Current medical research and opinion
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Diversion and abuse of prescription opioids are important public health concerns in the US. This study examined possible sources of prescription opioids among patients diagnosed with opioid abuse. ⋯ While most abusers had access to prescription opioids through their own prescriptions, many abusers without their own opioid prescriptions had access to prescription opioids through family members and may have obtained prescription opioids that way. Given the study design and data source, this is likely a conservative estimate of prescription opioid diversion.
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Controlled Clinical Trial
An open-label extension study to evaluate the safety of ropinirole prolonged release in Chinese patients with advanced Parkinson's disease.
This open-label extension (OLE) study evaluated the safety profile of ropinirole prolonged release (PR) administered for 24 weeks as adjunctive to levodopa in Chinese patients with advanced Parkinson's disease (PD). ⋯ The safety profile of ropinirole was consistent with the preceding DB study and also with the established safety profile for ropinirole. Results support the long-term use of ropinirole PR as an adjunctive to levodopa in Chinese patients with advanced PD. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT 1536574.
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To evaluate the effect of the serotonin-norepinephrine re-uptake inhibitor desvenlafaxine on blood pressure and incidence of new onset hypertension in pooled short-term studies and in two longer-term, randomized withdrawal studies. ⋯ Short-term desvenlafaxine treatment was associated with small but statistically significant increases in SSBP and SDBP.
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To investigate the impact associated with mild hypoglycemia among patients with type 2 diabetes (T2DM) in the United States and to identify risk factors among different subpopulations. ⋯ Understanding the benefit versus risk of glycemic control and hypoglycemia is fundamental to the successful management of patients with T2DM. Our validated hypoglycemia model is an important step in addressing this issue and may be helpful to researchers, clinicians, and payers to determine the patients who are at the highest risk for hypoglycemia, whether a patient is experiencing events at 'higher-than-expected' rates, and the corresponding economic burden.
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To be effective, adherence to statin treatment is essential. We assessed the effect of an apparent first cardiovascular event on statin adherence rates in type 2 diabetes patients. ⋯ The occurrence of a drug-treated cardiovascular event appeared to avert the declining statin adherence rate observed in diabetes patients without such an event. On the other hand, one in five patients became less adherent after the event, indicating that there are still important benefits to achieve.