Practice Management
Insights on a number of health conditions potentially triggered by or exacerbated by COVID-19 continue to surface in the literature. Researchers have found a higher risk of digestive disorders in COVID-19 survivors when comparing them to a contemporary group (who lived at the same time as the COVID-19 group), and a historical group (whose data was sourced from a time period prior to October 2019). Analysis of the BMC Medicine study presented in CIDRAP show …
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Heavy, weighted blankets—marketed as comforting bedding indulgences for adults and even infants—are producing the latest word of caution among pediatricians and product safety experts. Last year, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) warned that weighted blankets should never be used for babies, and in a recent news article in the Washington Post, the chair of the AAP’s task force on sudden infant death syndrome cautioned that even a small amount of pressure on a newborn’s …
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Buprenorphine—used to treat opioid use disorder—is the only drug that ever came with federal limits on the number of patients a provider could care for. It also came with restrictions on the types of clinicians who could prescribe it. Rules requiring the so-called “x-waiver” for prescribing clinicians were ultimately repealed in December 2022. Since then, providers have been able to offer buprenorphine to any number of patients who need addiction treatment and a path to …
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Flu season continues, and providers in several US markets are seeing surges in respiratory-virus-related visits. Meanwhile, new data also shows a year-over-year increase in antiviral prescriptions to treat influenza, according to a news report in Fierce Healthcare, leveraging data from Evernorth Research Institute (a Cigna subsidiary). Analyzing pharmacy claims for 32 million people, researchers noted an uptick in antiviral prescriptions in the weeks following Thanksgiving 2023 when compared to a similar time period during past …
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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently added a boxed warning to the osteoporosis drug denosumab (Prolia) due to the heightened risk of severe hypocalcemia in patients with advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD). The agency’s decision, based on new evidence and a JAMA review, notes that denosumab increases the risk of severe hypocalcemia compared to bisphosphonates, particularly in CKD patients on dialysis. Severe hypocalcemia can manifest with symptoms like confusion, seizures, irregular heart rhythm, fainting, …
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The JN.1 variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus appears to be more contagious than other members of the Omicron family, driving indicators of infection levels and COVID-19 illness. Even so, this currently circulating variant seems to produce a more mild illness with less need for medical attention. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as reported in JAMA Network shows emergency department visits for COVID-19 are down 21% this year, and the percentage of …
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The European Journal of Preventive Cardiology recently published research demonstrating that a higher level of quadriceps isometric strength (QIS) was strongly associated with a lower risk of developing heart failure (HF) after acute coronary syndrome (ACS). Researchers studied the relationship between QIS and the risk of developing HF in patients with ACS using HF admissions as the endpoint. QIS is a skeletal muscle strength indicator, and study authors classified 1,053 patients with ACS without prior …
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The guanylate cyclase C agonist, linaclotide (Linzess), doubled weekly bowel movements among children age 6 and younger, helping to treat pediatric patients with functional constipation, according to a study published in Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology. As a recently approved treatment option, linaclotide demonstrated improvement in frequency over placebo with 57% of patients in the treatment group experiencing a spontaneous bowel movement within the first 48 hours of receiving the drug. Authors also observed improvement in …
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The glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist semaglutide (Wegovy, Ozempic) was found to demonstrate no increased risk of suicidal ideation in patients with obesity or type 2 diabetes, according to retrospective analyses of electronic health records examining these patient populations, published in Nature Medicine. Researchers’ analysis of 240,618 patients who were overweight/obese showed that those taking semaglutide had a significantly lower risk (0.11%) of suicidal ideation compared with those using non-GLP-1 anti-obesity medications (0.43%). In …
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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the first clinical test that uses DNA to assess potential risk of opioid use disorder in certain patients, according to an FDA announcement. The new AvertD test is intended as a screening tool clinicians can use before prescribing oral opioid drugs in adult patients who are being considered for short-term treatment of acute pain and who have not previously used oral opioid pain medications. To administer at …
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