Dr. Briceno[/caption]
Josefa Briceno, MD
Medical Head, DDR/ADC Franchise
AstraZenca
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: In January 2018, the US FDA expanded the approved use of LYNPARZA to treat patients with HER2- negative metastatic breast cancer with germline BRCA mutations based on positive results from the Phase III OlympiAD trial, which demonstrated the benefit of LYNPARZA over standard of care in physician’s choice chemotherapy in this patient population. LUCY is a Phase IIIb interim analysis aimed to evaluate the clinical effectiveness and safety of LYNPARZA in a real-world setting and has been expanded to include a group of patients with somatic BRCA mutations.
A total of 252 patients with HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer with germline BRCA mutations were enrolled in the open-label, single-arm, Phase IIIb study. Patients received a taxane and/or anthracycline in the (neo)adjuvant/metastatic setting, and ≤2 lines of chemotherapy.
The primary end point of the study was investigator-defined progression-free survival (PFS), and secondary end points included overall survival, time to first subsequent therapy or death, and investigator-assessed clinical response rate. The interim analysis was planned to take place after 160 progression-free survival events.
Overall, treatment lasted for a median of 7.9 months, and the median progression-free survival was 8.1 months (95% confidence interval of 6.9-8.7; 166 progression-free survival events).
In addition, the median time to first subsequent therapy or death was 9.7 months (95% confidence interval of 8.7-11.1) and the investigator-assessed clinical response rate was 48.6% (95% confidence interval of 42.2-55.0).
Adverse events of all grades were reported in >20% of patients were nausea, anemia, asthenia, vomiting, and fatigue. Grade ≥3 adverse events were reported in 24.6% of patients, and 4.4% of patients had an adverse event that led to treatment discontinuation.
Mark Sims[/caption]
Mark Sims
US Franchise Head
Women’s Cancer & DNA Damage Response
AstraZeneca
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: SOLO2 is a Phase III, randomized, double-blind, multicenter trial designed to determine the efficacy and safety of LYNPARZA tablets as a maintenance monotherapy compared with placebo, in patients with platinum-sensitive relapsed or recurrent gBRCA-mutated (BRCAm) ovarian cancer. The trial included 295 patients with germline BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations who had received at least 2 prior lines of platinum-based chemotherapy and were in complete or partial response. The trial met its primary endpoint in October 2016, showing maintenance treatment with LYNPARZA significantly improved progression-free survival to a median of 19.1 months vs 5.5 months with placebo (a hazard ratio of 0.30; a 95% confidence interval of 0.22 to 0.41; a p value of <0.0001).
Dr. Turk[/caption]
Margaret A. Turk, MD
Vice-Chairman, PM&R
Distinguished Service Professor
Departments of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Pediatrics, Public Health & Preventive Medicine
SUNY Upstate Medical University
All authors contributed to these responses. (Margaret A. Turk MD, Scott D. Landes PhD, Margaret K. Formica PhD,
Katherine D. Goss MPH)
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Throughout this pandemic, there have been published reports related to vulnerable populations and severity of disease with COVID-19, however disability populations have not been studied. People with disabilities in fact report many of the risk factors for severe outcomes from this virus, usually at younger ages. One such population is people with intellectual and developmental disability (IDD), with estimates of 2.6 to 4 million people living in the US – and also with reported high prevalence of hypertension, diabetes, and pulmonary conditions. These comorbid health conditions are reported as common risk factors for severe outcomes with COVID-19, along with older age.
Dr. Schünemann[/caption]
Holger Schünemann, MD, PhD, FRCPC
Professor of Clinical Epidemiology and of Medicine
Co-Director, WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases,
Research Methods and Recommendations
Director, Cochrane Canada and McMaster GRADE Centre
Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact
Canada
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Many countries and regions have issued conflicting advice about physical distancing to reduce transmission of COVID-19, based on limited information. In addition, the questions of whether masks and eye coverings might reduce transmission of COVID-19 in the general population, and what the optimum use of masks in healthcare settings is, have been debated during the pandemic.
Dr. Donovan[/caption]
Lois Donovan MD FRCPC
Clinical Professor
Cumming School of Medicine
Division on Endocrinology and Metabolism and
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology
University of Calgary
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
1) We observed in our clinical practices that minor TSH elevations in early pregnancy frequently normalized without intervention.
2) Recent randomized control trials have failed to show benefit of treating women with levothyroxine with minor TSH elevations in pregnancy
Dr. Kao-Ping Chua[/caption]
Kao-Ping Chua, M.D., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Pediatrics, Medical School
Susan B. Meister Child Health Evaluation and Research Center
University of Michigan
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Due to high and rising prices, insulin has become increasingly unaffordable for patients with type 1 diabetes who must pay out-of-pocket for this life-saving medication. Over the past 5 months, many states and insurers have taken steps to cap insulin out-of-pocket spending. For example, Cigna imposed a $25 monthly cap earlier this year. This week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services announced a $35 monthly cap for many Medicare Part D beneficiaries.
Dr. Charles-de-Sá[/caption]
Charles-de-SáM.D., Ph.D.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Our clinical trial was based on our clinical skin observations in areas submitted to a lipotransfer previously, an ordinary practice in plastic surgery. These clinical observations lead us to investigate what will be the key element played in these findings. Our scientific support investigation addressed the Dardick1and Zuk, P2 studies, that demonstrated fibroblastic-like cells in adipose tissue with regenerative ability. Our clinical trial proposal is to investigate the adipose-derived stem cell (ADSC) role in the photoaged skin. The direct endpoint of the study was to assess the histological benefits provided by the subdermal ADSC injection. Mesenchymal stem cells were obtained from lipoaspirates, expanded in vitro, and introduced into the facial skin of 20 patients submitted after three to four months to a face-lifting surgery. In the retrieved skin, immunocytochemical and ultrastructural analysis quantified elastic matrix components, cathepsin-K, metalloprotease MMP-12, and the macrophage M2 markers: CD68, CD206 and heme-oxygenase-1.An overview of the trial steps is described in the infographic.
Katri Räikkönen
Professor, Department of Psychology and Logopedics
University of Helsinski
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Maternal antenatal corticosteroid treatment is standard care when there is a risk for preterm delivery. The treatment improves the prognosis of babies born preterm.
In high-income countries, antenatal corticosteroid treatment has been in routine use for over 30 years. Recommendations and clinical care guidelines for maternal antenatal corticosteroid treatment differ between continents and countries. In Finland the treatment is currently recommended when the risk for preterm delivery is at 34 gestational weeks or less. In select cases, the treatment is recommended even later in gestation. Corticosteroids accelerate fetal maturation, especially in the lungs, and increase the child’s resilience to the stress that results from being born preterm.
However, antenatal corticosteroids not only cross the placenta, but also cross the the blood-brain barrier and may harm fetal brain development. We are not aware of previous population-based studies that would have tested if maternal antenatal corticosteroid treatment would be associated with mental and behavioral disorders in children and we are not either aware of studies that would have tested if any associations would be explained by shared genetic or familial factors.
Dr. Meiri[/caption]
Amir Meiri, MD MPH
Atrius Health/Department of Population Medicine (DPM) | Delivery System Science Fellow
HMS and HPHCI, DPM | General Internal Medicine Fellow
Atrius Health Kenmore | Urgent Care Physician
VA Boston Healthcare | Attending in Internal Medicine and Emergency Medicine
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: There has been significant media reporting about rising insulin prices and the health impacts of those exorbitant prices. However, it was not clear how these insulin prices may impact out-of-pocket costs among commercially insured patients; though it is clear that those without insurance are affected per previous media reports. Our study examines the difference between insulin manufacturer-set prices and what patients actually pay, the out-of-pocket cost, in the context of the type of insurance patients have.
Dr. Millar[/caption]
Sarah E. Millar, Ph.D.
Director, Black Family Stem Cell Institute
Professor, Departments of Cell, Developmental and Regenerative Biology and Dermatology
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
New York, NY
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: One of the major roles of the skin is to serve as a protective barrier, both preventing external insults, such as toxins and pathogens, from entering the body, and helping to retain moisture. The mechanisms required for appropriate skin barrier formation remain incompletely understood. Elucidating these processes is important for understanding and developing improved treatments for dermatological diseases in which the skin barrier is dysfunctional, such as eczema and psoriasis.
Understanding epigenetic regulators, proteins that modify the structure of genetic material, is an area of scientific interest, as many new drugs target these proteins. Importantly, multiple epigenetic regulators have been shown to be important in skin development. My lab has focused on one group of epigenetic regulators, histone deacetylases (HDACs), because HDAC inhibitors show promise for treating several different cancers and other disorders in which cell proliferation is poorly controlled. We previously showed that HDACs 1 and 2 are required for normal skin development.
In the current study, we investigated whether the related protein HDAC3 is also important in establishing the skin barrier.
Dr. Smith[/caption]
Cardinale Smith, MD, PhD
Associate Professor
Medicine, Hematology and Medical Oncology and
Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
New York
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Cancer patients are often hospitalized with complications from cancer and cancer treatment. Physical decline is common among hospitalized cancer patients and contributes to poorer outcomes including increased length of stay, excess days, readmissions and patient experiences. Therefore, increased activity and mobilization during hospitalization are essential to prevent functional decline.
Whereas previous research has focused on risk factors that limit mobility and interventions for enhancing mobility in well-functioning, community dwelling older adults, there have been limited interventions on the mobility of hospitalized cancer patients.
Dr. Clement Bidard[/caption]
Francois-Clement Bidard, MD PhD
Head of Breast Cancer Group, Institut Curie
Professor of Med. Oncology, UVSQ/Paris
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: A timely question is how to optimize the endocrine therapy of ER+ HER2- metastatic breast cancers? Aromatase inhibitors (AI) are currently the standard of care in first line, in combination with CDK4/6 inhibitors. Mutations in the estrogen receptor gene (ESR1) can be detected in up to 40% of AI-resistant metastatic breast cancers, but no data was available in the current first line setting (AI combined to CDK4/6 inhibitor).
This exploratory study of the first line PADA-1 study reports on the detection rate of ESR1 mutations in cell-free DNA from an “AI-sensitive” population (with no metastatic relapse during adjuvant AI therapy), before the start of therapy (at inclusion). As expected, we found a low prevalence of 3.2% in the general population (N=1,017 patients included). The prevalence of ESR1 mutations among subgroups appeared primarily driven by the type of adjuvant endocrine therapy: patients with prior exposure to adjuvant therapy with AI displayed the highest prevalence of ESR1 mutations (7.1%), followed by patients with no prior adjuvant endocrine therapy (mostly de novo stage IV; ESR1 mutation prevalence: 2.4%). Patients who received adjuvant endocrine therapy with no AI (e.g. tamoxifen only) had the lowest ESR1 mutation prevalence (1.2%).
CDC PHIL image[/caption]
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: This report reviewed three measures of tooth loss among adults over 50 years old with selected chronic conditions. The report analyzed data from the 2011–2016 cycles of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) to compare the rates of total tooth loss, severe tooth loss (less than 8 teeth), and lacking functional dentition (less than 20 teeth) among people with and without selected chronic conditions.
Dr. Morichau-Beauchant[/caption]
Dr Tristan Morichau-Beauchant, MD.
Intensive Care Unit
Centre Cardiologique du Nord
Saint-Denis, France
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: During the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic in France, early reports on severe patients stated a highly increased inflammatory response associated with procoagulant changes in coagulation pathways and high D-Dimer levels. Preliminary reports from the intensive care community signaled frequent events of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) among this population. We decided to perform prospectively a venous ultrasonogram of the inferior limbs for all patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia at admission in our ICU. All patients had acute respiratory distress syndrome according to the Berlin definition an required mechanical ventilation. Considering the high prevalence of venous thrombosis at admission we repeated a venous ultrasonography after 48 hours if the first exam was normal. All patients received standard anticoagulant prophylaxis since hospital admission.
It is important to remember that the FDA does not regulate dietary supplements. This means that, unlike medications and drugs, supplements do not have to meet any strict standards....
Dr. Jonas[/caption]
Brian A. Jonas, M.D., Ph.D.
UC Davis Health System
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
At this year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and European Hematology Association (EHA) virtual meetings, we presented data on the rapidity and likelihood of response to venetoclax treatments, and its associated characteristics, in older patients with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
We evaluated data from two clinical trials of venetoclax in combination with azacitidine, or decitabine (M14-358), or low-dose cytarabine (LDAC) (M14-387) in this patient population.
Dr. Soumya Sen[/caption]
Soumya Sen PhD
McKnight Presidential Fellow
Mary & Jim Lawrence Fellow of Carlson School
Director of Research, MIS Research Center
Associate Professor, Information & Decision Sciences
Carlson School of Management
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: As the Covid-19 pandemic unfolded across the United States, one of the greatest barriers to understanding the extent of the problem was the lack of reliable and consistent data. Some of the metrics being reported, such as case count and death, are insufficient for hospital capacity planning. Case count is a conservative estimate of the actual number of infected individuals in the absence of community-wide serologic testing, while death count is a lagging metric and insufficient for proactive hospital capacity planning.
A more valuable metric for assessing the effects of public health interventions on the health care infrastructure is hospitalizations. Therefore, the Medical Industry Leadership Institute (MILI) and the Management Information Systems Research Center (MISRC) at the Carlson School of Management launched the COVID-19 hospitalization tracking project in March to consistently track and report daily hospitalizations from all reporting states. Tracking daily hospitalization data is a major step forward in quantifying the current impact on local hospital systems, modeling and forecasting future utilization needs, and tracking the rate of change in the disease severity. It is also useful for understanding the role of health policy interventions in slowing or reducing the impact of the pandemic.
Dr. Boffa[/caption]
Daniel J. Boffa, MD
Associate Professor of Thoracic Surgery
Yale School of Medicine
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The study examined networks that formed around hospitals that had been previously ranked in the top-50 by US News and World Report. These top-ranked hospitals have shared their brand with hospitals in their network, which leads some people to believe that the care is the same at top-ranked hospitals and their affiliate hospitals. We wanted to determine if outcomes after complex surgical procedures were truly the same at affiliate hospitals and top-ranked hospitals.
Dr. Jian Feng Zhou[/caption]
Jianfeng Zhou MD, PhD
Department of Hematology, Tongji Hospital
Tongji Medical College
Huazhong University of Science and Technolog
Wuhan, Hubei, China
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: There is accumulating evidence on the key pathophysiological role of cytokines during the severe stage of COVID-19. In the context of lack of vaccine and specific antiviral agents, testing of immunomodulatory agents to reduce excessive or uncontrolled inflammation before it results in irreversible multi-organ dysfunction infection has received increasing research attention. Although several important papers have proposed JAK inhibitors as potential therapeutic targets, the role of JAK inhibitors on COVID-19 patients needs to be clarified quickly, especially in severe COVID-19 patients.
Women remain more at risk of liver disease resulting from alcohol use, although heavy users of both sexes develop fatty liver over time...
Dr. Pesch[/caption]
Megan H. Pesch, MD, MS, FAAP
Assistant Professor
C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital
University of Michigan
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Picky eating is common among children and is often both concerning to parents. Healthcare providers may reassure parents that their child will “outgrow” picky eating, however there have been few longitudinal studies examining the trajectories of picky eating in children, as well as associated trends in their growth.
In our study we examined the trajectories of picky eating in US children over a 5 year period. We also examined how these picky eating trends were associated with child characteristics, weight status and mother’s feeding behaviors.
A recent study from Services for the UnderServed found that between 37 and 56 percent of patients transitioning from residential treatment facilities to their homes and communities relapsed within a year of leaving the program....
Dr. Giugliano[/caption]
Robert P. Giugliano, MD, SM
Senior Investigator, TIMI Study Group
Cardiovascular Medicine
Brigham and Women's Hospital
Professor of Medicine
Harvard Medical School Boston, MA
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Some prior studies had suggested that lipid lowering therapies were associated with impaired cognition. We sought to explore this question in a prospectively designed substudy of the large FOURIER randomized, double-blind clinical trial utilizing patient self-surveys administered the end of the study to determine whether patients themselves noticed any changes in cognition over the duration of the trial.
The survey tool was a shortened version of the Everyday Cognition Questionnaire (see attached) that asks patients 23 questions that assess memory and executive function (including subdomains of planning, organization, and divided attention). The questions are in the format of "Compared to the beginning of the study, has there been any change in .....", and are graded as 1=better/no change, 2=questionable/occasionally worse, 3=consistently a little worse, 4=consistently much worse.
Nembro Italy: Wikipedia-Image[/caption]
Marco Piccininni
Research Associate, CONVERGE
Universitätsmedizin
Institute of Public Health
Berlin, Germany
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The Lombardy region of northern Italy was severely hit by the covid-19 pandemic. However, despite the very high number of confirmed covid-19 deaths in this region, some local investigations suggested that there was a mismatch between the confirmed covid-19 death count and the increase in all-cause deaths.
In our study, we decided to further investigate this aspect in the city of Nembro (province of Bergamo), which was one of the first cities to report covid-19 cases, and one of the cities most affected by the pandemic.
Dr. Hennekens[/caption]
Charles H. Hennekens, MD, DrPH
Sir Richard Doll Professor
Senior Academic Advisor
FAU, Boca Raton, FL
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Blacks and other disadvantaged minorities in the United States have markedly reduced life expectancies compared with their white counterparts. As is the case with most fatal diseases, coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is already taking a disproportionate toll on blacks and other disadvantaged minorities.
Dr. Filbey[/caption]
Francesca Filbey, PhD
Associate Provost and Professor of Cognition and Neuroscience
Bert Moore Chair
The University of Texas at Dallas
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Studies have reported differences in how males and females respond to cannabis and how they develop problems related to cannabis use. We sought to determine whether craving may underlie this difference in male and female cannabis users.