Current medical research and opinion
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Meta Analysis
Cost-effectiveness analysis of hydrophilic-coated catheters in long-term intermittent catheter users in the UK.
To estimate the cost-effectiveness of single-use hydrophilic-coated intermittent catheters (HCICs) versus single-use uncoated intermittent catheters (UICs) for urinary catheterization. ⋯ HCICs are likely to be a cost-effective alternative to UICs, a result driven by substantial reductions in the number of CAUTIs. Their adoption across clinical practice could avoid a substantial number of infections, freeing up resources in the NHS and reducing antibiotic use in urinary catheter users.
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Blood supply shortages may create unnecessary burden, including treatment delay, worsened quality of life, or increased healthcare resource utilization in patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). This study examined physicians' experience with blood supply shortages in the MDS population. Additionally, physicians' perspectives on the factors that impact clinical, economic, and humanistic outcomes of patients with MDS were investigated. ⋯ Our findings support the need for new treatments in MDS that reduce transfusions and thus blood supply needs, and that would have a beneficial effect on clinical, humanistic, and economic outcomes.
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Observational Study
Psychiatric healthcare resource utilization following initiation of aripiprazole once-monthly: a retrospective real-world study.
This observational retrospective real-world study examined changes in healthcare resource utilization (HCRU) pre- and post-initiation of aripiprazole once-monthly (AOM 400) in patients with schizophrenia or bipolar I disorder. ⋯ A reduction in the rate of hospitalizations, emergency department visits, 30-day readmissions, and average length-of-stay was observed for patients diagnosed with either schizophrenia or bipolar I disorder, which suggests a positive effect of AOM 400 treatment on HCRU outcomes and is supportive of earlier analyses from different data sources.
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Each cell controls when and how its genes must be expressed for proper function. Every function in a cell is driven by signaling molecules through various regulatory cascades. Different cells in a multicellular organism may express very different sets of genes, even though they contain the same DNA. ⋯ Understanding the genetic factors that affect vitamin D has the potential benefit that it will make it easier to identify individuals who require supplementation. Different technological advances in gene expression can be used to identify and assess the severity of disease and aid in the development of novel therapeutic interventions. This review focuses on different gene expression approaches and various clinical studies of vitamin D to investigate the role of gene expression in identifying the molecular signature of the disease.