The quest for personalized medicine, a medical approach in which practitioners use a patient’s unique genetic profile to tailor individual treatment, has emerged as a critical goal in the health care sector. But a new Yale-led study shows that the mathematical models currently available to predict treatments have limited effectiveness. In an analysis of clinical trials for multiple schizophrenia treatments, […]
Physicians who are notified that a patient has died of a drug overdose are more judicious in issuing controlled substances if the notification includes a plan for what to do during subsequent patient visits, according to a study published today in Nature Communications. Compared to a letter with demonstrated effectiveness at improving prescribing safety, physicians who received notifications with additional planning guidance reduced […]
A non-prescription drug abuse crisis in Japan seems only one overdose away. The demand for a particular anti-cough drug has been rising, along with the social impact of its abuse due to its psychosomatic effects. The ease of obtaining information online about how to acquire over-the-counter medications or OTCs for achieving overdose, however, does not appear to be the real […]
Medicare is the single largest provider of health insurance in the United States, serving 63.8 million senior citizens as of 2022. Three-quarters of these recipients are enrolled in optional Medicare Part D plans, which provide outpatient prescription drug coverage to seniors through private insurance companies. In 2022, Medicare paid more than $160 Billion for prescription drugs, making it the single […]
Societal issues — including the growth in ultra-high-cost treatments, the epidemic of mental health and substance use disorders, climate change, and the rise of artificial intelligence (AI)— could alter how health systems serve their communities within five years, according to the latest annual ASHP/ASHP Foundation Pharmacy Forecast Report. The 2024 Pharmacy Forecast, released today at the ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting & Exhibition, drew […]
If pharmacists had a larger role in prescribing medications to control blood pressure, they could prevent more than 15 million heart attacks, nearly 8 million strokes and more than 4 million cases each of angina and heart failure in the U.S. over 30 years, according to a new Virginia Commonwealth University-led study. The study, “Cost-Effectiveness of Pharmacist Prescribing for Managing […]
A study by a team of researchers across the country, including two from the University of Kentucky, is the first to demonstrate a connection between the characteristics of patients receiving buprenorphine for opioid use disorder and the use of urine drug testing. Lindsey Hammerslag, Ph.D., an assistant research professor in the Division of Biomedical Informatics in the UK College of Medicine, […]
Prepared infusions of nanoparticle albumin-bound (nab) paclitaxel are stable for seven days, when stored in a refrigerator, according to researcher Helen Linxweiler (University Medical Centre of Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany). Paclitaxel is widely used in cancer chemotherapy e.g. for treatment of metastatic breast, pancreas and lung cancer. The nab formulation has to be reconstituted and diluted in a carrier […]
Drugs to treat common infections in children and babies are no longer effective in large parts of the world, due to high rates of antibiotic resistance. The University of Sydney led study found many antibiotics recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) had less than 50 percent effectiveness in treating childhood infections such as pneumonia, sepsis (bloodstream infections) and meningitis. […]
A large study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.230459 identified 10 predictors of opioid overdose after prescription for chronic pain, which can help clinicians engage in shared decision-making with patients around opioid prescribing. “The opioid crisis has generated interest in identifying patients at higher risk of addiction or overdose and has led to the development of several screening tools; however, these instruments […]
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