Annals of internal medicine
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Iron Chelation in Transfusion-Dependent Patients With Low- to Intermediate-1-Risk Myelodysplastic Syndromes: A Randomized Trial.
Iron chelation therapy (ICT) in patients with lower-risk myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) has not been evaluated in randomized studies. ⋯ Novartis Pharma AG.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Effects of Interleukin-1β Inhibition on Incident Anemia: Exploratory Analyses From a Randomized Trial.
Inflammatory cytokines, such as interleukin (IL)-1β, alter iron homeostasis and erythropoiesis, resulting in anemia, but whether inhibition of IL-1β can reverse these effects is unclear. ⋯ Novartis Pharmaceuticals.
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The restricted mean survival time (RMST) has been advocated as an alternative or a supplement to the hazard ratio for reporting the effect of an intervention in a randomized clinical trial. The RMST difference allows quantification of the postponement of an outcome during a specified (restricted) interval and corresponds to the difference between the areas under the 2 survival curves for the intervention and control groups. This article presents examples of the use of the RMST in a research and a clinical context. ⋯ They then discuss the advantages of the RMST over the absolute risk difference, the number needed to treat, and the median survival time difference. They argue that the RMST difference is both easy to interpret and flexible in its application to different settings. Finally, they highlight the major limitations of the RMST, including difficulties in comparing studies of heterogeneous designs and in inferring the long-term effects of treatments using trials of short duration, and summarize the available statistical software for calculating the RMST.
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Medicare uses the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Hierarchical Condition Category (CMS-HCC) model to predict patients' annualized Medicare costs in value-based payment programs. The CMS-HCC model does not include measures of frailty, and prior research shows that it systematically underpredicts costs for frail Medicare beneficiaries. ⋯ None.