students’ proposed personal and professional goals. Using BHSLI student journals collected over 9 years, we conducted a qualitative investigation to evaluate students’ experiences of the service-learning course. Our findings suggest that BHSLI offered opportunities for advancing dialogue about health equity. Because BHSLI is immersive, it showed students a reality that they would not normally encounter. In reflecting on these new experiences, students were not only encouraged to question systems and policies but also made accountable to act upon the insights they gained. We found that BHSLI was a space for critical consciousness building, for shifting paradigms. Students learned how to intervene in real time to make change around public health issues. Service learning could be a practice-based solution to help public health students learn about health equity, especially in historically marginalized regions such as the U.S./Mexico border.

Abstract This international guideline proposes improving clozapine package inserts worldwide by using ancestry-based dosing and titration. Adverse drug reaction (ADR) databases suggest that clozapine is the third most toxic drug in the United States (US), and it produces four times higher worldwide pneumonia mortality than that by agranulocytosis or myocarditis. For trough steady-state clozapine serum concentrations, the therapeutic reference range is narrow, from 350 to 600 ng/mL with the potential for toxicity and ADRs as concentrations increase. Clozapine is mainly metabolized by CYP1A2 (female non-smokers, the lowest dose; male smokers, the highest dose). Poor metabolizer status through phenotypic conversion is associated with co-prescription of inhibitors (including oral contraceptives and valproate), obesity, or inflammation with C-reactive protein (CRP) elevations. The Asian population (Pakistan to Japan) or the Americas’ original inhabitants have lower CYP1A2 activity and require lower clozapine doses to reach concentrations of 350 ng/mL. In the US, daily doses of 300–600 mg/day are recommended. Slow personalized titration may prevent early ADRs (including syncope, myocarditis, and pneumonia). This guideline defines six personalized titration schedules for inpatients: 1) ancestry from Asia or the original people from the Americas with lower metabolism (obesity or valproate) needing minimum therapeutic dosages of 75–150 mg/day, 2) ancestry from Asia or the original people from the Americas with average metabolism needing 175–300 mg/day, 3) European/Western Asian ancestry with lower metabolism (obesity or valproate) needing 100–200 mg/day, 4) European/Western Asian ancestry with average metabolism needing 250–400 mg/day, 5) in the US with ancestries other than from Asia or the original people from the Americas with lower clozapine metabolism (obesity or valproate) needing 150–300 mg/day, and 6) in the US with ancestries other than from Asia or the original people from the Americas with average clozapine metabolism needing 300–600 mg/day. Baseline and weekly CRP monitoring for at least four weeks is required to identify any inflammation, including inflammation secondary to clozapine rapid titration.

4525 Background: Pancreatic cancer cells and surrounding stroma are known to overexpress SPARC (secreted protein acid rich in cysteine), which is associated with poor clinical outcomes. nab-P, an albumin-bound nanoparticle form of paclitaxel increased tumor accumulation of paclitaxel through binding of albumin to SPARC. This disease specific phase 1 study was designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of G + nab-P and the correlation of response with tumor SPARC and serum CA19–9 levels. Methods: nab-P doses (100–150 mg/m2) + (G) (1000 mg/m2) were given on days 1, 8, and 15 of a 28-day cycle to pts with metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma and with no prior chemotherapy for their metastatic disease. Level 3 SPARC staining by immunohistochemistry was considered positive. Results: 63 pts received treatment. The most common grade 3 and 4 adverse event that occurred in >20% of pts was neutropenia. Nine (18%) pts and 4 (8%) pts had a grade 3/4 event, respectively. Neuropathy was also observed. One combination-associated death due to sepsis occurred at the 150 mg/m2 nab-P level. Serial PET scans of 53 pts with outside adjudication to date showed 12 (23%) complete responses, 29 (55%) partial responses (PRs) and 4 (8%) stable disease (SD). By RECIST criteria, of the 49 pts evaluable to date, 1(2%) had CR, 12 (24%) had PR, and 20 (41%) had SD. The median survival was 9 months to date. SPARC data were available for 35 pts, of which 10 (29%) were SPARC+ and 25 (71%) were SPARC-. Of these, 27 pts had evaluable response data. Pts that were SPARC+ (8/27) were more likely to be responders (6/8, 75%) than pts who were SPARC- (5/19, 26%), P = 0.03, Fisher's exact test. Median progression-free survival (PFS) increased from 4.8 months for SPARC- pts (22 pts) to 6.2 months for SPARC+ pts (9 pts); however, these data are still immature. Of 45 pts with elevated CA19–9 at baseline, 42 (93%) had maximum decrease of >40% with a median maximum decrease of 92%. Conclusions: The combination of nab-P and G was generally well tolerated and had substantial enough antitumor activity in patients with pancreatic cancer to warrant a phase III clinical trial. SPARC+ status in these patients was associated with higher response rate and longer PFS. [Table: see text]

ABSTRACT Eighty-four cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from different children who presented with signs and symptoms of meningitis were evaluated for the presence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex organisms by the Gen-Probe Amplified Mycobacterium tuberculosis Direct Test (MTD; Gen-Probe, San Diego, Calif.). All CSF samples had negative acid-fast smears by the Ziehl-Neelsen staining method. M. tuberculosis was recovered from five samples. M. tuberculosis did not grow from 19 additional samples, but the samples were from patients who fulfilled specific clinical and laboratory criteria for probable tuberculous meningitis (TBM). The remaining samples ( n = 60) were from patients with other infections or noninfectious causes of meningitis. The results of the MTD were interpreted as positive or negative on the basis of recommended cutoff values for respiratory specimens. These results were interpreted as true or false positives or true or false negatives on the basis of the results of M. tuberculosis culture or whether the patient fulfilled criteria for probable TBM. The Gen-Probe MTD was 33% sensitive and 100% specific for detecting M. tuberculosis complex organisms in these 84 CSF samples. If the cutoff values for positive results were decreased for the MTD (≥11,000 versus ≥30,000 relative light units), the sensitivity increased to 83% and the specificity remained 100%. These results for the MTD are encouraging considering that TBM is a highly fatal disease and difficult to diagnose by conventional laboratory techniques.

5517 Background: Uterine serous carcinoma is a less common subtype of endometrial cancer that is associated with poorer survival. The optimal post-operative adjuvant treatment strategy for these patients remains uncertain. Methods: This multi-institutional, retrospective cohort study evaluated patients with early stage uterine serous carcinoma. Patients with FIGO Stage IA-II disease after surgery, whose tumors had serous or mixed serous/non-serous histology were included. Patients with carcinosarcoma were excluded. Clinical data were abstracted from local medical records. Summary statistics, Fisher’s exact, and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to analyze demographic and clinical characteristics. Univariable and multivariable analyses were performed for recurrence-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS). Results: 634 patients were included. 77% of patients had Stage IA disease, 42% showed no myometrial invasion. The majority had pure serous histology (72%) and LVSI (76%). Adjuvant treatment varied: 12% received no adjuvant therapy, 7% had chemotherapy alone, 51% had cuff brachytherapy, 12% had cuff brachytherapy with chemotherapy (cuff/chemo), and 19% underwent pelvic radiation (EBRT). Complete RFS and OS data were available for 607 and 609 patients, respectively, and the median follow-up time was 58 months. As compared with patients who received no adjuvant therapy, patients who received cuff or cuff/chemo had improved RFS (cuff: HR 0.70, p = 0.02; cuff/chemo HR 0.53, p = 0.01) and OS (cuff HR 0.56, p = 0.001; cuff/chemo HR 0.48, p = 0.01). In a direct comparison, patients with cuff/chemo had better RFS and OS than those with chemotherapy alone (RFS HR 0.52, p = 0.03; OS HR 0.50, p = 0.05). There were no differences in RFS or OS for women who received chemotherapy alone or EBRT. Improved survival with cuff and cuff/chemo persisted on multivariable analyses (included age, stage, LVSI, adjuvant therapy type); additionally, EBRT was also associated with improved OS. In analyses limited to patients without myometrial invasion, patients with cuff or cuff/chemo had improved RFS and OS compared with observation alone. Conclusions: The use of adjuvant cuff brachytherapy with and without chemotherapy was associated with improved RFS and OS in patients with early stage uterine serous carcinoma.

Background and Purpose— We aimed to assess if renal function can aid in risk stratification for ischemic stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA) recurrence and death in patients with embolic stroke of undetermined source (ESUS). Methods— We pooled 12 ESUS datasets from Europe and America. Renal function was evaluated using the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) and analyzed in continuous, binary, and categorical way. Cox-regression analyses assessed if renal function was independently associated with the risk for ischemic stroke/TIA recurrence and death. The Kaplan-Meier product limit method estimated the cumulative probability of ischemic stroke/TIA recurrence and death. Results— In 1530 patients with ESUS followed for 3260 patient-years, there were 237 recurrences (15.9%) and 201 deaths (13.4%), corresponding to 7.3 ischemic stroke/TIA recurrences and 5.6 deaths per 100 patient-years, respectively. Renal function was not associated with the risk for ischemic stroke/TIA recurrence when forced into the final multivariate model, regardless if it was analyzed as continuous (hazard ratio, 1.00; 95% CI, 0.99–1.00 for every 1 mL/min), binary (hazard ratio, 1.27; 95% CI, 0.87–1.73) or categorical covariate (likelihood-ratio test 2.59, P =0.63 for stroke recurrence). The probability of ischemic stroke/TIA recurrence across stages of renal function was 11.9% for eGFR ≥90, 16.6% for eGFR 60–89, 21.7% for eGFR 45–59, 19.2% for eGFR 30–44, and 24.9% for eGFR <30 (likelihood-ratio test 2.59, P =0.63). The results were similar for the outcome of death. Conclusions— The present study is the largest pooled individual patient-level ESUS dataset, and does not provide evidence that renal function can be used to stratify the risk of ischemic stroke/TIA recurrence or death in patients with ESUS.