Author Interviews, Beth Israel Deaconess, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Cost of Health Care, Geriatrics, JAMA, Medicare / 12.03.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Rishi K. Wadhera, MD Harvard Medical Faculty Physicians Cardiovasular Diseases Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: In the U.S., income inequality has steadily increased over the last several decades. Given widening inequities, there has been significant concern about the health outcomes of older Americans who experience poverty, particularly because prior studies have shown a strong link between socioeconomic status and health. In this study, we evaluated how health outcomes for low-income older adults who are dually enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid have changed since the early 2000’s, and whether disparities have narrowed or widened over time compared with more affluent older adults who are solely enrolled in Medicare (non-dually enrolled). (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, JAMA, Pediatrics / 03.03.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Hooman Azad First author and a 3rd year medical student Feinberg School of Medicine Northwestern University Eric Fleegler, MD MPH FAAP Senior author and Pediatric Emergency Physician Boston Children’s Hospital Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine Harvard Medical School MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Pediatric firearm violence is a public health crisis. The firearm fatality rate has increased by >50% over the past 10 years. Over our 26-year study period (1991-2016), 13,697 children under the age of 15 died at the hands of a firearm. Laws have been employed to try to reduce these deaths, and Child Access Prevention (CAP) laws, which aim to hold parents liable for the safe storage of their firearms, were passed in 25 states between 1989-2000. No new state passed a CAP laws after the year 2000. Child Access Prevention laws come in two flavors – recklessness laws that hold firearm owners liable for directly providing firearms to a minor, and negligence laws that hold the firearm owner liable for the unsafe storage of firearms with variability in how storage is defined and what penalties are imposed. (more…)
Author Interviews, Health Care Systems, Heart Disease, JAMA, Medicare / 24.02.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Rishi K. Wadhera, MD Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Harvard Medical Faculty Physicians MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: In recent years, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has implemented nationally mandated value-based programs to incentivize hospitals to deliver higher quality care. The Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP), for example, has financially penalized hospitals over $2.5 billion to date for high 30-day readmission rates. In addition, the Value-Based Purchasing Program (VBP) rewards or penalizes hospitals based on their performance on multiple domains of care.  Both programs have focused on cardiovascular care. The evidence to date, however, suggests that these programs have not improved health outcomes, and there is growing concern that they may disproportionately penalize hospitals that care for sick and poor patients, rather than for poor quality care. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Hearing Loss / 14.02.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Aravindakshan Parthasarathy, PhD Researcher, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Instructor in Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery Harvard Medical School  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Would you briefly explain what is meant by Hidden Hearing Loss? Response: Our ears were not designed for the society our brains created. The World Health Organization estimates that 1 billion young adults are at risk for hearing loss due to prolonged exposure to excessive environmental noise. Anatomical analysis of human ears has shown that half of the nerve fibers connecting the ear to the brain have degenerated by the time we reach 40 years of age. Many of us experience the first symptoms of hearing loss as a difficulty following conversations in crowded places such as restaurants. Hidden hearing loss is an umbrella term used to describe such hearing difficulties experienced by people who show no abnormalities on any of the current tests of hearing used in the clinic. Approximately 10% of visitors to our hospital hearing clinic fit this profile, arriving with a primary complaint of poor hearing but being sent home with a clean bill of hearing health.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Dermatology, Gender Differences, JAMA, Melanoma / 12.02.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Arash Mostaghimi, MD, MPA, MPH Director, Inpatient Dermatology , Brigham and Women's Hospital Instructor, Harvard Medical School Department of Dermatology Brigham and Women's Hospital MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: Smaller studies have demonstrated increased risk for skin cancer among gay men.  Prior to this study this data had not been confirmed in a nationally representative database. (more…)
Asthma, Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, NEJM, Pediatrics, Vitamin D / 10.02.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Augusto A. Litonjua, M.D., M.P.H. Professor - Department of Pediatrics, Pulmonology Interim Chief - Department of Medicine , Pulmonary Diseases and Critical Care Professor - Department of Medicine , Pulmonary Diseases and Critical Care University of Rochester MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency is prevalent worldwide. Prior observational studies have shown that low vitamin D levels have been associated with the development of asthma. Animal studies have reported that antenatal vitamin D is important for lung development in utero. Thus, we conducted a randomized, double-blind, controlled trial of vitamin D supplementation in pregnant women to see if we could prevent the development of asthma and wheezing illnesses in young children. The initial report of the trial results showed that children born to mothers in the vitamin D supplementation arm had lower risks for developing either asthma or recurrent wheezing episodes over the first 3 years, but this was not statistically significant (p=0.051)(Litonjua et al. JAMA 2016). (more…)
Author Interviews, Blood Pressure - Hypertension, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Gout / 28.01.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Stephen P. Juraschek, MD, PhD Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Division of General Medicine, Section for Research Boston, MA  02215 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Gout is a common complication of blood pressure treatment. Furthermore, 75% of adults with gout have hypertension. There are several classes of medications uses to treat hypertension. While prior studies have reported that calcium channel blockers like amlodipine lower uric acid, its effects on gout risk compared to other common first-line antihypertensive agents are unknown.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Beth Israel Deaconess, Race/Ethnic Diversity / 17.01.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: John Danziger, MD Harvard Medical Faculty Physicians, Nephrology Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Racial health disparities have long been described, extending even into the highest levels of medical care, namely the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Accordingly, we wanted to know whether improvements in ICU care seen over the last decade are equally observed in minority and non-minority serving hospitals. (more…)
Author Interviews, Breast Cancer, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, JAMA, Surgical Research / 08.01.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Mehra Golshan, MD, MBA Dr. Abdul Mohsen & Sultana Al-Tuwaijri Distinguished Chair Surgical OncologyDirector of Breast Surgical Oncology Fellowship Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Triple negative breast cancer is an aggressive form of breast cancer that often requires chemotherapy. In this study we provided neoadjuvant chemotherapy with or without a PARP inhibitor and showed that many women who were originally ineligible for breast conservation (lumpectomy) became eligible after treatment. If lumpectomy was tried it was usually successful.  Many more women in the US compared to Europe and Asia chose mastectomy when lumpectomy was an option even when genetics is negative. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Dermatology, Science / 05.01.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. D. Branch Moody, MD Principal Investigator Associate Physician, Brigham and Women's Hospital Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Is the CD1a molecule found on the skin's Langerhans cells? Response: With increasing industrialization worldwide, people apply cosmetics and other consumer products to the skin, leading to contact dermatitis, which is becoming increasingly common. Immunologists know that T cells participate in dermatitis reactions. However, T cells usually recognize and respond to antigens that are peptides rather than the non-peptide antigens that cause contact dermatitis. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Cognitive Issues, JAMA, Supplements / 16.12.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Pieter A. Cohen, MD Department of Medicine, Cambridge Health Alliance Somerville, Massachusetts Harvard Medical School Boston, Massachusetts MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: There has been increasing interest in the use of over-the-counter supplements to help improve memory and cognitive function.  However, prior studies have suggested that these types of supplements might contain unapproved investigational drugs. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Cannabis, JAMA, Pediatrics / 26.11.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Bertha K. Madras PhD Director, Laboratory of Addiction Neurobiology Psychobiologist, Substance Use Disorders Division, Basic Neuroscience Division Professor of Psychobiology, Department of Psychiatry Harvard Medical School MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Parent use of marijuana is rising, and I wondered whether this could be associated with offspring use of specific substances and across several substances
  • Several fathers have confided in me that they used marijuana to bond with their sons. They became horrified after witnessing their sons progress to using other drugs, especially heroin.
  • In general, living with a parent using substances or having substance use disorders is an explicit risk for use of substances among young offspring. Yet, few studies have directly examined whether parental marijuana use elevates the risk for opioid misuse among adolescent and young adults living with parents.  Most importantly and to the best of our knowledge, none of the existing research  simultaneously explored frequency of  parental marijuana use and whether it related to adolescent and young adult offspring’s marijuana, tobacco, alcohol use, and opioid misuse.
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Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Cost of Health Care, Rheumatology / 13.11.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Natalie McCormick, Ph.D. Post-Doctoral Research Fellow Clinical Epidemiology Program Division of Rheumatology, Allergy, and Immunology, Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School Arthritis Research Canada  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Biologic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (bDMARDs) have improved the health and productivity of many people living with moderate-to-severe inflammatory rheumatic diseases. They are also among the highest-spend drugs in the USA, with substantial out-of-pocket costs that pose barriers to treatment initiation and adherence. To understand the drivers of ongoing bDMARD spending growth, and effective ways of containing costs, we analysed drug spending data for all bDMARD claims in Medicare Part D, Part B fee-for-service, and Medicaid over 2012 to 2016, isolating the impact of changes in drug prices from changes in utilisation.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, Race/Ethnic Diversity / 30.10.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Michelle Morse, MD, MPH Founding Co-Director, EqualHealth Soros Equality Fellow Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School Co-Founder, Social Medicine Consortium  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
  • Response: Frontline clinicians have a unique vantage point to identify and characterize inequities in care. This study was inspired by internal medicine residents’ first-hand clinical experiences of black and Latinx patients who were frequently admitted to the general medicine service, as opposed to the cardiology service, with an ultimate diagnosis of HF.
  • Research has shown that structural inequities are pervasive throughout healthcare delivery systems and across many services, within both the inpatient and outpatient arenas. We hope other institutions and clinicians will be equally committed to addressing inequities in their own contexts, systems, and care settings and that patients will identify opportunities for self-advocacy in their care.
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Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, JAMA, Medicare / 28.08.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jose F. Figueroa, MD, MPH Instructor , Harvard Medical School, Department of Medicine Brigham and Women’s Hospital  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Hospitalizations related to ambulatory-care sensitive conditions are widely considered a key measure of access to high-quality ambulatory care. It is included as a quality measure in many national value-based care programs. To date, we do not really know whether rates of these avoidable hospitalizations are meaningfully improving for Medicare beneficiaries over time. (more…)
Author Interviews, Gender Differences / 16.08.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jack Turban MD MHS Resident Physician in Psychiatry The Massachusetts General Hospital and McLean Hospital Harvard Medical School MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Gender identity conversion efforts are attempts by a professional (for example a therapist, counselor, or religious advisor) to make a transgender person cisgender. The practice has been labelled unethical and ineffective by major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association. Accordingly, many U.S. states have made this practice illegal. Other states, however, have deferred passing bans on gender identity conversion efforts. Some state legislators have argued that such bans are unnecessary because this practice doesn’t occur in their state. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Opiods / 06.08.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Lauren A. Hoffman, Ph.D. Research Fellow Recovery Research Institute Center for Addiction Medicine Massachusetts General Hospital Harvard Medical School MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?   Response: In 2017, an estimated 11.4 million Americans reported past-year opioid misuse1 and opioid-related overdose accounted for more than 47,000 deaths2. Prior research has helped further our understanding of the prevalence and consequences of opioid misuse, but we know substantially less about recovery from opioid use problems. Recovery-focused research conducted to-date has largely focused on alcohol use disorder, the most common type of substance use disorder. Characterizing recovery from opioid use problems and the pathways that individuals take to resolve such problems can ultimately help identify effective ways to address opioid misuse. Using data from the first national probability-based sample of US adults who have resolved a significant substance use problem (National Recovery Survey3), we provide the first national prevalence estimate of opioid recovery, and characterize treatment/recovery service use and psychological well-being in individuals who resolved a primary problem with opioids, relative to individuals who resolved a primary alcohol problem. We focused our cross-sectional investigation of service use and well-being on 2 time-horizons associated with continued vulnerability: <1 year since problem resolution (early-recovery) and 1 – 5 years since problem resolution (mid-recovery). (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Heart Disease, Race/Ethnic Diversity / 05.08.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Muhammad Ali Chaudhary, MD Research Scientist Center for Surgery and Public Health Department of Surgery Brigham and Women’s Hospital Harvard Medical School Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Many studies have documented disparities in cardiovascular care for minorities, specifically African Americans compared to white patients. Coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) is a common procedure in the United States, and the outcomes and post-surgical care for African Americans tend to be worse. We examined whether patients insured through TRICARE — a universal insurance and equal-access integrated healthcare system that covers more than 9 million active-duty members, veterans and their families — experienced these disparities. We found no racial disparities in quality-of-care outcomes, providing insights about the potential impacts of universal insurance and an equal-access health care system. The study included 8,183 TRICARE patients, aged 18-64, who had undergone CABG. The study took its data from TRICARE health care claims from the Military Health System Data Repository for the years of 2006 to 2014. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, JAMA, Ophthalmology / 01.08.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Daejoon Alex Hwang, PhD Instructor in Ophthalmology Investigator, Schepens Eye Research Institute of Mass. Eye and Ear Harvard Medical School MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?   Response: Yellow night driving glasses are sold with promises to reduce headlight glare from oncoming traffic and help aging individuals see better at night. Despite a 1997 ruling by the Federal Trade Commission against one company’s claims, the products still remain popular online. We tested three commercially available yellow lens night driving glasses and compare their effectiveness with clear lens glasses on our novel headlight glare simulator in the driving simulator. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Heart Disease, JACC, Lung Cancer, Radiation Therapy / 10.06.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:   Raymond H Mak, MD Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology Harvard Medical School Radiation Oncology Brigham and Women's Hospital       Katelyn M. Atkins MD PhD Harvard Radiation Oncology Program Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Brigham and Women’s Hospital Boston, Massachusetts     MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? 
  • Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide and nearly half of patients will require radiation therapy as part of their care.
  • Cardiac toxicity following radiotherapy has been well-studied in breast cancer and lymphomas, however the impact of cardiac toxicity following lung cancer radiotherapy has historically been under-appreciated due to the high risk of lung cancer death.
  • Recent studies highlighting cardiac toxicity following lung cancer radiotherapy have been limited by small numbers of patients and, to our best knowledge, have not included validated cardiac event endpoints defined by the American Heart Association (AHA)/American College of Cardiology (ACC).
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Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Cancer Research, FDA, JAMA, Pharmacology / 29.05.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Bishal Gyawali  MD PhD
  • Program on Regulation, Therapeutics, and Law (PORTAL), Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts
  • Department of Oncology, Department of Public Health Sciences, and Division of Cancer Care and Epidemiology, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Accelerated approval pathway from the FDA allows cancer drugs to come to market sooner by showing improvement in surrogate measures such as change in tumor size. Surrogate measures do not reflect clinical benefit in terms of living longer or feeling better. So, when a drug receives accelerated approval, the drug is required to undergo a confirmatory trial to confirm that true clinical benefit from the drug actually exists. Last year, a paper from the FDA argued that accelerated approval pathway is working effectively because 55% of such drugs confirmed clinical benefit. However, we saw that most of those drugs were actually improving only a surrogate measure even in confirmatory trials. So the confirmatory trials were not confirming clinical benefit but actually confirming benefit in a surrogate endpoint. We investigate that issue in our study using updated results from the confirmatory trials that were ongoing at the time of FDA review. Our main finding is that only one-fifth of cancer drugs that received accelerated approval actually improved overall survival later in confirmatory trials. For, 20% of other drugs, the confirmatory trials tested the same surrogate endpoint as did the preapproval trial. For another 21%, the confirmatory trial showed benefit in a surrogate endpoint different from the one used in preapproval trial. Furthermore, when drugs fail to confirm clinical benefits in confirmatory trials, they still continue to remain on market.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Opiods, Orthopedics, Pain Research, Surgical Research / 16.05.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Marilyn M. Heng, MD, MPH, FRCSC Orthopaedic Trauma Surgeon Assistant Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery Harvard Medical School  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?   Response: The ultimate background for this study does come from the larger context of the opioid epidemic that is seen worldwide but particularly in North America. Orthopaedic surgeons should take responsibility as being among the top prescribers of opioids. The more specific background that led to this specific study was the observation that several colleagues would insist that a drug like hydromorphone was so dangerous that they would not prescribe it but seemed okay prescribing large amounts of oxycodone.  It seemed like an urban myth that the type of opioid was what made it dangerous, so that led us to do the study to see if there was evidence for that.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Education, JAMA / 06.05.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Arabella L. Simpkin,  MD, MMSc Associate Director, Center for Educational Innovation and Scholarship, MGH Associate Program Director, Education and Curriculum, Internal Medicine Residency, MGH Instructor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School Boston, MA 02114 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The academic health care environment has changed in unprecedented ways over several decades, with mounting evidence that faculty are becoming increasingly more unhappy, dissatisfied, and burnt out in their work. Concern for faculty wellbeing is high, with much speculation about causes of burnout. Comprehending what affects satisfaction at work in academic health care centers is critically important to stem this epidemic of discontent. For physicians, satisfaction has been reported to be associated with quality of care delivered, particularly as measured by patient satisfaction; faculty retention and job satisfaction are intricately linked, with dissatisfied physicians more likely to leave the profession and to discourage others from entering. Other industries that have suffered similar rises in employee discontent have found that demonstration of respect is the most important leadership behavior in improving employees satisfaction. To our knowledge this factor has not been looked at in healthcare professionals. To address this gap, we sought to determine key variables influencing satisfaction at work for faculty in a large academic medical center in the United States. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Heart Disease, Red Meat / 22.04.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Marta Guasch-Ferre, PhD Research Scientist, Dept of Nutrition Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health Instructor of Medicine, Channing Division of Network Medicin Harvard Medical School Boston, MA, 02115   MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: Previous findings from randomized controlled trials evaluating the effects of red meat on cardiovascular disease risk factors have been inconsistent. But our new study, which makes specific comparisons between diets high in red meat versus diets high in other types of foods, shows that substituting red meat with high-quality protein sources lead to more favorable changes in cardiovascular risk factors. That is, to properly understand the health effects of red meat, it’s important to pay attention to the comparison diet. People do not simply eat more or less meat – it will almost always be in substitution with other foods.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Gender Differences, JAMA, Surgical Research / 16.04.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Nelya Melnitchouk, MD,MSc Director, Program in Peritoneal Surface Malignancy, HIPEC Dr. Melnitchouk is an associate surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital (BWFH) and instructor of surgery at Harvard Medical School. MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Current literature on women in surgery show that female physicians, particularly those in procedural specialties, face many challenges in balancing responsibilities between work and home. We hypothesized that these challenges may affect career satisfaction more negatively for physician mothers in procedural specialties than those in nonprocedural specialties. In our study, we found that physician mothers in procedural specialties who had more domestic responsibilities were more likely to report a desire to change careers than those in nonprocedural specialties.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Cancer Research, JAMA / 28.03.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Isaac Chua MD Instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School Boston, Massachusetts  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?   Response: Opioids are routinely prescribed for cancer-related pain, but little is known about the prevalence of opioid-related hospitalizations for patients with cancer. Although opioid addiction among patients with cancer is estimated to be as high as 7.7%, our understanding of opioid misuse is based on small, preliminary studies. In light of the wider opioid epidemic, oncologists and palliative care clinicians frequently balance providing patients with legitimate access to opioids while protecting them and the general public from the risks of prescribing these medications. (more…)
Author Interviews, Endocrinology, Weight Research / 27.03.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Liya Kerem, MD Fellow, Pediatric Endocrine Unit Massachusetts General Hospital for Children Harvard Medical School MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?   Response: The hypothalamic neurohormone Oxytocin (OXT), shown to decrease food intake in animals and humans, is a promising novel treatment for obesity. We previously showed that in men with overweight/obesity, intranasal (IN)OXT reduced the fMRI activation in the ventral tegmental area (VTA), the origin of the mesolimbic dopaminergic reward system, in response to high-calorie food vs non-food visual stimuli. Here, we employed fMRI functional connectivity analysis, which better characterizes the exchange in information between neural systems in a context-dependent manner. We hypothesized that Oxytocin would reduce the functional connectivity of the VTA with food motivation brain areas in response to high-calorie foods.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Critical Care - Intensive Care - ICUs, End of Life Care, JAMA / 21.03.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Joanna Paladino, MD Director of Implementation, Serious Illness Care Program | Ariadne Labs Brigham and Women's Hospital | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Palliative Care | Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Instructor | Harvard Medical School and Dr. Rachelle Bernacki MD MS Director of Quality Initiatives Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care Senior Physician, Assistant Professor of Medicine Harvard Medical School Dr. Paladino's responses: MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Paladino: People living with serious illness face many difficult decisions over the course of their medical care. These decisions, and the care patients receive, should be guided by what matters most to patients, including their personal values, priorities, and wishes. These conversations don’t often happen in clinical practice or do so very late in the course of illness, leaving patients exposed to getting care they don’t want. Doctors and nurses want to have these important discussions, but there are real challenges, including insufficient training and uncertainties about when and how to start the conversation. We designed an intervention with clinical tools, clinician training, and systems-changes to address these challenges. When tested in a randomized clinical trial in oncology, we found that the intervention led to more, earlier, and better conversations between oncology clinicians and their patients with life-limiting cancer. These findings demonstrate that it is possible to ensure reliable, timely, and patient-centered serious illness conversations in an outpatient oncology practice. (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease / 19.03.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Mandeep R. Mehra, MD, MSc, FRCP (London) The William Harvey Distinguished Chair in Advanced Cardiovascular Medicine Medical Director, Heart and Vascular Center Brigham and Women’s Hospital Executive Director Center for Advanced Heart Disease Brigham and Women’s Hospital Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The MOMENTUM 3 trial is the largest study of LVAD therapy in Advanced Heart Failure with over 1000 randomized patients followed to at least 2 years. This trial tested a novel fully magnetically levitated LVAD, the HeartMate 3 pump against a mechanical bearing containing LVAD, the HeartMate II pump in patients suffering from advanced heart failure (85% of whom were on continuous intravenous Inotropic therapy or IABP device at the time of randomization). While LVADs have improved survival for such patients, the morbidity has remained excessive due to serious complication as a result of problems with hemocompatibility. The principal concerns revolve around complications of pump thrombosis requiring surgical replacement, strokes and bleeding events, especially gastrointestinal bleeding. The trial has previously reported two interim analyses which suggested signals for superiority on pump replacement and even a decrease in ischemic stroke. This final full report concludes convincingly that all three domains of hemocompatibility related adverse events are reduced with the novel LVAD with near elimination of pump thrombosis, halving of strokes of any kind and any severity and a marked decrease in bleeding complications. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, NEJM, Opiods / 13.03.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Wenjia Zhu, PhD. Marshall J. Seidman Fellow Department of Health Care Policy Harvard Medical School  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The current opioid epidemic continues to cause deaths and tremendous suffering in the United States, driven in large part by overuse of prescription opioids. Of special concern are new opioid prescriptions, i.e. opioids given to patients who have not used opioids before, which research tells us are an important gateway to long-term opioid use, misuse, overdoes and death. Recently, in their efforts to curb over prescribing of opioids, the CDC issued guidelines (December 2015 in draft form; March 2016 in final version) to encourage opioid prescribers to limit the use, duration and dose of opioids, particularly opioids to first-time users. Despite these, little is known about the prescribing of opioids to first-time users on a national scale, particularly among commercially insured patients. In this study, we examined national monthly trends in the rate at which opioid therapy was started among commercially insured patients. Using administrative claims from Blue Cross Blue Shield Association commercial insurers from 2012 to 2017, we analyzed more than 86 million commercially insured patients across the United States. (more…)