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Parental refusal of neonatal therapy a growing problem
according to an update at the virtual Pediatric Hospital Medicine virtual. This finding indicates the value of preparing policies and strategies to guide parents to appropriate medical decisions in advance.
“Elimination of nonmedical exceptions to vaccinations and intramuscular vitamin K made it into two of the AAP [American Academy of Pediatrics] top 10 public health resolutions, most likely because refusal rates are going up,” reported Ha N. Nguyen, MD, of the division of pediatric hospital medicine at Stanford (Calif.) University.
Importantly, state laws differ. For example, erythromycin ointment is mandated in neonates for prevention of gonococcal ophthalmia neonatorum in many states, including New York, where it can be administered without consent, according to Dr. Nguyen. Conversely, California does not mandate this preventive therapy even though the law does not offer medico-legal protection to providers if it is not given.
“There is a glaring gap in the way the [California] law was written,” said Dr. Nguyen, who used this as an example of why protocols and strategies to reduce risk of parental refusal of neonatal therapies should be informed by, and consistent with, state laws.
Because of the low levels of vitamin K in infants, the rate of bleeding within the first few months of life is nearly 2%, according to figures cited by Dr. Nguyen. It falls to less than 0.001% with administration of intramuscular vitamin K.
Families who refuse intramuscular vitamin K often state that they understand the risks, but data from a survey Dr. Nguyen cited found this is not necessarily true. In this survey, about two-thirds knew that bleeding was the risk, but less than 20% understood bleeding risks included intracranial hemorrhage, and less than 10% were aware that there was potential for a fatal outcome.
“This is a huge piece of the puzzle for counseling,” Dr. Nguyen said. “The discussion with parents should explicitly involve the explanation that the risks include brain bleeds and death.”
Although most infant bleeds attributed to low vitamin K stores are mucocutaneous or gastrointestinal, intracranial hemorrhage does occur, and these outcomes can be devastating. Up to 25% of infants who experience an intracranial hemorrhage die, while 60% of those who survive have some degree of neurodevelopmental impairment, according to Dr. Nguyen.
Oral vitamin K, which requires multiple doses, is not an appropriate substitute for the recommended single injection of the intramuscular formulation. The one study that compared intramuscular and oral vitamin K did not prove equivalence, and no oral vitamin K products have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Nguyen reported.
“We do know confidently that oral vitamin K does often result in poor adherence,” she said,
In a recent review article of parental vitamin K refusal, one of the most significant predictors of refusal of any recommended neonatal preventive treatment was refusal of another. According to data in that article, summarized by Dr. Nguyen, 68% of the parents who declined intramuscular vitamin K also declined erythromycin ointment, and more than 90% declined hepatitis B vaccine.
“One reason that many parents refuse the hepatitis B vaccine is that they do not think their child is at risk,” explained Kimberly Horstman, MD, from Stanford University and John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, Calif.
Yet hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, which is asymptomatic, can be acquired from many sources, including nonfamily contacts, according to Dr. Horstman.
“The AAP supports universal hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours of birth for all infants over 2,000 g at birth,” Dr. Horstman said. In those weighing less, the vaccine is recommended within the first month of life.
The risk of parental refusal for recommended neonatal preventive medicines is higher among those with more education and higher income relative to those with less, Dr. Nguyen said. Other predictors include older maternal age, private insurance, and delivery by a midwife or at a birthing center.
Many parents who refuse preventive neonatal medications do not fully grasp what risks they are accepting by avoiding a recommended medication, according to both Dr. Nguyen and Dr. Horstman. In some cases, the goal is to protect their child from the pain of a needlestick, even when the health consequences might include far more invasive and painful therapies if the child develops the disease the medication would have prevented.
In the case of intramuscular vitamin K, “we encourage a presumptive approach,” Dr. Nguyen said. Concerns can then be addressed only if the parents refuse.
For another strategy, Dr. Nguyen recommended counseling parents about the need and value of preventive therapies during pregnancy. She cited data suggesting that it is more difficult to change the minds of parents after delivery.
Echoing this approach in regard to HBV vaccine, Dr. Horstman suggested encouraging colleagues, including obstetricians and community pediatricians, to raise and address this topic during prenatal counseling. By preparing parents for the recommended medications in the prenatal period, concerns can be addressed in advance.
The health risks posed by parents who refuse recommended medications is recognized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Both Dr. Horstman and Dr. Nguyen said there are handouts from the CDC and the AAP to inform parents of the purpose and benefit of recommended preventive therapies, as well as to equip caregivers with facts for effective counseling.
according to an update at the virtual Pediatric Hospital Medicine virtual. This finding indicates the value of preparing policies and strategies to guide parents to appropriate medical decisions in advance.
“Elimination of nonmedical exceptions to vaccinations and intramuscular vitamin K made it into two of the AAP [American Academy of Pediatrics] top 10 public health resolutions, most likely because refusal rates are going up,” reported Ha N. Nguyen, MD, of the division of pediatric hospital medicine at Stanford (Calif.) University.
Importantly, state laws differ. For example, erythromycin ointment is mandated in neonates for prevention of gonococcal ophthalmia neonatorum in many states, including New York, where it can be administered without consent, according to Dr. Nguyen. Conversely, California does not mandate this preventive therapy even though the law does not offer medico-legal protection to providers if it is not given.
“There is a glaring gap in the way the [California] law was written,” said Dr. Nguyen, who used this as an example of why protocols and strategies to reduce risk of parental refusal of neonatal therapies should be informed by, and consistent with, state laws.
Because of the low levels of vitamin K in infants, the rate of bleeding within the first few months of life is nearly 2%, according to figures cited by Dr. Nguyen. It falls to less than 0.001% with administration of intramuscular vitamin K.
Families who refuse intramuscular vitamin K often state that they understand the risks, but data from a survey Dr. Nguyen cited found this is not necessarily true. In this survey, about two-thirds knew that bleeding was the risk, but less than 20% understood bleeding risks included intracranial hemorrhage, and less than 10% were aware that there was potential for a fatal outcome.
“This is a huge piece of the puzzle for counseling,” Dr. Nguyen said. “The discussion with parents should explicitly involve the explanation that the risks include brain bleeds and death.”
Although most infant bleeds attributed to low vitamin K stores are mucocutaneous or gastrointestinal, intracranial hemorrhage does occur, and these outcomes can be devastating. Up to 25% of infants who experience an intracranial hemorrhage die, while 60% of those who survive have some degree of neurodevelopmental impairment, according to Dr. Nguyen.
Oral vitamin K, which requires multiple doses, is not an appropriate substitute for the recommended single injection of the intramuscular formulation. The one study that compared intramuscular and oral vitamin K did not prove equivalence, and no oral vitamin K products have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Nguyen reported.
“We do know confidently that oral vitamin K does often result in poor adherence,” she said,
In a recent review article of parental vitamin K refusal, one of the most significant predictors of refusal of any recommended neonatal preventive treatment was refusal of another. According to data in that article, summarized by Dr. Nguyen, 68% of the parents who declined intramuscular vitamin K also declined erythromycin ointment, and more than 90% declined hepatitis B vaccine.
“One reason that many parents refuse the hepatitis B vaccine is that they do not think their child is at risk,” explained Kimberly Horstman, MD, from Stanford University and John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, Calif.
Yet hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, which is asymptomatic, can be acquired from many sources, including nonfamily contacts, according to Dr. Horstman.
“The AAP supports universal hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours of birth for all infants over 2,000 g at birth,” Dr. Horstman said. In those weighing less, the vaccine is recommended within the first month of life.
The risk of parental refusal for recommended neonatal preventive medicines is higher among those with more education and higher income relative to those with less, Dr. Nguyen said. Other predictors include older maternal age, private insurance, and delivery by a midwife or at a birthing center.
Many parents who refuse preventive neonatal medications do not fully grasp what risks they are accepting by avoiding a recommended medication, according to both Dr. Nguyen and Dr. Horstman. In some cases, the goal is to protect their child from the pain of a needlestick, even when the health consequences might include far more invasive and painful therapies if the child develops the disease the medication would have prevented.
In the case of intramuscular vitamin K, “we encourage a presumptive approach,” Dr. Nguyen said. Concerns can then be addressed only if the parents refuse.
For another strategy, Dr. Nguyen recommended counseling parents about the need and value of preventive therapies during pregnancy. She cited data suggesting that it is more difficult to change the minds of parents after delivery.
Echoing this approach in regard to HBV vaccine, Dr. Horstman suggested encouraging colleagues, including obstetricians and community pediatricians, to raise and address this topic during prenatal counseling. By preparing parents for the recommended medications in the prenatal period, concerns can be addressed in advance.
The health risks posed by parents who refuse recommended medications is recognized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Both Dr. Horstman and Dr. Nguyen said there are handouts from the CDC and the AAP to inform parents of the purpose and benefit of recommended preventive therapies, as well as to equip caregivers with facts for effective counseling.
according to an update at the virtual Pediatric Hospital Medicine virtual. This finding indicates the value of preparing policies and strategies to guide parents to appropriate medical decisions in advance.
“Elimination of nonmedical exceptions to vaccinations and intramuscular vitamin K made it into two of the AAP [American Academy of Pediatrics] top 10 public health resolutions, most likely because refusal rates are going up,” reported Ha N. Nguyen, MD, of the division of pediatric hospital medicine at Stanford (Calif.) University.
Importantly, state laws differ. For example, erythromycin ointment is mandated in neonates for prevention of gonococcal ophthalmia neonatorum in many states, including New York, where it can be administered without consent, according to Dr. Nguyen. Conversely, California does not mandate this preventive therapy even though the law does not offer medico-legal protection to providers if it is not given.
“There is a glaring gap in the way the [California] law was written,” said Dr. Nguyen, who used this as an example of why protocols and strategies to reduce risk of parental refusal of neonatal therapies should be informed by, and consistent with, state laws.
Because of the low levels of vitamin K in infants, the rate of bleeding within the first few months of life is nearly 2%, according to figures cited by Dr. Nguyen. It falls to less than 0.001% with administration of intramuscular vitamin K.
Families who refuse intramuscular vitamin K often state that they understand the risks, but data from a survey Dr. Nguyen cited found this is not necessarily true. In this survey, about two-thirds knew that bleeding was the risk, but less than 20% understood bleeding risks included intracranial hemorrhage, and less than 10% were aware that there was potential for a fatal outcome.
“This is a huge piece of the puzzle for counseling,” Dr. Nguyen said. “The discussion with parents should explicitly involve the explanation that the risks include brain bleeds and death.”
Although most infant bleeds attributed to low vitamin K stores are mucocutaneous or gastrointestinal, intracranial hemorrhage does occur, and these outcomes can be devastating. Up to 25% of infants who experience an intracranial hemorrhage die, while 60% of those who survive have some degree of neurodevelopmental impairment, according to Dr. Nguyen.
Oral vitamin K, which requires multiple doses, is not an appropriate substitute for the recommended single injection of the intramuscular formulation. The one study that compared intramuscular and oral vitamin K did not prove equivalence, and no oral vitamin K products have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Nguyen reported.
“We do know confidently that oral vitamin K does often result in poor adherence,” she said,
In a recent review article of parental vitamin K refusal, one of the most significant predictors of refusal of any recommended neonatal preventive treatment was refusal of another. According to data in that article, summarized by Dr. Nguyen, 68% of the parents who declined intramuscular vitamin K also declined erythromycin ointment, and more than 90% declined hepatitis B vaccine.
“One reason that many parents refuse the hepatitis B vaccine is that they do not think their child is at risk,” explained Kimberly Horstman, MD, from Stanford University and John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, Calif.
Yet hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, which is asymptomatic, can be acquired from many sources, including nonfamily contacts, according to Dr. Horstman.
“The AAP supports universal hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours of birth for all infants over 2,000 g at birth,” Dr. Horstman said. In those weighing less, the vaccine is recommended within the first month of life.
The risk of parental refusal for recommended neonatal preventive medicines is higher among those with more education and higher income relative to those with less, Dr. Nguyen said. Other predictors include older maternal age, private insurance, and delivery by a midwife or at a birthing center.
Many parents who refuse preventive neonatal medications do not fully grasp what risks they are accepting by avoiding a recommended medication, according to both Dr. Nguyen and Dr. Horstman. In some cases, the goal is to protect their child from the pain of a needlestick, even when the health consequences might include far more invasive and painful therapies if the child develops the disease the medication would have prevented.
In the case of intramuscular vitamin K, “we encourage a presumptive approach,” Dr. Nguyen said. Concerns can then be addressed only if the parents refuse.
For another strategy, Dr. Nguyen recommended counseling parents about the need and value of preventive therapies during pregnancy. She cited data suggesting that it is more difficult to change the minds of parents after delivery.
Echoing this approach in regard to HBV vaccine, Dr. Horstman suggested encouraging colleagues, including obstetricians and community pediatricians, to raise and address this topic during prenatal counseling. By preparing parents for the recommended medications in the prenatal period, concerns can be addressed in advance.
The health risks posed by parents who refuse recommended medications is recognized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Both Dr. Horstman and Dr. Nguyen said there are handouts from the CDC and the AAP to inform parents of the purpose and benefit of recommended preventive therapies, as well as to equip caregivers with facts for effective counseling.
FROM PHM 2020
Real-world data show SGLT2 inhibitors for diabetes triple DKA risk
according to a new large database analysis.
The findings, which include data on the use of three different SGLT2 inhibitors in Canada and the United Kingdom and suggest a class effect, were published online July 27 in Annals of Internal Medicine by Antonios Douros, MD, PhD, of McGill University and the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology, Lady Davis Institute, Montreal, and colleagues.
“Our results provide robust evidence that SGLT2 inhibitors are associated with an increased risk for DKA. Of note, increased risks were observed in all molecule-specific analyses, with canagliflozin [Invokana, Janssen] showing the highest effect estimate,” they noted.
And because the beneficial effects of SGLT2 inhibitors in the prevention of cardiovascular and renal disease will probably increase their uptake in the coming years, “Physicians should be aware of DKA as a potential adverse effect,” Dr. Douros and colleagues wrote.
Analysis “generally confirms what has already been published”
Asked for comment, Simeon I. Taylor, MD, PhD, professor of medicine at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, said that the study “generally confirms what has already been published” on the topic. He noted that overall “the risk of SGLT2 inhibitor–induced ketoacidosis is quite low in type 2 diabetes, perhaps on the order of 1 episode per 1000 patient-years.”
However, Dr. Taylor cautioned: “Published evidence suggests that the risk of DKA is increased if patients are unable to eat,” such as when hospitalized patients are not permitted to eat.
“In that setting, it is probably prudent to discontinue an SGLT2 inhibitor. Also, it may be prudent not to prescribe SGLT2 inhibitors to patients with a history of DKA,” he added.
Dr. Taylor also advised: “Although not necessarily supported by this publication, I think that caution should be exercised in prescribing SGLT2 inhibitors to insulin-dependent type 2 diabetes patients. ... Some late-stage type 2 diabetes patients may have severe insulin deficiency, and their physiology may resemble that of a type 1 diabetes patient.”
Dr. Taylor has previously advised against using SGLT2 inhibitors altogether in patients with type 1 diabetes.
Increased DKA risk seen across all SGLT2 inhibitors
The study involved electronic health care databases from seven Canadian provinces and the United Kingdom, from which 208,757 new users of SGLT2 inhibitors were propensity-matched 1:1 to new dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitor users.
Of those taking an SGLT2 inhibitor, 42.3% took canagliflozin, 30.7% dapagliflozin (Farxiga/Forxiga, AstraZeneca), and 27.0% empagliflozin (Jardiance, Boehringer Ingelheim).
Over a mean 0.9-year follow-up, 521 patients were hospitalized with DKA, for an overall incidence rate of 1.41 per 1,000 person-years.
The rate with SGLT2 inhibitors, 2.03 per 1,000 person-years, was nearly three times that seen with DPP-4 inhibitors, at 0.75 per 1,000 person-years, a significant difference (hazard ratio, 2.85).
By individual SGLT2 inhibitor, the hazard ratios compared with DPP-4 inhibitors were 1.86 for dapagliflozin, 2.52 for empagliflozin, and 3.58 for canagliflozin, all statistically significant. Stratification by age, sex, and incident versus prevalent user did not change the association between SGLT2 inhibitors and DKA.
Asked about the higher rate for canagliflozin, Dr. Taylor commented: “It is hard to know whether there are real and reproducible differences in the risks of DKA among the various SGLT2 inhibitors. The differences are not huge and the populations are not well matched.”
But, he noted, “If canagliflozin triggers more glucosuria, it is not surprising that it would also induce more ketosis and possibly ketoacidosis.”
He also noted that the threefold relative increase in DKA with canagliflozin versus comparators is consistent with Janssen’s data, published in 2015.
“It is, of course, reassuring that both [randomized clinical trials] and epidemiology produce similar estimates of the risk of drug-induced adverse events. Interestingly, the incidence of DKA is approximately threefold higher in the Canadian [data] as compared to Janssen’s clinical trials.”
Dr. Taylor also pointed out that, in the Janssen studies, the risk of canagliflozin-induced DKA appeared to be higher among patients with anti-islet antibodies, which suggests that some may have actually had autoimmune (type 1) diabetes. “So the overall risk of SGLT2 inhibitor-induced DKA may depend at least in part on the mix of patients.”
In the current study, individuals who never used insulin had a greater relative increase in risk of DKA with SGLT2 inhibitors, compared with DPP-4 inhibitors, than did those who did use insulin (hazard ratios, 3.96 vs. 2.24, both compared with DPP-4 inhibitors). However, just among those taking SGLT2 inhibitors, the absolute risk for DKA was higher for those with prior insulin use (3.52 vs. 1.43 per 1,000 person-years).
The results of sensitivity analyses were consistent with those of the primary analysis.
The study was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and supported by ICES. Dr. Douros has reported receiving a salary support award from Fonds de recherche du Quebec – sante. Dr. Taylor was previously employed at Bristol-Myers Squibb. He is currently a consultant for Ionis Pharmaceuticals and has reported receiving research support provided to the University of Maryland School of Medicine by Regeneron.
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.
according to a new large database analysis.
The findings, which include data on the use of three different SGLT2 inhibitors in Canada and the United Kingdom and suggest a class effect, were published online July 27 in Annals of Internal Medicine by Antonios Douros, MD, PhD, of McGill University and the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology, Lady Davis Institute, Montreal, and colleagues.
“Our results provide robust evidence that SGLT2 inhibitors are associated with an increased risk for DKA. Of note, increased risks were observed in all molecule-specific analyses, with canagliflozin [Invokana, Janssen] showing the highest effect estimate,” they noted.
And because the beneficial effects of SGLT2 inhibitors in the prevention of cardiovascular and renal disease will probably increase their uptake in the coming years, “Physicians should be aware of DKA as a potential adverse effect,” Dr. Douros and colleagues wrote.
Analysis “generally confirms what has already been published”
Asked for comment, Simeon I. Taylor, MD, PhD, professor of medicine at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, said that the study “generally confirms what has already been published” on the topic. He noted that overall “the risk of SGLT2 inhibitor–induced ketoacidosis is quite low in type 2 diabetes, perhaps on the order of 1 episode per 1000 patient-years.”
However, Dr. Taylor cautioned: “Published evidence suggests that the risk of DKA is increased if patients are unable to eat,” such as when hospitalized patients are not permitted to eat.
“In that setting, it is probably prudent to discontinue an SGLT2 inhibitor. Also, it may be prudent not to prescribe SGLT2 inhibitors to patients with a history of DKA,” he added.
Dr. Taylor also advised: “Although not necessarily supported by this publication, I think that caution should be exercised in prescribing SGLT2 inhibitors to insulin-dependent type 2 diabetes patients. ... Some late-stage type 2 diabetes patients may have severe insulin deficiency, and their physiology may resemble that of a type 1 diabetes patient.”
Dr. Taylor has previously advised against using SGLT2 inhibitors altogether in patients with type 1 diabetes.
Increased DKA risk seen across all SGLT2 inhibitors
The study involved electronic health care databases from seven Canadian provinces and the United Kingdom, from which 208,757 new users of SGLT2 inhibitors were propensity-matched 1:1 to new dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitor users.
Of those taking an SGLT2 inhibitor, 42.3% took canagliflozin, 30.7% dapagliflozin (Farxiga/Forxiga, AstraZeneca), and 27.0% empagliflozin (Jardiance, Boehringer Ingelheim).
Over a mean 0.9-year follow-up, 521 patients were hospitalized with DKA, for an overall incidence rate of 1.41 per 1,000 person-years.
The rate with SGLT2 inhibitors, 2.03 per 1,000 person-years, was nearly three times that seen with DPP-4 inhibitors, at 0.75 per 1,000 person-years, a significant difference (hazard ratio, 2.85).
By individual SGLT2 inhibitor, the hazard ratios compared with DPP-4 inhibitors were 1.86 for dapagliflozin, 2.52 for empagliflozin, and 3.58 for canagliflozin, all statistically significant. Stratification by age, sex, and incident versus prevalent user did not change the association between SGLT2 inhibitors and DKA.
Asked about the higher rate for canagliflozin, Dr. Taylor commented: “It is hard to know whether there are real and reproducible differences in the risks of DKA among the various SGLT2 inhibitors. The differences are not huge and the populations are not well matched.”
But, he noted, “If canagliflozin triggers more glucosuria, it is not surprising that it would also induce more ketosis and possibly ketoacidosis.”
He also noted that the threefold relative increase in DKA with canagliflozin versus comparators is consistent with Janssen’s data, published in 2015.
“It is, of course, reassuring that both [randomized clinical trials] and epidemiology produce similar estimates of the risk of drug-induced adverse events. Interestingly, the incidence of DKA is approximately threefold higher in the Canadian [data] as compared to Janssen’s clinical trials.”
Dr. Taylor also pointed out that, in the Janssen studies, the risk of canagliflozin-induced DKA appeared to be higher among patients with anti-islet antibodies, which suggests that some may have actually had autoimmune (type 1) diabetes. “So the overall risk of SGLT2 inhibitor-induced DKA may depend at least in part on the mix of patients.”
In the current study, individuals who never used insulin had a greater relative increase in risk of DKA with SGLT2 inhibitors, compared with DPP-4 inhibitors, than did those who did use insulin (hazard ratios, 3.96 vs. 2.24, both compared with DPP-4 inhibitors). However, just among those taking SGLT2 inhibitors, the absolute risk for DKA was higher for those with prior insulin use (3.52 vs. 1.43 per 1,000 person-years).
The results of sensitivity analyses were consistent with those of the primary analysis.
The study was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and supported by ICES. Dr. Douros has reported receiving a salary support award from Fonds de recherche du Quebec – sante. Dr. Taylor was previously employed at Bristol-Myers Squibb. He is currently a consultant for Ionis Pharmaceuticals and has reported receiving research support provided to the University of Maryland School of Medicine by Regeneron.
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.
according to a new large database analysis.
The findings, which include data on the use of three different SGLT2 inhibitors in Canada and the United Kingdom and suggest a class effect, were published online July 27 in Annals of Internal Medicine by Antonios Douros, MD, PhD, of McGill University and the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology, Lady Davis Institute, Montreal, and colleagues.
“Our results provide robust evidence that SGLT2 inhibitors are associated with an increased risk for DKA. Of note, increased risks were observed in all molecule-specific analyses, with canagliflozin [Invokana, Janssen] showing the highest effect estimate,” they noted.
And because the beneficial effects of SGLT2 inhibitors in the prevention of cardiovascular and renal disease will probably increase their uptake in the coming years, “Physicians should be aware of DKA as a potential adverse effect,” Dr. Douros and colleagues wrote.
Analysis “generally confirms what has already been published”
Asked for comment, Simeon I. Taylor, MD, PhD, professor of medicine at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, said that the study “generally confirms what has already been published” on the topic. He noted that overall “the risk of SGLT2 inhibitor–induced ketoacidosis is quite low in type 2 diabetes, perhaps on the order of 1 episode per 1000 patient-years.”
However, Dr. Taylor cautioned: “Published evidence suggests that the risk of DKA is increased if patients are unable to eat,” such as when hospitalized patients are not permitted to eat.
“In that setting, it is probably prudent to discontinue an SGLT2 inhibitor. Also, it may be prudent not to prescribe SGLT2 inhibitors to patients with a history of DKA,” he added.
Dr. Taylor also advised: “Although not necessarily supported by this publication, I think that caution should be exercised in prescribing SGLT2 inhibitors to insulin-dependent type 2 diabetes patients. ... Some late-stage type 2 diabetes patients may have severe insulin deficiency, and their physiology may resemble that of a type 1 diabetes patient.”
Dr. Taylor has previously advised against using SGLT2 inhibitors altogether in patients with type 1 diabetes.
Increased DKA risk seen across all SGLT2 inhibitors
The study involved electronic health care databases from seven Canadian provinces and the United Kingdom, from which 208,757 new users of SGLT2 inhibitors were propensity-matched 1:1 to new dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitor users.
Of those taking an SGLT2 inhibitor, 42.3% took canagliflozin, 30.7% dapagliflozin (Farxiga/Forxiga, AstraZeneca), and 27.0% empagliflozin (Jardiance, Boehringer Ingelheim).
Over a mean 0.9-year follow-up, 521 patients were hospitalized with DKA, for an overall incidence rate of 1.41 per 1,000 person-years.
The rate with SGLT2 inhibitors, 2.03 per 1,000 person-years, was nearly three times that seen with DPP-4 inhibitors, at 0.75 per 1,000 person-years, a significant difference (hazard ratio, 2.85).
By individual SGLT2 inhibitor, the hazard ratios compared with DPP-4 inhibitors were 1.86 for dapagliflozin, 2.52 for empagliflozin, and 3.58 for canagliflozin, all statistically significant. Stratification by age, sex, and incident versus prevalent user did not change the association between SGLT2 inhibitors and DKA.
Asked about the higher rate for canagliflozin, Dr. Taylor commented: “It is hard to know whether there are real and reproducible differences in the risks of DKA among the various SGLT2 inhibitors. The differences are not huge and the populations are not well matched.”
But, he noted, “If canagliflozin triggers more glucosuria, it is not surprising that it would also induce more ketosis and possibly ketoacidosis.”
He also noted that the threefold relative increase in DKA with canagliflozin versus comparators is consistent with Janssen’s data, published in 2015.
“It is, of course, reassuring that both [randomized clinical trials] and epidemiology produce similar estimates of the risk of drug-induced adverse events. Interestingly, the incidence of DKA is approximately threefold higher in the Canadian [data] as compared to Janssen’s clinical trials.”
Dr. Taylor also pointed out that, in the Janssen studies, the risk of canagliflozin-induced DKA appeared to be higher among patients with anti-islet antibodies, which suggests that some may have actually had autoimmune (type 1) diabetes. “So the overall risk of SGLT2 inhibitor-induced DKA may depend at least in part on the mix of patients.”
In the current study, individuals who never used insulin had a greater relative increase in risk of DKA with SGLT2 inhibitors, compared with DPP-4 inhibitors, than did those who did use insulin (hazard ratios, 3.96 vs. 2.24, both compared with DPP-4 inhibitors). However, just among those taking SGLT2 inhibitors, the absolute risk for DKA was higher for those with prior insulin use (3.52 vs. 1.43 per 1,000 person-years).
The results of sensitivity analyses were consistent with those of the primary analysis.
The study was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and supported by ICES. Dr. Douros has reported receiving a salary support award from Fonds de recherche du Quebec – sante. Dr. Taylor was previously employed at Bristol-Myers Squibb. He is currently a consultant for Ionis Pharmaceuticals and has reported receiving research support provided to the University of Maryland School of Medicine by Regeneron.
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.
How to set up your hyperhidrosis patients for treatment success
When children and adolescents first present to George Hightower, MD, PhD, with suspected primary hyperhidrosis, he tries to gauge their level of impairment and distress.
“I ask my patients directly: ‘Does this get in the way of doing things you enjoy?’ ” Dr. Hightower said during the virtual Pediatric Dermatology 2020: Best Practices and Innovations Conference. If they say yes, he then asks, “‘What are those things that it gets in the way of?’ Also, so that I can develop a rapport with them, I ask, ‘Is it causing you to view yourself negatively?’ I also ask them how they anticipate treatment is going to change that.”
Dr. Hightower, of the departments of dermatology and pediatrics, University of California, San Diego, and a pediatric dermatologist at Rady Children’s Hospital, defined focal primary hyperhidrosis as focal, visible, excessive sweating for at least 6 months without an apparent cause, plus at least two of the following characteristics: bilateral and relatively symmetric, sweating that impairs daily activities, onset before age 25, at least one episode per week, family history of idiopathic hyperhidrosis, and focal sweating that stops during sleep.
“Based on their prominence in the popular media, armpits relative to body surface area play an oversized role in our patients’ perception of well-being,” he said. “Most of all, patients’ concerns regarding their armpits include one more of the following symptoms: smelly, sweaty, red, and itchy or painful.”
Topical antiperspirants are the preferred initial treatment. “They’re widely available, inexpensive, and well-tolerated therapies,” Dr. Hightower said. Most commercially available antiperspirants contain low-dose aluminum or other metal that keeps the sweat gland ducts from opening.
“Most patients referred to me have failed to improve with over-the-counter antiperspirants or aluminum chloride 20%,” he said. “We start by reviewing the appropriate use of aluminum chloride 20%. If they’re using it appropriately and fail to achieve adequate control, I open the discussion to use glycopyrronium tosylate cloth 2.4%, applied daily. This can be cost prohibitive or not covered by insurance.” Other options include glycopyrrolate 1-6 mg daily and microwave-based procedural intervention.
In a post hoc analysis, researchers examined the efficacy and safety findings by age from two phase three randomized, controlled trials of glycopyrronium tosylate in pediatric primary axillary hyperhidrosis (Pediatr Dermatol. 2019 Jan-Feb;36[1]:89-99). It was well tolerated in the 19 patients aged 9-16 years. “No patients discontinued from the study in this age group [because of] symptomatology,” said Dr. Hightower, who was not involved with the study. “The concerns related to this medication are related to anticholinergic effects such as blurry vision and dry mouth, but overall, randomized clinical trial data support the benefit of this medication in helping patients improve the symptoms of hyperhidrosis.”
In an earlier study, researchers retrospectively studied children with hyperhidrosis who were treated with a mean dosage of 2 mg glycopyrronium tosylate daily (J Am Acad Dermatol 2012 Nov;67[5]:918-23). The average age of patients was 15 years. Most (90%) experienced some improvement and 71% of those who responded saw major improvement. This occurred within hours of administration and disappeared within a day of discontinuation. The two most common side effects were dry mouth (26%) and dry eyes (10%). More worrisome side effects were associated with higher dosing, including blurring of vision (3%) and sensation of palpitations (3%).
When patients return for their first follow-up appointment after starting a treatment plan, Dr. Hightower revisits their level of impairment and distress with hyperhidrosis. “I ask, ‘Remember that activity that you were doing before that this was getting in the way of? Are you doing that more? Do you feel like you can do that in a way that you weren’t able to do before, whether it’s playing an instrument or spending time with friends?’ ”
He also sets expectations with patients and their families with comments such as, “If this treatment does not work for you after 2 months, the next option I would consider is ...” and, “for most people there is no cure, but treatment is helpful.” He also emphasizes the importance of follow-up care, so they “come back to assess the next steps.”
Dr. Hightower reported having no financial disclosures.
When children and adolescents first present to George Hightower, MD, PhD, with suspected primary hyperhidrosis, he tries to gauge their level of impairment and distress.
“I ask my patients directly: ‘Does this get in the way of doing things you enjoy?’ ” Dr. Hightower said during the virtual Pediatric Dermatology 2020: Best Practices and Innovations Conference. If they say yes, he then asks, “‘What are those things that it gets in the way of?’ Also, so that I can develop a rapport with them, I ask, ‘Is it causing you to view yourself negatively?’ I also ask them how they anticipate treatment is going to change that.”
Dr. Hightower, of the departments of dermatology and pediatrics, University of California, San Diego, and a pediatric dermatologist at Rady Children’s Hospital, defined focal primary hyperhidrosis as focal, visible, excessive sweating for at least 6 months without an apparent cause, plus at least two of the following characteristics: bilateral and relatively symmetric, sweating that impairs daily activities, onset before age 25, at least one episode per week, family history of idiopathic hyperhidrosis, and focal sweating that stops during sleep.
“Based on their prominence in the popular media, armpits relative to body surface area play an oversized role in our patients’ perception of well-being,” he said. “Most of all, patients’ concerns regarding their armpits include one more of the following symptoms: smelly, sweaty, red, and itchy or painful.”
Topical antiperspirants are the preferred initial treatment. “They’re widely available, inexpensive, and well-tolerated therapies,” Dr. Hightower said. Most commercially available antiperspirants contain low-dose aluminum or other metal that keeps the sweat gland ducts from opening.
“Most patients referred to me have failed to improve with over-the-counter antiperspirants or aluminum chloride 20%,” he said. “We start by reviewing the appropriate use of aluminum chloride 20%. If they’re using it appropriately and fail to achieve adequate control, I open the discussion to use glycopyrronium tosylate cloth 2.4%, applied daily. This can be cost prohibitive or not covered by insurance.” Other options include glycopyrrolate 1-6 mg daily and microwave-based procedural intervention.
In a post hoc analysis, researchers examined the efficacy and safety findings by age from two phase three randomized, controlled trials of glycopyrronium tosylate in pediatric primary axillary hyperhidrosis (Pediatr Dermatol. 2019 Jan-Feb;36[1]:89-99). It was well tolerated in the 19 patients aged 9-16 years. “No patients discontinued from the study in this age group [because of] symptomatology,” said Dr. Hightower, who was not involved with the study. “The concerns related to this medication are related to anticholinergic effects such as blurry vision and dry mouth, but overall, randomized clinical trial data support the benefit of this medication in helping patients improve the symptoms of hyperhidrosis.”
In an earlier study, researchers retrospectively studied children with hyperhidrosis who were treated with a mean dosage of 2 mg glycopyrronium tosylate daily (J Am Acad Dermatol 2012 Nov;67[5]:918-23). The average age of patients was 15 years. Most (90%) experienced some improvement and 71% of those who responded saw major improvement. This occurred within hours of administration and disappeared within a day of discontinuation. The two most common side effects were dry mouth (26%) and dry eyes (10%). More worrisome side effects were associated with higher dosing, including blurring of vision (3%) and sensation of palpitations (3%).
When patients return for their first follow-up appointment after starting a treatment plan, Dr. Hightower revisits their level of impairment and distress with hyperhidrosis. “I ask, ‘Remember that activity that you were doing before that this was getting in the way of? Are you doing that more? Do you feel like you can do that in a way that you weren’t able to do before, whether it’s playing an instrument or spending time with friends?’ ”
He also sets expectations with patients and their families with comments such as, “If this treatment does not work for you after 2 months, the next option I would consider is ...” and, “for most people there is no cure, but treatment is helpful.” He also emphasizes the importance of follow-up care, so they “come back to assess the next steps.”
Dr. Hightower reported having no financial disclosures.
When children and adolescents first present to George Hightower, MD, PhD, with suspected primary hyperhidrosis, he tries to gauge their level of impairment and distress.
“I ask my patients directly: ‘Does this get in the way of doing things you enjoy?’ ” Dr. Hightower said during the virtual Pediatric Dermatology 2020: Best Practices and Innovations Conference. If they say yes, he then asks, “‘What are those things that it gets in the way of?’ Also, so that I can develop a rapport with them, I ask, ‘Is it causing you to view yourself negatively?’ I also ask them how they anticipate treatment is going to change that.”
Dr. Hightower, of the departments of dermatology and pediatrics, University of California, San Diego, and a pediatric dermatologist at Rady Children’s Hospital, defined focal primary hyperhidrosis as focal, visible, excessive sweating for at least 6 months without an apparent cause, plus at least two of the following characteristics: bilateral and relatively symmetric, sweating that impairs daily activities, onset before age 25, at least one episode per week, family history of idiopathic hyperhidrosis, and focal sweating that stops during sleep.
“Based on their prominence in the popular media, armpits relative to body surface area play an oversized role in our patients’ perception of well-being,” he said. “Most of all, patients’ concerns regarding their armpits include one more of the following symptoms: smelly, sweaty, red, and itchy or painful.”
Topical antiperspirants are the preferred initial treatment. “They’re widely available, inexpensive, and well-tolerated therapies,” Dr. Hightower said. Most commercially available antiperspirants contain low-dose aluminum or other metal that keeps the sweat gland ducts from opening.
“Most patients referred to me have failed to improve with over-the-counter antiperspirants or aluminum chloride 20%,” he said. “We start by reviewing the appropriate use of aluminum chloride 20%. If they’re using it appropriately and fail to achieve adequate control, I open the discussion to use glycopyrronium tosylate cloth 2.4%, applied daily. This can be cost prohibitive or not covered by insurance.” Other options include glycopyrrolate 1-6 mg daily and microwave-based procedural intervention.
In a post hoc analysis, researchers examined the efficacy and safety findings by age from two phase three randomized, controlled trials of glycopyrronium tosylate in pediatric primary axillary hyperhidrosis (Pediatr Dermatol. 2019 Jan-Feb;36[1]:89-99). It was well tolerated in the 19 patients aged 9-16 years. “No patients discontinued from the study in this age group [because of] symptomatology,” said Dr. Hightower, who was not involved with the study. “The concerns related to this medication are related to anticholinergic effects such as blurry vision and dry mouth, but overall, randomized clinical trial data support the benefit of this medication in helping patients improve the symptoms of hyperhidrosis.”
In an earlier study, researchers retrospectively studied children with hyperhidrosis who were treated with a mean dosage of 2 mg glycopyrronium tosylate daily (J Am Acad Dermatol 2012 Nov;67[5]:918-23). The average age of patients was 15 years. Most (90%) experienced some improvement and 71% of those who responded saw major improvement. This occurred within hours of administration and disappeared within a day of discontinuation. The two most common side effects were dry mouth (26%) and dry eyes (10%). More worrisome side effects were associated with higher dosing, including blurring of vision (3%) and sensation of palpitations (3%).
When patients return for their first follow-up appointment after starting a treatment plan, Dr. Hightower revisits their level of impairment and distress with hyperhidrosis. “I ask, ‘Remember that activity that you were doing before that this was getting in the way of? Are you doing that more? Do you feel like you can do that in a way that you weren’t able to do before, whether it’s playing an instrument or spending time with friends?’ ”
He also sets expectations with patients and their families with comments such as, “If this treatment does not work for you after 2 months, the next option I would consider is ...” and, “for most people there is no cure, but treatment is helpful.” He also emphasizes the importance of follow-up care, so they “come back to assess the next steps.”
Dr. Hightower reported having no financial disclosures.
FROM PEDIATRIC DERMATOLOGY 2020
NSAID continuation linked to less knee OA pain
in a randomized trial.
The Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) pain score was 6.7 out of a possible total of 20 for patients who continued meloxicam for 4 weeks versus 7.8 in those who stopped and switched to a placebo. The estimated mean difference in pain score was 1.4 (P = .92 for noninferiority), which is below the threshold of 2.1 that is considered to be the minimum clinically important difference.
Furthermore, patients who had switched to placebo and then subsequently participated in a telephone-based cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) program for another 10 weeks had higher pain levels compared with those who continued meloxicam. WOMAC scores were 12.1 and 11.8, respectively with a mean difference of 0.8 (P = .28 for noninferiority).
“Among patients with knee osteoarthritis, placebo and CBT (after placebo) are inferior to meloxicam,” Liana Fraenkel, MD, MPH, of Yale University, New Haven, Conn., and coinvestigators concluded in their article, published in JAMA Internal Medicine.
They observed that the WOMAC pain score differences between the two groups were small, however, and that there were no statistically significant differences in participants’ global impression of change or function after 14 weeks.
“Although the overall results of the trial are negative, they provide clinicians with data to support shared decision-making and reassure patients willing to taper NSAIDs and consider self-management approaches such as CBT,” Dr. Fraenkel and coauthors suggested.
The Stopping NSAIDs for Arthritis Pain trial had ultimately included 364 participants, 86% of whom were men, recruited from four veterans affairs health care systems. All had been taking NSAIDs for knee OA pain for at least 3 months and had participated in a 2-week run-in period where the NSAID they had been taking was switched to meloxicam, 15 mg once daily.
The aim of the trial had been to see if discontinuing NSAIDs and starting a CBT program would be noninferior to continuing NSAIDs in patients with knee OA.
The trial does not provide robust information on the use of CBT, David Walsh, a rheumatologist and director of the Pain Centre Versus Arthritis at the University of Nottingham, England, said in an interview.
“It can’t tell you about efficacy of CBT,” Dr. Walsh said as the CBT part of the study was not randomized, was not controlled, and was unblinded. ”It would be a different task to design a CBT trial aiming to help people to stop taking tablets,” he added.
Dr. Fraenkel and coinvestigators had reported that, at week 14, the adjusted mean difference in WOMAC pain score between the placebo (followed by CBT) and meloxicam groups was 0.8 (P = .28 for noninferiority).
“What the trial’s really doing is seeing whether people who’ve been on long-term nonsteroidals, can they just stop them without getting any worse? The conclusion for that is actually they are more likely to get worse than not if you just stop the nonsteroidals,” Dr. Walsh said.
“The withdrawal trial protocol is an important one. You can’t run a prospective trial for years to see whether something works for years. It is just not feasible. So actually, the protocol they’ve got of switching to placebo, or continuing with a nonsteroidal, is probably the best way of working out if an anti-inflammatory still has a pharmacological effect after actually being on it for X years,” Dr. Walsh said.
Dr. Walsh, who was not involved in the trial, observed that while the difference in pain scores between the groups was small, the deterioration in scores might be important for individual patients. Some may do worse, although granted that there may be some that might do better, he said.
“It is suggesting to me that nonsteroidals are still working in people who are on long-term treatment. It is not a very big pharmacological effect, but we already know from the RCTs of anti-inflammatory tablets, that they can be beneficial,” Dr. Walsh noted.
He also pointed out that patients’ pain had been improved after being switched from their current NSAID to meloxicam – the overall WOMAC pain score at recruitment was 9.6 and was 5.6 after the 2-week meloxicam run-in phase.
“Now, whether that’s because they’ve been switched to meloxicam, or whether it’s because they’re in a trial,” is an important question, Dr. Walsh suggested, adding that “it looks as though it’s more likely to be because they’re in a trial, because improvement was maintained during the following 4 weeks on placebo.”
Another point he made was that there was a higher percentage of patients in the placebo group that started taking other types of painkillers, just under half (46%) used acetaminophen versus a quarter (26%) of those who continued using meloxicam.
It is an interesting trial, “trying to tackle some really difficult questions and I think that there are really important implications from it that we can build on, but is it actually going to change the lives of patients at the moment? Not massively,” Dr. Walsh said, ”but it’s another step in the right direction.”
Dr. Fraenkel disclosed receiving research funding from the VA Office of Research and Development, the sponsor of the trial.
SOURCE: Fraenkel L et al. JAMA Intern Med. 2020 Jul 20. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.2821.
in a randomized trial.
The Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) pain score was 6.7 out of a possible total of 20 for patients who continued meloxicam for 4 weeks versus 7.8 in those who stopped and switched to a placebo. The estimated mean difference in pain score was 1.4 (P = .92 for noninferiority), which is below the threshold of 2.1 that is considered to be the minimum clinically important difference.
Furthermore, patients who had switched to placebo and then subsequently participated in a telephone-based cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) program for another 10 weeks had higher pain levels compared with those who continued meloxicam. WOMAC scores were 12.1 and 11.8, respectively with a mean difference of 0.8 (P = .28 for noninferiority).
“Among patients with knee osteoarthritis, placebo and CBT (after placebo) are inferior to meloxicam,” Liana Fraenkel, MD, MPH, of Yale University, New Haven, Conn., and coinvestigators concluded in their article, published in JAMA Internal Medicine.
They observed that the WOMAC pain score differences between the two groups were small, however, and that there were no statistically significant differences in participants’ global impression of change or function after 14 weeks.
“Although the overall results of the trial are negative, they provide clinicians with data to support shared decision-making and reassure patients willing to taper NSAIDs and consider self-management approaches such as CBT,” Dr. Fraenkel and coauthors suggested.
The Stopping NSAIDs for Arthritis Pain trial had ultimately included 364 participants, 86% of whom were men, recruited from four veterans affairs health care systems. All had been taking NSAIDs for knee OA pain for at least 3 months and had participated in a 2-week run-in period where the NSAID they had been taking was switched to meloxicam, 15 mg once daily.
The aim of the trial had been to see if discontinuing NSAIDs and starting a CBT program would be noninferior to continuing NSAIDs in patients with knee OA.
The trial does not provide robust information on the use of CBT, David Walsh, a rheumatologist and director of the Pain Centre Versus Arthritis at the University of Nottingham, England, said in an interview.
“It can’t tell you about efficacy of CBT,” Dr. Walsh said as the CBT part of the study was not randomized, was not controlled, and was unblinded. ”It would be a different task to design a CBT trial aiming to help people to stop taking tablets,” he added.
Dr. Fraenkel and coinvestigators had reported that, at week 14, the adjusted mean difference in WOMAC pain score between the placebo (followed by CBT) and meloxicam groups was 0.8 (P = .28 for noninferiority).
“What the trial’s really doing is seeing whether people who’ve been on long-term nonsteroidals, can they just stop them without getting any worse? The conclusion for that is actually they are more likely to get worse than not if you just stop the nonsteroidals,” Dr. Walsh said.
“The withdrawal trial protocol is an important one. You can’t run a prospective trial for years to see whether something works for years. It is just not feasible. So actually, the protocol they’ve got of switching to placebo, or continuing with a nonsteroidal, is probably the best way of working out if an anti-inflammatory still has a pharmacological effect after actually being on it for X years,” Dr. Walsh said.
Dr. Walsh, who was not involved in the trial, observed that while the difference in pain scores between the groups was small, the deterioration in scores might be important for individual patients. Some may do worse, although granted that there may be some that might do better, he said.
“It is suggesting to me that nonsteroidals are still working in people who are on long-term treatment. It is not a very big pharmacological effect, but we already know from the RCTs of anti-inflammatory tablets, that they can be beneficial,” Dr. Walsh noted.
He also pointed out that patients’ pain had been improved after being switched from their current NSAID to meloxicam – the overall WOMAC pain score at recruitment was 9.6 and was 5.6 after the 2-week meloxicam run-in phase.
“Now, whether that’s because they’ve been switched to meloxicam, or whether it’s because they’re in a trial,” is an important question, Dr. Walsh suggested, adding that “it looks as though it’s more likely to be because they’re in a trial, because improvement was maintained during the following 4 weeks on placebo.”
Another point he made was that there was a higher percentage of patients in the placebo group that started taking other types of painkillers, just under half (46%) used acetaminophen versus a quarter (26%) of those who continued using meloxicam.
It is an interesting trial, “trying to tackle some really difficult questions and I think that there are really important implications from it that we can build on, but is it actually going to change the lives of patients at the moment? Not massively,” Dr. Walsh said, ”but it’s another step in the right direction.”
Dr. Fraenkel disclosed receiving research funding from the VA Office of Research and Development, the sponsor of the trial.
SOURCE: Fraenkel L et al. JAMA Intern Med. 2020 Jul 20. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.2821.
in a randomized trial.
The Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) pain score was 6.7 out of a possible total of 20 for patients who continued meloxicam for 4 weeks versus 7.8 in those who stopped and switched to a placebo. The estimated mean difference in pain score was 1.4 (P = .92 for noninferiority), which is below the threshold of 2.1 that is considered to be the minimum clinically important difference.
Furthermore, patients who had switched to placebo and then subsequently participated in a telephone-based cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) program for another 10 weeks had higher pain levels compared with those who continued meloxicam. WOMAC scores were 12.1 and 11.8, respectively with a mean difference of 0.8 (P = .28 for noninferiority).
“Among patients with knee osteoarthritis, placebo and CBT (after placebo) are inferior to meloxicam,” Liana Fraenkel, MD, MPH, of Yale University, New Haven, Conn., and coinvestigators concluded in their article, published in JAMA Internal Medicine.
They observed that the WOMAC pain score differences between the two groups were small, however, and that there were no statistically significant differences in participants’ global impression of change or function after 14 weeks.
“Although the overall results of the trial are negative, they provide clinicians with data to support shared decision-making and reassure patients willing to taper NSAIDs and consider self-management approaches such as CBT,” Dr. Fraenkel and coauthors suggested.
The Stopping NSAIDs for Arthritis Pain trial had ultimately included 364 participants, 86% of whom were men, recruited from four veterans affairs health care systems. All had been taking NSAIDs for knee OA pain for at least 3 months and had participated in a 2-week run-in period where the NSAID they had been taking was switched to meloxicam, 15 mg once daily.
The aim of the trial had been to see if discontinuing NSAIDs and starting a CBT program would be noninferior to continuing NSAIDs in patients with knee OA.
The trial does not provide robust information on the use of CBT, David Walsh, a rheumatologist and director of the Pain Centre Versus Arthritis at the University of Nottingham, England, said in an interview.
“It can’t tell you about efficacy of CBT,” Dr. Walsh said as the CBT part of the study was not randomized, was not controlled, and was unblinded. ”It would be a different task to design a CBT trial aiming to help people to stop taking tablets,” he added.
Dr. Fraenkel and coinvestigators had reported that, at week 14, the adjusted mean difference in WOMAC pain score between the placebo (followed by CBT) and meloxicam groups was 0.8 (P = .28 for noninferiority).
“What the trial’s really doing is seeing whether people who’ve been on long-term nonsteroidals, can they just stop them without getting any worse? The conclusion for that is actually they are more likely to get worse than not if you just stop the nonsteroidals,” Dr. Walsh said.
“The withdrawal trial protocol is an important one. You can’t run a prospective trial for years to see whether something works for years. It is just not feasible. So actually, the protocol they’ve got of switching to placebo, or continuing with a nonsteroidal, is probably the best way of working out if an anti-inflammatory still has a pharmacological effect after actually being on it for X years,” Dr. Walsh said.
Dr. Walsh, who was not involved in the trial, observed that while the difference in pain scores between the groups was small, the deterioration in scores might be important for individual patients. Some may do worse, although granted that there may be some that might do better, he said.
“It is suggesting to me that nonsteroidals are still working in people who are on long-term treatment. It is not a very big pharmacological effect, but we already know from the RCTs of anti-inflammatory tablets, that they can be beneficial,” Dr. Walsh noted.
He also pointed out that patients’ pain had been improved after being switched from their current NSAID to meloxicam – the overall WOMAC pain score at recruitment was 9.6 and was 5.6 after the 2-week meloxicam run-in phase.
“Now, whether that’s because they’ve been switched to meloxicam, or whether it’s because they’re in a trial,” is an important question, Dr. Walsh suggested, adding that “it looks as though it’s more likely to be because they’re in a trial, because improvement was maintained during the following 4 weeks on placebo.”
Another point he made was that there was a higher percentage of patients in the placebo group that started taking other types of painkillers, just under half (46%) used acetaminophen versus a quarter (26%) of those who continued using meloxicam.
It is an interesting trial, “trying to tackle some really difficult questions and I think that there are really important implications from it that we can build on, but is it actually going to change the lives of patients at the moment? Not massively,” Dr. Walsh said, ”but it’s another step in the right direction.”
Dr. Fraenkel disclosed receiving research funding from the VA Office of Research and Development, the sponsor of the trial.
SOURCE: Fraenkel L et al. JAMA Intern Med. 2020 Jul 20. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.2821.
FROM JAMA INTERNAL MEDICINE
AHA statement addresses genetic testing for CVD
A new scientific statement from the American Heart Association recommends that genetic testing for inherited cardiovascular disease should be reserved for four specific types of heart diseases – cardiomyopathies, thoracic aortic aneurysms and dissections, arrhythmias, and familial hypercholesterolemia – and should enlist skilled geneticists and genetic counselors in the care team.
The guidance comes in a scientific statement published online in the journal Circulation: Genomic and Precision Medicine.
Kiran Musunuru, MD, PhD, MPH, ML, chair of the writing group for the scientific statement, described in an interview the rationale for publishing the statement at this time. “There was no prior single statement that summarized best practices for the whole gamut of inherited cardiovascular diseases in adults, only statements for individual diseases,” he said in an interview. “With genetic testing seeing explosive growth in the past few years, both in the clinical setting and with direct-to-consumer testing, we felt that cardiovascular practitioners would benefit from having a single document to serve as a general resource on genetic testing.”
The statement describes two types of patients who would be suitable for genetic testing for cardiovascular disease (CVD), Dr. Musunuru noted: “Patients who have been diagnosed with or are strongly suspected to have a cardiovascular disease that is often inherited and family members of patients who have been diagnosed with an inherited cardiovascular disease and found by genetic testing to have a mutation that is felt to be the cause of the disease.”
The statement also spells out two crucial elements for genetic testing: thorough disease-specific phenotyping – that is, using genetic information to identify the individual’s disease characteristics and a comprehensive family history that spans at least three generations. Testing should only proceed after patients has had genetic counseling and made a shared decision with their doctors.
“Genetic counseling is absolutely essential both before genetic testing to educate patients on what genetic testing entails and what potential results to expect, as well as the risks of testing; and after genetic testing, to review the results of the genetic testing and explain the potential consequences for the patient’s health and the health of family members, including children,” Dr. Musunuru said.
The process should involve board-certified geneticists or at least cardiovascular specialists well-versed in genetics and genetic counselors, the statement noted. The latter are “critical” in the care team, Dr. Musunuru said.
After the decision is made to do genetic testing, the next step is to decide the scope of the testing. That can range from targeted sequencing of a single gene or a few genes linked to the disease to large gene panels; the latter “may not increase the likelihood of clinically actionable results in adult patients,” Dr. Musunuru and colleagues wrote.
But genetic testing is no guarantee to identify a cause or confirm a diagnosis of CVD, the statement noted. “The yield for any genetic testing for any inherited cardiovascular disease remains <100%, usually much less than 100%,” the writing committee stated.
Dr. Musunuru explained that the results can sometimes be inconclusive. “In many cases, genetic testing reveals a mutation that is uninterpretable, what we call a variant of uncertain significance,” he said. “It is not clear whether the mutation increases the risk of disease or is entirely benign, which makes it very challenging to counsel patients as to whether anything should be done about the mutation.”
Even in a diagnosed patient the test results can be uncertain. “This makes it challenging to explain why the patient has the disease and whether any of the family members are at risk,” Dr. Musunuru said.
According to the statement, providers should encourage patients with a confirmed or likely pathogenic variant for CVD to share that information with “all of their at-risk relative,” the statement noted, suggesting “family letters” given to patients are a way to navigate HIPAA’s privacy limits.
The statement was written on behalf of the American Heart Association’s Council on Genomic and Precision Medicine; Council on Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology; Council on Cardiovascular and Stroke Nursing; and Council on Clinical Cardiology.
Dr. Musunuru and writing group members have no relevant financial relationships to disclose.
SOURCE: Musunuru K et al. Circ Genom Precis Med. 2020 Jul 23. doi: 10.1161/HCG.0000000000000067.
A new scientific statement from the American Heart Association recommends that genetic testing for inherited cardiovascular disease should be reserved for four specific types of heart diseases – cardiomyopathies, thoracic aortic aneurysms and dissections, arrhythmias, and familial hypercholesterolemia – and should enlist skilled geneticists and genetic counselors in the care team.
The guidance comes in a scientific statement published online in the journal Circulation: Genomic and Precision Medicine.
Kiran Musunuru, MD, PhD, MPH, ML, chair of the writing group for the scientific statement, described in an interview the rationale for publishing the statement at this time. “There was no prior single statement that summarized best practices for the whole gamut of inherited cardiovascular diseases in adults, only statements for individual diseases,” he said in an interview. “With genetic testing seeing explosive growth in the past few years, both in the clinical setting and with direct-to-consumer testing, we felt that cardiovascular practitioners would benefit from having a single document to serve as a general resource on genetic testing.”
The statement describes two types of patients who would be suitable for genetic testing for cardiovascular disease (CVD), Dr. Musunuru noted: “Patients who have been diagnosed with or are strongly suspected to have a cardiovascular disease that is often inherited and family members of patients who have been diagnosed with an inherited cardiovascular disease and found by genetic testing to have a mutation that is felt to be the cause of the disease.”
The statement also spells out two crucial elements for genetic testing: thorough disease-specific phenotyping – that is, using genetic information to identify the individual’s disease characteristics and a comprehensive family history that spans at least three generations. Testing should only proceed after patients has had genetic counseling and made a shared decision with their doctors.
“Genetic counseling is absolutely essential both before genetic testing to educate patients on what genetic testing entails and what potential results to expect, as well as the risks of testing; and after genetic testing, to review the results of the genetic testing and explain the potential consequences for the patient’s health and the health of family members, including children,” Dr. Musunuru said.
The process should involve board-certified geneticists or at least cardiovascular specialists well-versed in genetics and genetic counselors, the statement noted. The latter are “critical” in the care team, Dr. Musunuru said.
After the decision is made to do genetic testing, the next step is to decide the scope of the testing. That can range from targeted sequencing of a single gene or a few genes linked to the disease to large gene panels; the latter “may not increase the likelihood of clinically actionable results in adult patients,” Dr. Musunuru and colleagues wrote.
But genetic testing is no guarantee to identify a cause or confirm a diagnosis of CVD, the statement noted. “The yield for any genetic testing for any inherited cardiovascular disease remains <100%, usually much less than 100%,” the writing committee stated.
Dr. Musunuru explained that the results can sometimes be inconclusive. “In many cases, genetic testing reveals a mutation that is uninterpretable, what we call a variant of uncertain significance,” he said. “It is not clear whether the mutation increases the risk of disease or is entirely benign, which makes it very challenging to counsel patients as to whether anything should be done about the mutation.”
Even in a diagnosed patient the test results can be uncertain. “This makes it challenging to explain why the patient has the disease and whether any of the family members are at risk,” Dr. Musunuru said.
According to the statement, providers should encourage patients with a confirmed or likely pathogenic variant for CVD to share that information with “all of their at-risk relative,” the statement noted, suggesting “family letters” given to patients are a way to navigate HIPAA’s privacy limits.
The statement was written on behalf of the American Heart Association’s Council on Genomic and Precision Medicine; Council on Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology; Council on Cardiovascular and Stroke Nursing; and Council on Clinical Cardiology.
Dr. Musunuru and writing group members have no relevant financial relationships to disclose.
SOURCE: Musunuru K et al. Circ Genom Precis Med. 2020 Jul 23. doi: 10.1161/HCG.0000000000000067.
A new scientific statement from the American Heart Association recommends that genetic testing for inherited cardiovascular disease should be reserved for four specific types of heart diseases – cardiomyopathies, thoracic aortic aneurysms and dissections, arrhythmias, and familial hypercholesterolemia – and should enlist skilled geneticists and genetic counselors in the care team.
The guidance comes in a scientific statement published online in the journal Circulation: Genomic and Precision Medicine.
Kiran Musunuru, MD, PhD, MPH, ML, chair of the writing group for the scientific statement, described in an interview the rationale for publishing the statement at this time. “There was no prior single statement that summarized best practices for the whole gamut of inherited cardiovascular diseases in adults, only statements for individual diseases,” he said in an interview. “With genetic testing seeing explosive growth in the past few years, both in the clinical setting and with direct-to-consumer testing, we felt that cardiovascular practitioners would benefit from having a single document to serve as a general resource on genetic testing.”
The statement describes two types of patients who would be suitable for genetic testing for cardiovascular disease (CVD), Dr. Musunuru noted: “Patients who have been diagnosed with or are strongly suspected to have a cardiovascular disease that is often inherited and family members of patients who have been diagnosed with an inherited cardiovascular disease and found by genetic testing to have a mutation that is felt to be the cause of the disease.”
The statement also spells out two crucial elements for genetic testing: thorough disease-specific phenotyping – that is, using genetic information to identify the individual’s disease characteristics and a comprehensive family history that spans at least three generations. Testing should only proceed after patients has had genetic counseling and made a shared decision with their doctors.
“Genetic counseling is absolutely essential both before genetic testing to educate patients on what genetic testing entails and what potential results to expect, as well as the risks of testing; and after genetic testing, to review the results of the genetic testing and explain the potential consequences for the patient’s health and the health of family members, including children,” Dr. Musunuru said.
The process should involve board-certified geneticists or at least cardiovascular specialists well-versed in genetics and genetic counselors, the statement noted. The latter are “critical” in the care team, Dr. Musunuru said.
After the decision is made to do genetic testing, the next step is to decide the scope of the testing. That can range from targeted sequencing of a single gene or a few genes linked to the disease to large gene panels; the latter “may not increase the likelihood of clinically actionable results in adult patients,” Dr. Musunuru and colleagues wrote.
But genetic testing is no guarantee to identify a cause or confirm a diagnosis of CVD, the statement noted. “The yield for any genetic testing for any inherited cardiovascular disease remains <100%, usually much less than 100%,” the writing committee stated.
Dr. Musunuru explained that the results can sometimes be inconclusive. “In many cases, genetic testing reveals a mutation that is uninterpretable, what we call a variant of uncertain significance,” he said. “It is not clear whether the mutation increases the risk of disease or is entirely benign, which makes it very challenging to counsel patients as to whether anything should be done about the mutation.”
Even in a diagnosed patient the test results can be uncertain. “This makes it challenging to explain why the patient has the disease and whether any of the family members are at risk,” Dr. Musunuru said.
According to the statement, providers should encourage patients with a confirmed or likely pathogenic variant for CVD to share that information with “all of their at-risk relative,” the statement noted, suggesting “family letters” given to patients are a way to navigate HIPAA’s privacy limits.
The statement was written on behalf of the American Heart Association’s Council on Genomic and Precision Medicine; Council on Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology; Council on Cardiovascular and Stroke Nursing; and Council on Clinical Cardiology.
Dr. Musunuru and writing group members have no relevant financial relationships to disclose.
SOURCE: Musunuru K et al. Circ Genom Precis Med. 2020 Jul 23. doi: 10.1161/HCG.0000000000000067.
FROM CIRCULATION: GENOMIC AND PRECISION MEDICINE
MIS-C is a serious immune-mediated response to COVID-19 infection
One of the take-away messages from a review of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) is that clinicians treating this condition “need to be comfortable with uncertainty,” Melissa Hazen, MD, said at a synthesis of multiple published case series and personal experience summarized at the virtual Pediatric Hospital Medicine meeting.
She emphasized MIS-C patient care “requires flexibility,” and she advised clinicians managing these patients to open the lines of communication with the many specialists who often are required to deal with complications affecting an array of organ systems.
MIS-C might best be understood as the most serious manifestation of an immune-mediated response to COVID-19 infection that ranges from transient mild symptoms to the life-threatening multiple organ involvement that characterizes this newly recognized threat. Although “most children who encounter this pathogen only develop mild disease,” the spectrum of the disease can move in a subset of patients to a “Kawasaki-like illness” without hemodynamic instability and then to MIS-C “with highly elevated systemic inflammatory markers and multiple organ involvement,” explained Dr. Hazen, an attending physician in the rheumatology program at Boston Children’s Hospital.
most of which have only recently reached publication, according to Dr. Hazen. In general, the description of the most common symptoms and their course has been relatively consistent.
In 186 cases of MIS-C collected in a study funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 148 (80%) were admitted to intensive care, 90 patients (48%) received vasoactive support, 37 (20%) received mechanical ventilation, and 4 (2%) died.1 The median age was 8 years (range, 3-13 years) in this study. The case definition was fever for at least 24 hours, laboratory evidence of inflammation, multisystem organ involvement, and evidence of COVID-19 infection. In this cohort of 186 children, 92% had gastrointestinal, 80% had cardiovascular, 76% had hematologic, and 70% had respiratory system involvement.
In a different series of 95 cases collected in New York State, 79 (80%) were admitted to intensive care, 61 (62%) received vasoactive support, 10 (10%) received mechanical ventilation, 4 (4%) received extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), and 2 (2%) died. 2 Thirty-one percent patients were aged 0-5 years, 42% were 6-12 years, and 26% were 13-20 years of age. In that series, for which the case definition was elevation of two or more inflammatory markers, virologic evidence of COVID-19 infection, 80% had gastrointestinal system involvement, and 53% had evidence of myocarditis.
In both of these series, as well as others published and unpublished, the peak in MIS-C cases has occurred about 3 to 4 weeks after peak COVID-19 activity, according to Diana Lee, MD, a pediatrician at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York. This pattern, reported by others, was observed in New York State, where 230 cases of MIS-C were collected from the beginning of May until the end of June, which reflected this 3- to 4-week delay in peak incidence.
“This does seem to be a rare syndrome since this [group of] 230 cases is amongst the entire population of children in New York State. So, yes, we should be keeping this in mind in our differential, but we should not forget all the other reasons that children can have a fever,” she said.
Both Dr. Hazen and Dr. Lee cautioned that MIS-C, despite a general consistency among published studies, remains a moving target in regard to how it is being characterized. In a 2-day period in May, the CDC, the World Health Organization, and New York State all issued descriptions of MIS-C, employing compatible but slightly different terminology and diagnostic criteria. Many questions regarding optimal methods of diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up remain unanswered.
Questions regarding the risk to the cardiovascular system, one of the organs most commonly affected in MIS-C, are among the most urgent. It is not now clear how best to monitor cardiovascular involvement, how to intervene, and how to follow patients in the postinfection period, according to Kevin G. Friedman, MD, a pediatrician at Harvard Medical School, Boston, and an attending physician in the department of cardiology at Boston Children’s Hospital.
“The most frequent complication we have seen is ventricular dysfunction, which occurs in about half of these patients,” he reported. “Usually it is in the mild to moderate range, but occasionally patients have an ejection fraction of less than 40%.”
Coronary abnormalities, typically in the form of dilations or small aneurysms, occur in 10%-20% of children with MIS-C, according to Dr. Friedman. Giant aneurysms have been reported.
“Some of these findings can progress including in both the acute phase and, particularly for the coronary aneurysms, in the subacute phase. We recommend echocardiograms and EKGs at diagnosis and at 1-2 weeks to recheck coronary size or sooner if there are clinical indications,” Dr. Friedman advised.
Protocols like these are constantly under review as more information becomes available. There are as yet no guidelines, and practice differs across institutions, according to the investigators summarizing this information.
None of the speakers had any relevant financial disclosures.
References
1. Feldstein LR et al. Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in U.S. children and adolescents. N Engl J Med. 2020;383:334-46.
2. Dufort EM et al. Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children in New York State. N Engl J Med 2020;383:347-58.
One of the take-away messages from a review of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) is that clinicians treating this condition “need to be comfortable with uncertainty,” Melissa Hazen, MD, said at a synthesis of multiple published case series and personal experience summarized at the virtual Pediatric Hospital Medicine meeting.
She emphasized MIS-C patient care “requires flexibility,” and she advised clinicians managing these patients to open the lines of communication with the many specialists who often are required to deal with complications affecting an array of organ systems.
MIS-C might best be understood as the most serious manifestation of an immune-mediated response to COVID-19 infection that ranges from transient mild symptoms to the life-threatening multiple organ involvement that characterizes this newly recognized threat. Although “most children who encounter this pathogen only develop mild disease,” the spectrum of the disease can move in a subset of patients to a “Kawasaki-like illness” without hemodynamic instability and then to MIS-C “with highly elevated systemic inflammatory markers and multiple organ involvement,” explained Dr. Hazen, an attending physician in the rheumatology program at Boston Children’s Hospital.
most of which have only recently reached publication, according to Dr. Hazen. In general, the description of the most common symptoms and their course has been relatively consistent.
In 186 cases of MIS-C collected in a study funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 148 (80%) were admitted to intensive care, 90 patients (48%) received vasoactive support, 37 (20%) received mechanical ventilation, and 4 (2%) died.1 The median age was 8 years (range, 3-13 years) in this study. The case definition was fever for at least 24 hours, laboratory evidence of inflammation, multisystem organ involvement, and evidence of COVID-19 infection. In this cohort of 186 children, 92% had gastrointestinal, 80% had cardiovascular, 76% had hematologic, and 70% had respiratory system involvement.
In a different series of 95 cases collected in New York State, 79 (80%) were admitted to intensive care, 61 (62%) received vasoactive support, 10 (10%) received mechanical ventilation, 4 (4%) received extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), and 2 (2%) died. 2 Thirty-one percent patients were aged 0-5 years, 42% were 6-12 years, and 26% were 13-20 years of age. In that series, for which the case definition was elevation of two or more inflammatory markers, virologic evidence of COVID-19 infection, 80% had gastrointestinal system involvement, and 53% had evidence of myocarditis.
In both of these series, as well as others published and unpublished, the peak in MIS-C cases has occurred about 3 to 4 weeks after peak COVID-19 activity, according to Diana Lee, MD, a pediatrician at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York. This pattern, reported by others, was observed in New York State, where 230 cases of MIS-C were collected from the beginning of May until the end of June, which reflected this 3- to 4-week delay in peak incidence.
“This does seem to be a rare syndrome since this [group of] 230 cases is amongst the entire population of children in New York State. So, yes, we should be keeping this in mind in our differential, but we should not forget all the other reasons that children can have a fever,” she said.
Both Dr. Hazen and Dr. Lee cautioned that MIS-C, despite a general consistency among published studies, remains a moving target in regard to how it is being characterized. In a 2-day period in May, the CDC, the World Health Organization, and New York State all issued descriptions of MIS-C, employing compatible but slightly different terminology and diagnostic criteria. Many questions regarding optimal methods of diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up remain unanswered.
Questions regarding the risk to the cardiovascular system, one of the organs most commonly affected in MIS-C, are among the most urgent. It is not now clear how best to monitor cardiovascular involvement, how to intervene, and how to follow patients in the postinfection period, according to Kevin G. Friedman, MD, a pediatrician at Harvard Medical School, Boston, and an attending physician in the department of cardiology at Boston Children’s Hospital.
“The most frequent complication we have seen is ventricular dysfunction, which occurs in about half of these patients,” he reported. “Usually it is in the mild to moderate range, but occasionally patients have an ejection fraction of less than 40%.”
Coronary abnormalities, typically in the form of dilations or small aneurysms, occur in 10%-20% of children with MIS-C, according to Dr. Friedman. Giant aneurysms have been reported.
“Some of these findings can progress including in both the acute phase and, particularly for the coronary aneurysms, in the subacute phase. We recommend echocardiograms and EKGs at diagnosis and at 1-2 weeks to recheck coronary size or sooner if there are clinical indications,” Dr. Friedman advised.
Protocols like these are constantly under review as more information becomes available. There are as yet no guidelines, and practice differs across institutions, according to the investigators summarizing this information.
None of the speakers had any relevant financial disclosures.
References
1. Feldstein LR et al. Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in U.S. children and adolescents. N Engl J Med. 2020;383:334-46.
2. Dufort EM et al. Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children in New York State. N Engl J Med 2020;383:347-58.
One of the take-away messages from a review of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) is that clinicians treating this condition “need to be comfortable with uncertainty,” Melissa Hazen, MD, said at a synthesis of multiple published case series and personal experience summarized at the virtual Pediatric Hospital Medicine meeting.
She emphasized MIS-C patient care “requires flexibility,” and she advised clinicians managing these patients to open the lines of communication with the many specialists who often are required to deal with complications affecting an array of organ systems.
MIS-C might best be understood as the most serious manifestation of an immune-mediated response to COVID-19 infection that ranges from transient mild symptoms to the life-threatening multiple organ involvement that characterizes this newly recognized threat. Although “most children who encounter this pathogen only develop mild disease,” the spectrum of the disease can move in a subset of patients to a “Kawasaki-like illness” without hemodynamic instability and then to MIS-C “with highly elevated systemic inflammatory markers and multiple organ involvement,” explained Dr. Hazen, an attending physician in the rheumatology program at Boston Children’s Hospital.
most of which have only recently reached publication, according to Dr. Hazen. In general, the description of the most common symptoms and their course has been relatively consistent.
In 186 cases of MIS-C collected in a study funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 148 (80%) were admitted to intensive care, 90 patients (48%) received vasoactive support, 37 (20%) received mechanical ventilation, and 4 (2%) died.1 The median age was 8 years (range, 3-13 years) in this study. The case definition was fever for at least 24 hours, laboratory evidence of inflammation, multisystem organ involvement, and evidence of COVID-19 infection. In this cohort of 186 children, 92% had gastrointestinal, 80% had cardiovascular, 76% had hematologic, and 70% had respiratory system involvement.
In a different series of 95 cases collected in New York State, 79 (80%) were admitted to intensive care, 61 (62%) received vasoactive support, 10 (10%) received mechanical ventilation, 4 (4%) received extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), and 2 (2%) died. 2 Thirty-one percent patients were aged 0-5 years, 42% were 6-12 years, and 26% were 13-20 years of age. In that series, for which the case definition was elevation of two or more inflammatory markers, virologic evidence of COVID-19 infection, 80% had gastrointestinal system involvement, and 53% had evidence of myocarditis.
In both of these series, as well as others published and unpublished, the peak in MIS-C cases has occurred about 3 to 4 weeks after peak COVID-19 activity, according to Diana Lee, MD, a pediatrician at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York. This pattern, reported by others, was observed in New York State, where 230 cases of MIS-C were collected from the beginning of May until the end of June, which reflected this 3- to 4-week delay in peak incidence.
“This does seem to be a rare syndrome since this [group of] 230 cases is amongst the entire population of children in New York State. So, yes, we should be keeping this in mind in our differential, but we should not forget all the other reasons that children can have a fever,” she said.
Both Dr. Hazen and Dr. Lee cautioned that MIS-C, despite a general consistency among published studies, remains a moving target in regard to how it is being characterized. In a 2-day period in May, the CDC, the World Health Organization, and New York State all issued descriptions of MIS-C, employing compatible but slightly different terminology and diagnostic criteria. Many questions regarding optimal methods of diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up remain unanswered.
Questions regarding the risk to the cardiovascular system, one of the organs most commonly affected in MIS-C, are among the most urgent. It is not now clear how best to monitor cardiovascular involvement, how to intervene, and how to follow patients in the postinfection period, according to Kevin G. Friedman, MD, a pediatrician at Harvard Medical School, Boston, and an attending physician in the department of cardiology at Boston Children’s Hospital.
“The most frequent complication we have seen is ventricular dysfunction, which occurs in about half of these patients,” he reported. “Usually it is in the mild to moderate range, but occasionally patients have an ejection fraction of less than 40%.”
Coronary abnormalities, typically in the form of dilations or small aneurysms, occur in 10%-20% of children with MIS-C, according to Dr. Friedman. Giant aneurysms have been reported.
“Some of these findings can progress including in both the acute phase and, particularly for the coronary aneurysms, in the subacute phase. We recommend echocardiograms and EKGs at diagnosis and at 1-2 weeks to recheck coronary size or sooner if there are clinical indications,” Dr. Friedman advised.
Protocols like these are constantly under review as more information becomes available. There are as yet no guidelines, and practice differs across institutions, according to the investigators summarizing this information.
None of the speakers had any relevant financial disclosures.
References
1. Feldstein LR et al. Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in U.S. children and adolescents. N Engl J Med. 2020;383:334-46.
2. Dufort EM et al. Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children in New York State. N Engl J Med 2020;383:347-58.
FROM PHM20 VIRTUAL
Physician recruitment drops by 30% because of pandemic
the firm reported.
“Rather than having many practice opportunities to choose from, physicians now may have to compete to secure practice opportunities that meet their needs,” the authors wrote in Merritt Hawkins’ report on the impact of COVID-19.
Most of the report concerns physician recruitment from April 1, 2019, to March 31, 2020. The data were mostly derived from searches that Merritt Hawkins conducted before the effects of the pandemic was fully felt.
Family medicine was again the most sought-after specialty, as it has been for the past 14 years. But demand for primary care doctors – including family physicians, internists, and pediatricians – leveled off, and average starting salaries for primary care doctors dropped during 2019-2020. In contrast, the number of searches conducted for nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) increased by 54%, and their salaries increased slightly.
To explain the lackluster prospects for primary care before the pandemic, the authors cited research showing that patients were turning away from the traditional office visit model. At the same time, there was a rise in visits to NPs and PAs, including those in urgent care centers and retail clinics.
As a result of decreased demand for primary care physicians and the rising prevalence of telehealth, Merritt Hawkins expects primary care salaries to drop overall. With telehealth generating a larger portion of revenues, “it is uncertain whether primary care physicians will be able to sustain levels of reimbursement that were prevalent pre-COVID even at such time as the economy is improved and utilization increases,” the authors reported.
Demand for specialists was increasing prior to the COVID-19 crisis, partly as a result of the aging of the population. Seventy-eight percent of all searches were for medical specialists, compared with 67% 5 years ago. However, the pandemic has set back specialist searches. “Demand and compensation for specialists also will change as a result of COVID-19 in response to declines in the volume of medical procedures,” according to the authors.
In contrast, the recruitment of doctors who are on the front line of COVID-19 care is expected to increase. Among the fields anticipated to be in demand are emergency department specialists, infectious disease specialists, and pulmonology/critical care physicians. Travis Singleton, executive vice president of Merritt Hawkins, said in an interview that this trend is already happening and will accelerate as COVID-19 hot spots arise across the country.
Specialists in different fields received either higher or lower offers than during the previous year. Starting salaries for noninvasive cardiologists, for example, dropped 7.3%; gastroenterologists earned 7.7% less; and neurologists, 6.9% less. In contrast, orthopedic surgeons saw offers surge 16.7%; radiologists, 9.3%; and pulmonologists/critical care specialists, 7.7%.
Physicians were offered salaries plus bonuses in three-quarters of searches. Relative value unit–based production remained the most common basis for bonuses. Quality/value-based metrics were used in computing 64% of bonuses – up from 56% the previous year – but still determined only 11% of total physician compensation.
Pandemic outlook
Whereas health care helped drive the U.S. economy in 2018-2019, the pace of job growth in health care has decreased since March. As a result of the pandemic, health care spending in the United States declined by 18% in the first quarter of 2020. Physician practice revenue dropped by 55% during the first quarter, and many small and solo practices are still struggling.
In a 2018 Merritt Hawkins survey, 18% of physicians said they had used telehealth to treat patients. Because of the pandemic, that percentage jumped to 48% in April 2020. But telehealth hasn’t made up for the loss of patient revenue from in-office procedures, tests, and other services, and it still isn’t being reimbursed at the same level as in-office visits.
With practices under severe financial strain, the authors explained, “A majority of private practices have curtailed most physician recruiting activity since the virus emerged.”
In some states, many specialty practices have been adversely affected by the suspension of elective procedures, and specialty practices that rely on nonessential procedures are unlikely to recruit additional physicians.
One-third of practices could close
The survival of many private practices is now in question. “Based on the losses physician practices have sustained as a result of COVID-19, some markets could lose up to 35% or more of their most vulnerable group practices while a large percent of others will be acquired,” the authors wrote.
Hospitals and health systems will acquire the bulk of these practices, in many cases at fire-sale prices, Mr. Singleton predicted. This enormous shift from private practice to employment, he added, “will have as much to do with the [physician] income levels we’re going to see as the demand for the specialties themselves.”
Right now, he said, Merritt Hawkins is fielding a huge number of requests from doctors seeking employment, but there aren’t many jobs out there. “We haven’t seen an employer-friendly market like this since the 1970s,” he noted. “Before the pandemic, a physician might have had five to 10 jobs to choose from. Now it’s the opposite: We have one job, and 5 to 10 physicians are applying for it.”
Singleton believes the market will adjust by the second quarter of next year. Even if the pandemic worsens, he said, the system will have made the necessary corrections and adjustments “because we have to start seeing patients again, both in terms of demand and economics. So these doctors will be in demand again and will have work.”
Contingent employment
Although the COVID-related falloff in revenue has hit private practices the hardest, some employed physicians have also found themselves in a bind. According to a Merritt Hawkins/Physicians Foundation survey conducted in April, 21% of physicians said they had been furloughed or had taken a pay cut.
Mr. Singleton views this trend as part of hospitals’ reassessment of how they’re going to deal with labor going forward. To cope with utilization ebbs and flows in response to the virus, hospitals are now considering what the report calls a “contingent labor/flex staffing model.”
Under this type of arrangement, which some hospitals have already adopted, physicians may no longer work full time in a single setting, Mr. Singleton said. They may be asked to conduct telehealth visits on nights and weekends and work 20 hours a week in the clinic, or they may have shifts in multiple hospitals or clinics.
“You can make as much or more on a temporary basis as on a permanent basis,” he said. “But you have to be more flexible. You may have to travel or do a different scope of work, or work in different settings.”
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.
the firm reported.
“Rather than having many practice opportunities to choose from, physicians now may have to compete to secure practice opportunities that meet their needs,” the authors wrote in Merritt Hawkins’ report on the impact of COVID-19.
Most of the report concerns physician recruitment from April 1, 2019, to March 31, 2020. The data were mostly derived from searches that Merritt Hawkins conducted before the effects of the pandemic was fully felt.
Family medicine was again the most sought-after specialty, as it has been for the past 14 years. But demand for primary care doctors – including family physicians, internists, and pediatricians – leveled off, and average starting salaries for primary care doctors dropped during 2019-2020. In contrast, the number of searches conducted for nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) increased by 54%, and their salaries increased slightly.
To explain the lackluster prospects for primary care before the pandemic, the authors cited research showing that patients were turning away from the traditional office visit model. At the same time, there was a rise in visits to NPs and PAs, including those in urgent care centers and retail clinics.
As a result of decreased demand for primary care physicians and the rising prevalence of telehealth, Merritt Hawkins expects primary care salaries to drop overall. With telehealth generating a larger portion of revenues, “it is uncertain whether primary care physicians will be able to sustain levels of reimbursement that were prevalent pre-COVID even at such time as the economy is improved and utilization increases,” the authors reported.
Demand for specialists was increasing prior to the COVID-19 crisis, partly as a result of the aging of the population. Seventy-eight percent of all searches were for medical specialists, compared with 67% 5 years ago. However, the pandemic has set back specialist searches. “Demand and compensation for specialists also will change as a result of COVID-19 in response to declines in the volume of medical procedures,” according to the authors.
In contrast, the recruitment of doctors who are on the front line of COVID-19 care is expected to increase. Among the fields anticipated to be in demand are emergency department specialists, infectious disease specialists, and pulmonology/critical care physicians. Travis Singleton, executive vice president of Merritt Hawkins, said in an interview that this trend is already happening and will accelerate as COVID-19 hot spots arise across the country.
Specialists in different fields received either higher or lower offers than during the previous year. Starting salaries for noninvasive cardiologists, for example, dropped 7.3%; gastroenterologists earned 7.7% less; and neurologists, 6.9% less. In contrast, orthopedic surgeons saw offers surge 16.7%; radiologists, 9.3%; and pulmonologists/critical care specialists, 7.7%.
Physicians were offered salaries plus bonuses in three-quarters of searches. Relative value unit–based production remained the most common basis for bonuses. Quality/value-based metrics were used in computing 64% of bonuses – up from 56% the previous year – but still determined only 11% of total physician compensation.
Pandemic outlook
Whereas health care helped drive the U.S. economy in 2018-2019, the pace of job growth in health care has decreased since March. As a result of the pandemic, health care spending in the United States declined by 18% in the first quarter of 2020. Physician practice revenue dropped by 55% during the first quarter, and many small and solo practices are still struggling.
In a 2018 Merritt Hawkins survey, 18% of physicians said they had used telehealth to treat patients. Because of the pandemic, that percentage jumped to 48% in April 2020. But telehealth hasn’t made up for the loss of patient revenue from in-office procedures, tests, and other services, and it still isn’t being reimbursed at the same level as in-office visits.
With practices under severe financial strain, the authors explained, “A majority of private practices have curtailed most physician recruiting activity since the virus emerged.”
In some states, many specialty practices have been adversely affected by the suspension of elective procedures, and specialty practices that rely on nonessential procedures are unlikely to recruit additional physicians.
One-third of practices could close
The survival of many private practices is now in question. “Based on the losses physician practices have sustained as a result of COVID-19, some markets could lose up to 35% or more of their most vulnerable group practices while a large percent of others will be acquired,” the authors wrote.
Hospitals and health systems will acquire the bulk of these practices, in many cases at fire-sale prices, Mr. Singleton predicted. This enormous shift from private practice to employment, he added, “will have as much to do with the [physician] income levels we’re going to see as the demand for the specialties themselves.”
Right now, he said, Merritt Hawkins is fielding a huge number of requests from doctors seeking employment, but there aren’t many jobs out there. “We haven’t seen an employer-friendly market like this since the 1970s,” he noted. “Before the pandemic, a physician might have had five to 10 jobs to choose from. Now it’s the opposite: We have one job, and 5 to 10 physicians are applying for it.”
Singleton believes the market will adjust by the second quarter of next year. Even if the pandemic worsens, he said, the system will have made the necessary corrections and adjustments “because we have to start seeing patients again, both in terms of demand and economics. So these doctors will be in demand again and will have work.”
Contingent employment
Although the COVID-related falloff in revenue has hit private practices the hardest, some employed physicians have also found themselves in a bind. According to a Merritt Hawkins/Physicians Foundation survey conducted in April, 21% of physicians said they had been furloughed or had taken a pay cut.
Mr. Singleton views this trend as part of hospitals’ reassessment of how they’re going to deal with labor going forward. To cope with utilization ebbs and flows in response to the virus, hospitals are now considering what the report calls a “contingent labor/flex staffing model.”
Under this type of arrangement, which some hospitals have already adopted, physicians may no longer work full time in a single setting, Mr. Singleton said. They may be asked to conduct telehealth visits on nights and weekends and work 20 hours a week in the clinic, or they may have shifts in multiple hospitals or clinics.
“You can make as much or more on a temporary basis as on a permanent basis,” he said. “But you have to be more flexible. You may have to travel or do a different scope of work, or work in different settings.”
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.
the firm reported.
“Rather than having many practice opportunities to choose from, physicians now may have to compete to secure practice opportunities that meet their needs,” the authors wrote in Merritt Hawkins’ report on the impact of COVID-19.
Most of the report concerns physician recruitment from April 1, 2019, to March 31, 2020. The data were mostly derived from searches that Merritt Hawkins conducted before the effects of the pandemic was fully felt.
Family medicine was again the most sought-after specialty, as it has been for the past 14 years. But demand for primary care doctors – including family physicians, internists, and pediatricians – leveled off, and average starting salaries for primary care doctors dropped during 2019-2020. In contrast, the number of searches conducted for nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) increased by 54%, and their salaries increased slightly.
To explain the lackluster prospects for primary care before the pandemic, the authors cited research showing that patients were turning away from the traditional office visit model. At the same time, there was a rise in visits to NPs and PAs, including those in urgent care centers and retail clinics.
As a result of decreased demand for primary care physicians and the rising prevalence of telehealth, Merritt Hawkins expects primary care salaries to drop overall. With telehealth generating a larger portion of revenues, “it is uncertain whether primary care physicians will be able to sustain levels of reimbursement that were prevalent pre-COVID even at such time as the economy is improved and utilization increases,” the authors reported.
Demand for specialists was increasing prior to the COVID-19 crisis, partly as a result of the aging of the population. Seventy-eight percent of all searches were for medical specialists, compared with 67% 5 years ago. However, the pandemic has set back specialist searches. “Demand and compensation for specialists also will change as a result of COVID-19 in response to declines in the volume of medical procedures,” according to the authors.
In contrast, the recruitment of doctors who are on the front line of COVID-19 care is expected to increase. Among the fields anticipated to be in demand are emergency department specialists, infectious disease specialists, and pulmonology/critical care physicians. Travis Singleton, executive vice president of Merritt Hawkins, said in an interview that this trend is already happening and will accelerate as COVID-19 hot spots arise across the country.
Specialists in different fields received either higher or lower offers than during the previous year. Starting salaries for noninvasive cardiologists, for example, dropped 7.3%; gastroenterologists earned 7.7% less; and neurologists, 6.9% less. In contrast, orthopedic surgeons saw offers surge 16.7%; radiologists, 9.3%; and pulmonologists/critical care specialists, 7.7%.
Physicians were offered salaries plus bonuses in three-quarters of searches. Relative value unit–based production remained the most common basis for bonuses. Quality/value-based metrics were used in computing 64% of bonuses – up from 56% the previous year – but still determined only 11% of total physician compensation.
Pandemic outlook
Whereas health care helped drive the U.S. economy in 2018-2019, the pace of job growth in health care has decreased since March. As a result of the pandemic, health care spending in the United States declined by 18% in the first quarter of 2020. Physician practice revenue dropped by 55% during the first quarter, and many small and solo practices are still struggling.
In a 2018 Merritt Hawkins survey, 18% of physicians said they had used telehealth to treat patients. Because of the pandemic, that percentage jumped to 48% in April 2020. But telehealth hasn’t made up for the loss of patient revenue from in-office procedures, tests, and other services, and it still isn’t being reimbursed at the same level as in-office visits.
With practices under severe financial strain, the authors explained, “A majority of private practices have curtailed most physician recruiting activity since the virus emerged.”
In some states, many specialty practices have been adversely affected by the suspension of elective procedures, and specialty practices that rely on nonessential procedures are unlikely to recruit additional physicians.
One-third of practices could close
The survival of many private practices is now in question. “Based on the losses physician practices have sustained as a result of COVID-19, some markets could lose up to 35% or more of their most vulnerable group practices while a large percent of others will be acquired,” the authors wrote.
Hospitals and health systems will acquire the bulk of these practices, in many cases at fire-sale prices, Mr. Singleton predicted. This enormous shift from private practice to employment, he added, “will have as much to do with the [physician] income levels we’re going to see as the demand for the specialties themselves.”
Right now, he said, Merritt Hawkins is fielding a huge number of requests from doctors seeking employment, but there aren’t many jobs out there. “We haven’t seen an employer-friendly market like this since the 1970s,” he noted. “Before the pandemic, a physician might have had five to 10 jobs to choose from. Now it’s the opposite: We have one job, and 5 to 10 physicians are applying for it.”
Singleton believes the market will adjust by the second quarter of next year. Even if the pandemic worsens, he said, the system will have made the necessary corrections and adjustments “because we have to start seeing patients again, both in terms of demand and economics. So these doctors will be in demand again and will have work.”
Contingent employment
Although the COVID-related falloff in revenue has hit private practices the hardest, some employed physicians have also found themselves in a bind. According to a Merritt Hawkins/Physicians Foundation survey conducted in April, 21% of physicians said they had been furloughed or had taken a pay cut.
Mr. Singleton views this trend as part of hospitals’ reassessment of how they’re going to deal with labor going forward. To cope with utilization ebbs and flows in response to the virus, hospitals are now considering what the report calls a “contingent labor/flex staffing model.”
Under this type of arrangement, which some hospitals have already adopted, physicians may no longer work full time in a single setting, Mr. Singleton said. They may be asked to conduct telehealth visits on nights and weekends and work 20 hours a week in the clinic, or they may have shifts in multiple hospitals or clinics.
“You can make as much or more on a temporary basis as on a permanent basis,” he said. “But you have to be more flexible. You may have to travel or do a different scope of work, or work in different settings.”
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.
NFL’s only physician player opts out of 2020 season over COVID
Canadian-born Duvernay-Tardif, right guard for the Kansas City Chiefs, announced on Twitter on July 24 what he called “one of the most difficult decisions I have had to make in my life.”
“There is no doubt in my mind the Chiefs’ medical staff have put together a strong plan to minimize the health risks associated with COVID-19, but some risks will remain,” he posted.
“Being at the frontline during this offseason has given me a different perspective on this pandemic and the stress it puts on individuals and our healthcare system. I cannot allow myself to potentially transmit the virus in our communities simply to play the sport that I love. If I am to take risks, I will do it caring for patients.”
According to CNN, Duvernay-Tardif, less than 3 months after helping the Chiefs win the Super Bowl in February, began working at a long-term care facility near Montreal in what he described as a “nursing role.”
Duvernay-Tardif wrote recently in an article for Sports Illustrated that he has not completed his residency and is not yet licensed to practice.
“My first day back in the hospital was April 24,” Duvernay-Tardif wrote. “I felt nervous the night before, but a good nervous, like before a game.”
Duvernay-Tardif has also served on the NFL Players’ Association COVID-19 task force, according to Yahoo News .
A spokesperson for Duvernay-Tardif told Medscape Medical News he was unavailable to comment about the announcement.
Starting His Dual Career
Duvernay-Tardif, 29, was drafted in the sixth round by the Chiefs in 2014.
According to Forbes , he spent 8 years (2010-2018) pursuing his medical degree while still playing college football for McGill University in Montreal. Duvernay-Tardif played offensive tackle for the Redmen and in his senior year (2013) won the Metras Trophy as most outstanding lineman in Canadian college football.
He explained in a previous Medscape interview how he managed his dual career; as a doctor he said he would like to focus on emergency medicine:
“I would say that at around 16-17 years of age, I was pretty convinced that medicine was for me,” he told Medscape.
“I was lucky that I didn’t have to do an undergrad program,” he continued. “In Canada, they have a fast-track program where instead of doing a full undergrad before getting into medical school, you can do a 1-year program where you can do all your physiology and biology classes all together.
“I had the chance to get into that program, and that’s how I was able to manage football and medicine at the same time. There’s no way I could have finished my med school doing part-time med school like I did for the past 4 years.”
ESPN explained the opt-out option: “According to an agreement approved by both the league and the union on [July 24], players considered high risk for COVID-19 can earn $350,000 and an accrued NFL season if they choose to opt out of the 2020 season. Players without risk can earn $150,000 for opting out. Duvernay-Tardif was scheduled to make $2.75 million this season.”
The danger of COVID-19 in professional sports has already been seen in Major League Baseball.
According to USA Today, the Miami Marlins have at least 14 players and staff who have tested positive for COVID-19, and major league baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred must decide whether to further delay the shortened season, cancel it, or allow it to continue.
MLB postponed the Marlins’ home opener July 27 against the Baltimore Orioles as well as the New York Yankees game in Philadelphia against the Phillies.
COVID-19 also shut down professional, college, high school, and recreational sports throughout much of the country beginning in March.
Medicine, Football Intersect
In the previous Medscape interview, Duvernay-Tardif talked about how medicine influenced his football career.
“For me, medicine was really helpful in the sense that I was better able to build a routine and question what works for me and what doesn’t. It gave me the ability to structure my work in order to optimize my time and to make sure that it’s pertinent.
“Another thing is the psychology and the sports psychology. I think there’s a little bit of a stigma around mental health issues in professional sports and everywhere, actually. I think because of medicine, I was more willing to question myself and more willing to use different tools in order to be a better football player.”
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.
Canadian-born Duvernay-Tardif, right guard for the Kansas City Chiefs, announced on Twitter on July 24 what he called “one of the most difficult decisions I have had to make in my life.”
“There is no doubt in my mind the Chiefs’ medical staff have put together a strong plan to minimize the health risks associated with COVID-19, but some risks will remain,” he posted.
“Being at the frontline during this offseason has given me a different perspective on this pandemic and the stress it puts on individuals and our healthcare system. I cannot allow myself to potentially transmit the virus in our communities simply to play the sport that I love. If I am to take risks, I will do it caring for patients.”
According to CNN, Duvernay-Tardif, less than 3 months after helping the Chiefs win the Super Bowl in February, began working at a long-term care facility near Montreal in what he described as a “nursing role.”
Duvernay-Tardif wrote recently in an article for Sports Illustrated that he has not completed his residency and is not yet licensed to practice.
“My first day back in the hospital was April 24,” Duvernay-Tardif wrote. “I felt nervous the night before, but a good nervous, like before a game.”
Duvernay-Tardif has also served on the NFL Players’ Association COVID-19 task force, according to Yahoo News .
A spokesperson for Duvernay-Tardif told Medscape Medical News he was unavailable to comment about the announcement.
Starting His Dual Career
Duvernay-Tardif, 29, was drafted in the sixth round by the Chiefs in 2014.
According to Forbes , he spent 8 years (2010-2018) pursuing his medical degree while still playing college football for McGill University in Montreal. Duvernay-Tardif played offensive tackle for the Redmen and in his senior year (2013) won the Metras Trophy as most outstanding lineman in Canadian college football.
He explained in a previous Medscape interview how he managed his dual career; as a doctor he said he would like to focus on emergency medicine:
“I would say that at around 16-17 years of age, I was pretty convinced that medicine was for me,” he told Medscape.
“I was lucky that I didn’t have to do an undergrad program,” he continued. “In Canada, they have a fast-track program where instead of doing a full undergrad before getting into medical school, you can do a 1-year program where you can do all your physiology and biology classes all together.
“I had the chance to get into that program, and that’s how I was able to manage football and medicine at the same time. There’s no way I could have finished my med school doing part-time med school like I did for the past 4 years.”
ESPN explained the opt-out option: “According to an agreement approved by both the league and the union on [July 24], players considered high risk for COVID-19 can earn $350,000 and an accrued NFL season if they choose to opt out of the 2020 season. Players without risk can earn $150,000 for opting out. Duvernay-Tardif was scheduled to make $2.75 million this season.”
The danger of COVID-19 in professional sports has already been seen in Major League Baseball.
According to USA Today, the Miami Marlins have at least 14 players and staff who have tested positive for COVID-19, and major league baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred must decide whether to further delay the shortened season, cancel it, or allow it to continue.
MLB postponed the Marlins’ home opener July 27 against the Baltimore Orioles as well as the New York Yankees game in Philadelphia against the Phillies.
COVID-19 also shut down professional, college, high school, and recreational sports throughout much of the country beginning in March.
Medicine, Football Intersect
In the previous Medscape interview, Duvernay-Tardif talked about how medicine influenced his football career.
“For me, medicine was really helpful in the sense that I was better able to build a routine and question what works for me and what doesn’t. It gave me the ability to structure my work in order to optimize my time and to make sure that it’s pertinent.
“Another thing is the psychology and the sports psychology. I think there’s a little bit of a stigma around mental health issues in professional sports and everywhere, actually. I think because of medicine, I was more willing to question myself and more willing to use different tools in order to be a better football player.”
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.
Canadian-born Duvernay-Tardif, right guard for the Kansas City Chiefs, announced on Twitter on July 24 what he called “one of the most difficult decisions I have had to make in my life.”
“There is no doubt in my mind the Chiefs’ medical staff have put together a strong plan to minimize the health risks associated with COVID-19, but some risks will remain,” he posted.
“Being at the frontline during this offseason has given me a different perspective on this pandemic and the stress it puts on individuals and our healthcare system. I cannot allow myself to potentially transmit the virus in our communities simply to play the sport that I love. If I am to take risks, I will do it caring for patients.”
According to CNN, Duvernay-Tardif, less than 3 months after helping the Chiefs win the Super Bowl in February, began working at a long-term care facility near Montreal in what he described as a “nursing role.”
Duvernay-Tardif wrote recently in an article for Sports Illustrated that he has not completed his residency and is not yet licensed to practice.
“My first day back in the hospital was April 24,” Duvernay-Tardif wrote. “I felt nervous the night before, but a good nervous, like before a game.”
Duvernay-Tardif has also served on the NFL Players’ Association COVID-19 task force, according to Yahoo News .
A spokesperson for Duvernay-Tardif told Medscape Medical News he was unavailable to comment about the announcement.
Starting His Dual Career
Duvernay-Tardif, 29, was drafted in the sixth round by the Chiefs in 2014.
According to Forbes , he spent 8 years (2010-2018) pursuing his medical degree while still playing college football for McGill University in Montreal. Duvernay-Tardif played offensive tackle for the Redmen and in his senior year (2013) won the Metras Trophy as most outstanding lineman in Canadian college football.
He explained in a previous Medscape interview how he managed his dual career; as a doctor he said he would like to focus on emergency medicine:
“I would say that at around 16-17 years of age, I was pretty convinced that medicine was for me,” he told Medscape.
“I was lucky that I didn’t have to do an undergrad program,” he continued. “In Canada, they have a fast-track program where instead of doing a full undergrad before getting into medical school, you can do a 1-year program where you can do all your physiology and biology classes all together.
“I had the chance to get into that program, and that’s how I was able to manage football and medicine at the same time. There’s no way I could have finished my med school doing part-time med school like I did for the past 4 years.”
ESPN explained the opt-out option: “According to an agreement approved by both the league and the union on [July 24], players considered high risk for COVID-19 can earn $350,000 and an accrued NFL season if they choose to opt out of the 2020 season. Players without risk can earn $150,000 for opting out. Duvernay-Tardif was scheduled to make $2.75 million this season.”
The danger of COVID-19 in professional sports has already been seen in Major League Baseball.
According to USA Today, the Miami Marlins have at least 14 players and staff who have tested positive for COVID-19, and major league baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred must decide whether to further delay the shortened season, cancel it, or allow it to continue.
MLB postponed the Marlins’ home opener July 27 against the Baltimore Orioles as well as the New York Yankees game in Philadelphia against the Phillies.
COVID-19 also shut down professional, college, high school, and recreational sports throughout much of the country beginning in March.
Medicine, Football Intersect
In the previous Medscape interview, Duvernay-Tardif talked about how medicine influenced his football career.
“For me, medicine was really helpful in the sense that I was better able to build a routine and question what works for me and what doesn’t. It gave me the ability to structure my work in order to optimize my time and to make sure that it’s pertinent.
“Another thing is the psychology and the sports psychology. I think there’s a little bit of a stigma around mental health issues in professional sports and everywhere, actually. I think because of medicine, I was more willing to question myself and more willing to use different tools in order to be a better football player.”
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.
Diary of a rheumatologist who briefly became a COVID hospitalist
When the coronavirus pandemic hit New York City in early March, the Hospital for Special Surgery leadership decided that the best way to serve the city was to stop elective orthopedic procedures temporarily and use the facility to take on patients from its sister institution, NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital.
As in other institutions, it was all hands on deck. , other internal medicine subspecialists were asked to volunteer, including rheumatologists and primary care sports medicine doctors.
As a rheumatologist, it had been well over 10 years since I had last done any inpatient work. I was filled with trepidation, but I was also excited to dive in.
April 4:
Feeling very unmoored. I am in unfamiliar territory, and it’s terrifying. There are so many things that I no longer know how to do. Thankfully, the hospitalists are gracious, extremely supportive, and helpful.
My N95 doesn’t fit well. It’s never fit — not during residency or fellowship, not in any job I’ve had, and not today. The lady fit-testing me said she was sorry, but the look on her face said, “I’m sorry, but you’re going to die.”
April 7:
We don’t know how to treat coronavirus. I’ve sent some patients home, others I’ve sent to the ICU. Thank goodness for treatment algorithms from leadership, but we are sorely lacking good-quality data.
Our infectious disease doctor doesn’t think hydroxychloroquine works at all; I suspect he is right. The guidance right now is to give hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to everyone who is sick enough to be admitted, but there are methodologic flaws in the early enthusiastic preprints, and so far, I’ve not noticed any demonstrable benefit.
The only thing that seems to be happening is that I am seeing more QT prolongation — not something I previously counseled my rheumatology patients on.
April 9:
The patients have been, with a few exceptions, alone in the room. They’re not allowed to have visitors and are required to wear masks all the time. Anyone who enters their rooms is fully covered up so you can barely see them. It’s anonymous and dehumanizing.
We’re instructed to take histories by phone in order to limit the time spent in each room. I buck this instruction; I still take histories in person because human contact seems more important now than ever.
Except maybe I should be smarter about this. One of my patients refuses any treatment, including oxygen support. She firmly believes this is a result of 5G networks — something I later discovered was a common conspiracy theory. She refused to wear a mask despite having a very bad cough. She coughed in my face a lot when we were chatting. My face with my ill-fitting N95 mask. Maybe the fit-testing lady’s eyes weren’t lying and I will die after all.
April 15:
On the days when I’m not working as a hospitalist, I am still doing remote visits with my rheumatology patients. It feels good to be doing something familiar and something I’m actually good at. But it is surreal to be faced with the quotidian on one hand and life and death on the other.
I recently saw a fairly new patient, and I still haven’t figured out if she has a rheumatic condition or if her symptoms all stem from an alcohol use disorder. In our previous visits, she could barely acknowledge that her drinking was an issue. On today’s visit, she told me she was 1½ months sober.
I don’t know her very well, but it was the happiest news I’d heard in a long time. I was so beside myself with joy that I cried, which says more about my current emotional state than anything else, really.
April 21:
On my panel of patients, I have three women with COVID-19 — all of whom lost their husbands to COVID-19, and none of whom were able to say their goodbyes. I cannot even begin to imagine what it must be like to survive this period of illness, isolation, and fear, only to be met on the other side by grief.
Rheumatology doesn’t lend itself too well to such existential concerns; I am not equipped for this. Perhaps my only advantage as a rheumatologist is that I know how to use IVIG, anakinra, and tocilizumab.
Someone on my panel was started on anakinra, and it turned his case around. Would he have gotten better without it anyway? We’ll never know for sure.
April 28:
Patients seem to be requiring prolonged intubation. We have now reached the stage where patients are alive but trached and PEGed. One of my patients had been intubated for close to 3 weeks. She was one of four people in her family who contracted the illness (they had had a dinner party before New York’s state of emergency was declared). We thought she might die once she was extubated, but she is still fighting. Unconscious, unarousable, but breathing on her own.
Will she ever wake up? We don’t know. We put the onus on her family to make decisions about placing a PEG tube in. They can only do so from a distance with imperfect information gleaned from periodic, brief FaceTime interactions — where no interaction happens at all.
May 4:
It’s my last day as a “COVID hospitalist.” When I first started, I felt like I was being helpful. Walking home in the middle of the 7 PM cheers for healthcare workers frequently left me teary eyed. As horrible as the situation was, I was proud of myself for volunteering to help and appreciative of a broken city’s gratitude toward all healthcare workers in general. Maybe I bought into the idea that, like many others around me, I am a hero.
I don’t feel like a hero, though. The stuff I saw was easy compared with the stuff that my colleagues in critical care saw. Our hospital accepted the more stable patient transfers from our sister hospitals. Patients who remained in the NewYork–Presbyterian system were sicker, with encephalitis, thrombotic complications, multiorgan failure, and cytokine release syndrome. It’s the doctors who took care of those patients who deserve to be called heroes.
No, I am no hero. But did my volunteering make a difference? It made a difference to me. The overwhelming feeling I am left with isn’t pride; it’s humility. I feel humbled that I could feel so unexpectedly touched by the lives of people that I had no idea I could feel touched by.
Postscript:
My patient Esther [name changed to hide her identity] died from COVID-19. She was MY patient — not a patient I met as a COVID hospitalist, but a patient with rheumatoid arthritis whom I cared for for years.
She had scleromalacia and multiple failed scleral grafts, which made her profoundly sad. She fought her anxiety fiercely and always with poise and panache. One way she dealt with her anxiety was that she constantly messaged me via our EHR portal. She ran everything by me and trusted me to be her rock.
The past month has been so busy that I just now noticed it had been a month since I last heard from her. I tried to call her but got her voicemail. It wasn’t until I exchanged messages with her ophthalmologist that I found out she had passed away from complications of COVID-19.
She was taking rituximab and mycophenolate. I wonder if these drugs made her sicker than she would have been otherwise; it fills me with sadness. I wonder if she was alone like my other COVID-19 patients. I wonder if she was afraid. I am sorry that I wasn’t able to say goodbye.
Karmela Kim Chan, MD, is an assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medical College and an attending physician at Hospital for Special Surgery and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Before moving to New York City, she spent 7 years in private practice in Rhode Island and was a columnist for this rheumatology publication, writing about the challenges of starting life as a full-fledged rheumatologist in a private practice.
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com. This article is part of a partnership between Medscape and Hospital for Special Surgery.
When the coronavirus pandemic hit New York City in early March, the Hospital for Special Surgery leadership decided that the best way to serve the city was to stop elective orthopedic procedures temporarily and use the facility to take on patients from its sister institution, NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital.
As in other institutions, it was all hands on deck. , other internal medicine subspecialists were asked to volunteer, including rheumatologists and primary care sports medicine doctors.
As a rheumatologist, it had been well over 10 years since I had last done any inpatient work. I was filled with trepidation, but I was also excited to dive in.
April 4:
Feeling very unmoored. I am in unfamiliar territory, and it’s terrifying. There are so many things that I no longer know how to do. Thankfully, the hospitalists are gracious, extremely supportive, and helpful.
My N95 doesn’t fit well. It’s never fit — not during residency or fellowship, not in any job I’ve had, and not today. The lady fit-testing me said she was sorry, but the look on her face said, “I’m sorry, but you’re going to die.”
April 7:
We don’t know how to treat coronavirus. I’ve sent some patients home, others I’ve sent to the ICU. Thank goodness for treatment algorithms from leadership, but we are sorely lacking good-quality data.
Our infectious disease doctor doesn’t think hydroxychloroquine works at all; I suspect he is right. The guidance right now is to give hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to everyone who is sick enough to be admitted, but there are methodologic flaws in the early enthusiastic preprints, and so far, I’ve not noticed any demonstrable benefit.
The only thing that seems to be happening is that I am seeing more QT prolongation — not something I previously counseled my rheumatology patients on.
April 9:
The patients have been, with a few exceptions, alone in the room. They’re not allowed to have visitors and are required to wear masks all the time. Anyone who enters their rooms is fully covered up so you can barely see them. It’s anonymous and dehumanizing.
We’re instructed to take histories by phone in order to limit the time spent in each room. I buck this instruction; I still take histories in person because human contact seems more important now than ever.
Except maybe I should be smarter about this. One of my patients refuses any treatment, including oxygen support. She firmly believes this is a result of 5G networks — something I later discovered was a common conspiracy theory. She refused to wear a mask despite having a very bad cough. She coughed in my face a lot when we were chatting. My face with my ill-fitting N95 mask. Maybe the fit-testing lady’s eyes weren’t lying and I will die after all.
April 15:
On the days when I’m not working as a hospitalist, I am still doing remote visits with my rheumatology patients. It feels good to be doing something familiar and something I’m actually good at. But it is surreal to be faced with the quotidian on one hand and life and death on the other.
I recently saw a fairly new patient, and I still haven’t figured out if she has a rheumatic condition or if her symptoms all stem from an alcohol use disorder. In our previous visits, she could barely acknowledge that her drinking was an issue. On today’s visit, she told me she was 1½ months sober.
I don’t know her very well, but it was the happiest news I’d heard in a long time. I was so beside myself with joy that I cried, which says more about my current emotional state than anything else, really.
April 21:
On my panel of patients, I have three women with COVID-19 — all of whom lost their husbands to COVID-19, and none of whom were able to say their goodbyes. I cannot even begin to imagine what it must be like to survive this period of illness, isolation, and fear, only to be met on the other side by grief.
Rheumatology doesn’t lend itself too well to such existential concerns; I am not equipped for this. Perhaps my only advantage as a rheumatologist is that I know how to use IVIG, anakinra, and tocilizumab.
Someone on my panel was started on anakinra, and it turned his case around. Would he have gotten better without it anyway? We’ll never know for sure.
April 28:
Patients seem to be requiring prolonged intubation. We have now reached the stage where patients are alive but trached and PEGed. One of my patients had been intubated for close to 3 weeks. She was one of four people in her family who contracted the illness (they had had a dinner party before New York’s state of emergency was declared). We thought she might die once she was extubated, but she is still fighting. Unconscious, unarousable, but breathing on her own.
Will she ever wake up? We don’t know. We put the onus on her family to make decisions about placing a PEG tube in. They can only do so from a distance with imperfect information gleaned from periodic, brief FaceTime interactions — where no interaction happens at all.
May 4:
It’s my last day as a “COVID hospitalist.” When I first started, I felt like I was being helpful. Walking home in the middle of the 7 PM cheers for healthcare workers frequently left me teary eyed. As horrible as the situation was, I was proud of myself for volunteering to help and appreciative of a broken city’s gratitude toward all healthcare workers in general. Maybe I bought into the idea that, like many others around me, I am a hero.
I don’t feel like a hero, though. The stuff I saw was easy compared with the stuff that my colleagues in critical care saw. Our hospital accepted the more stable patient transfers from our sister hospitals. Patients who remained in the NewYork–Presbyterian system were sicker, with encephalitis, thrombotic complications, multiorgan failure, and cytokine release syndrome. It’s the doctors who took care of those patients who deserve to be called heroes.
No, I am no hero. But did my volunteering make a difference? It made a difference to me. The overwhelming feeling I am left with isn’t pride; it’s humility. I feel humbled that I could feel so unexpectedly touched by the lives of people that I had no idea I could feel touched by.
Postscript:
My patient Esther [name changed to hide her identity] died from COVID-19. She was MY patient — not a patient I met as a COVID hospitalist, but a patient with rheumatoid arthritis whom I cared for for years.
She had scleromalacia and multiple failed scleral grafts, which made her profoundly sad. She fought her anxiety fiercely and always with poise and panache. One way she dealt with her anxiety was that she constantly messaged me via our EHR portal. She ran everything by me and trusted me to be her rock.
The past month has been so busy that I just now noticed it had been a month since I last heard from her. I tried to call her but got her voicemail. It wasn’t until I exchanged messages with her ophthalmologist that I found out she had passed away from complications of COVID-19.
She was taking rituximab and mycophenolate. I wonder if these drugs made her sicker than she would have been otherwise; it fills me with sadness. I wonder if she was alone like my other COVID-19 patients. I wonder if she was afraid. I am sorry that I wasn’t able to say goodbye.
Karmela Kim Chan, MD, is an assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medical College and an attending physician at Hospital for Special Surgery and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Before moving to New York City, she spent 7 years in private practice in Rhode Island and was a columnist for this rheumatology publication, writing about the challenges of starting life as a full-fledged rheumatologist in a private practice.
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com. This article is part of a partnership between Medscape and Hospital for Special Surgery.
When the coronavirus pandemic hit New York City in early March, the Hospital for Special Surgery leadership decided that the best way to serve the city was to stop elective orthopedic procedures temporarily and use the facility to take on patients from its sister institution, NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital.
As in other institutions, it was all hands on deck. , other internal medicine subspecialists were asked to volunteer, including rheumatologists and primary care sports medicine doctors.
As a rheumatologist, it had been well over 10 years since I had last done any inpatient work. I was filled with trepidation, but I was also excited to dive in.
April 4:
Feeling very unmoored. I am in unfamiliar territory, and it’s terrifying. There are so many things that I no longer know how to do. Thankfully, the hospitalists are gracious, extremely supportive, and helpful.
My N95 doesn’t fit well. It’s never fit — not during residency or fellowship, not in any job I’ve had, and not today. The lady fit-testing me said she was sorry, but the look on her face said, “I’m sorry, but you’re going to die.”
April 7:
We don’t know how to treat coronavirus. I’ve sent some patients home, others I’ve sent to the ICU. Thank goodness for treatment algorithms from leadership, but we are sorely lacking good-quality data.
Our infectious disease doctor doesn’t think hydroxychloroquine works at all; I suspect he is right. The guidance right now is to give hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to everyone who is sick enough to be admitted, but there are methodologic flaws in the early enthusiastic preprints, and so far, I’ve not noticed any demonstrable benefit.
The only thing that seems to be happening is that I am seeing more QT prolongation — not something I previously counseled my rheumatology patients on.
April 9:
The patients have been, with a few exceptions, alone in the room. They’re not allowed to have visitors and are required to wear masks all the time. Anyone who enters their rooms is fully covered up so you can barely see them. It’s anonymous and dehumanizing.
We’re instructed to take histories by phone in order to limit the time spent in each room. I buck this instruction; I still take histories in person because human contact seems more important now than ever.
Except maybe I should be smarter about this. One of my patients refuses any treatment, including oxygen support. She firmly believes this is a result of 5G networks — something I later discovered was a common conspiracy theory. She refused to wear a mask despite having a very bad cough. She coughed in my face a lot when we were chatting. My face with my ill-fitting N95 mask. Maybe the fit-testing lady’s eyes weren’t lying and I will die after all.
April 15:
On the days when I’m not working as a hospitalist, I am still doing remote visits with my rheumatology patients. It feels good to be doing something familiar and something I’m actually good at. But it is surreal to be faced with the quotidian on one hand and life and death on the other.
I recently saw a fairly new patient, and I still haven’t figured out if she has a rheumatic condition or if her symptoms all stem from an alcohol use disorder. In our previous visits, she could barely acknowledge that her drinking was an issue. On today’s visit, she told me she was 1½ months sober.
I don’t know her very well, but it was the happiest news I’d heard in a long time. I was so beside myself with joy that I cried, which says more about my current emotional state than anything else, really.
April 21:
On my panel of patients, I have three women with COVID-19 — all of whom lost their husbands to COVID-19, and none of whom were able to say their goodbyes. I cannot even begin to imagine what it must be like to survive this period of illness, isolation, and fear, only to be met on the other side by grief.
Rheumatology doesn’t lend itself too well to such existential concerns; I am not equipped for this. Perhaps my only advantage as a rheumatologist is that I know how to use IVIG, anakinra, and tocilizumab.
Someone on my panel was started on anakinra, and it turned his case around. Would he have gotten better without it anyway? We’ll never know for sure.
April 28:
Patients seem to be requiring prolonged intubation. We have now reached the stage where patients are alive but trached and PEGed. One of my patients had been intubated for close to 3 weeks. She was one of four people in her family who contracted the illness (they had had a dinner party before New York’s state of emergency was declared). We thought she might die once she was extubated, but she is still fighting. Unconscious, unarousable, but breathing on her own.
Will she ever wake up? We don’t know. We put the onus on her family to make decisions about placing a PEG tube in. They can only do so from a distance with imperfect information gleaned from periodic, brief FaceTime interactions — where no interaction happens at all.
May 4:
It’s my last day as a “COVID hospitalist.” When I first started, I felt like I was being helpful. Walking home in the middle of the 7 PM cheers for healthcare workers frequently left me teary eyed. As horrible as the situation was, I was proud of myself for volunteering to help and appreciative of a broken city’s gratitude toward all healthcare workers in general. Maybe I bought into the idea that, like many others around me, I am a hero.
I don’t feel like a hero, though. The stuff I saw was easy compared with the stuff that my colleagues in critical care saw. Our hospital accepted the more stable patient transfers from our sister hospitals. Patients who remained in the NewYork–Presbyterian system were sicker, with encephalitis, thrombotic complications, multiorgan failure, and cytokine release syndrome. It’s the doctors who took care of those patients who deserve to be called heroes.
No, I am no hero. But did my volunteering make a difference? It made a difference to me. The overwhelming feeling I am left with isn’t pride; it’s humility. I feel humbled that I could feel so unexpectedly touched by the lives of people that I had no idea I could feel touched by.
Postscript:
My patient Esther [name changed to hide her identity] died from COVID-19. She was MY patient — not a patient I met as a COVID hospitalist, but a patient with rheumatoid arthritis whom I cared for for years.
She had scleromalacia and multiple failed scleral grafts, which made her profoundly sad. She fought her anxiety fiercely and always with poise and panache. One way she dealt with her anxiety was that she constantly messaged me via our EHR portal. She ran everything by me and trusted me to be her rock.
The past month has been so busy that I just now noticed it had been a month since I last heard from her. I tried to call her but got her voicemail. It wasn’t until I exchanged messages with her ophthalmologist that I found out she had passed away from complications of COVID-19.
She was taking rituximab and mycophenolate. I wonder if these drugs made her sicker than she would have been otherwise; it fills me with sadness. I wonder if she was alone like my other COVID-19 patients. I wonder if she was afraid. I am sorry that I wasn’t able to say goodbye.
Karmela Kim Chan, MD, is an assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medical College and an attending physician at Hospital for Special Surgery and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Before moving to New York City, she spent 7 years in private practice in Rhode Island and was a columnist for this rheumatology publication, writing about the challenges of starting life as a full-fledged rheumatologist in a private practice.
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com. This article is part of a partnership between Medscape and Hospital for Special Surgery.
Database offers snapshot of common causes of pediatric allergic contact dermatitis
, according to an analysis of data from the Pediatric Allergic Contact Dermatitis Registry.
The registry is the first multicenter prospective database in the United States with a focus on pediatric allergic contact dermatitis. JiaDe (Jeff) Yu, MD, a dermatologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, was awarded a Dermatology Foundation Career Development Grant and formed the registry in 2018 “in an effort to gain a better understanding of allergic contact dermatitis in children,” Idy Tam, MS, said during the virtual annual meeting of the Society for Pediatric Dermatology. “There is currently limited data regarding the pediatric allergic contact dermatitis in the U.S., despite as many as 20% of children having allergic contact dermatitis.”
To date, the Pediatric Allergic Contact Dermatitis Registry consists of 10 academic medical centers with high volume pediatric patch testing across the United States: Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston; Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston; the University of Missouri–Columbia; Stanford (Calif.) University; the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston; Texas Children’s Hospital, Houston; Northwestern University, Chicago; Emory University, Atlanta; Washington University, St. Louis; and the University of California, San Diego.
For the current analysis, Ms. Tam, a research fellow in the department of dermatology at Massachusetts General Hospital, and colleagues collected data on 218 patients under age 18 who were referred for an evaluation of allergic contact dermatitis at one of the 10 participating sites between January 2016 and June 2020.
The mean age of children at the time of their patch testing was 10 years, 62% were girls, and 66% had a history of atopic dermatitis (AD). Most (75%) were White, 14% were Black, 6% were Asian, the rest were from other racial backgrounds. The distribution of dermatitis varied; the top five most commonly affected sites were the face (62%), arms (35%), legs (29%), hands (27%), and neck (20%).
Ms. Tam reported that the mean number of allergens patch tested per child was 78. In all, 81% of children had one or more positive patch test reactions, with a similar rate among those with and without a history of AD (80% vs. 82%, respectively; P = .21). The five most common allergens were hydroperoxides of linalool (22%), nickel sulfate (19%), methylisothiazolinone (17%), cobalt chloride (13%), and fragrance mix I (12%).
The top two treatments at the time of patch testing were a topical corticosteroid (78%) and a topical calcineurin inhibitor (26%).
“This study has allowed for the increased collaboration among dermatologists with expertise in pediatric dermatology and allergic contact dermatitis,” concluded Ms. Tam, a fourth-year medical student at Tufts University, Boston. “We continue to actively seek further collaboration with a goal of creating the most comprehensive pediatric allergic contact dermatitis registry, which can improve our understanding of this condition in children and hopefully guide future research in this field.”
The work was recognized as one of the top poster abstracts at the meeting. The researchers reported having no relevant disclosures.
, according to an analysis of data from the Pediatric Allergic Contact Dermatitis Registry.
The registry is the first multicenter prospective database in the United States with a focus on pediatric allergic contact dermatitis. JiaDe (Jeff) Yu, MD, a dermatologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, was awarded a Dermatology Foundation Career Development Grant and formed the registry in 2018 “in an effort to gain a better understanding of allergic contact dermatitis in children,” Idy Tam, MS, said during the virtual annual meeting of the Society for Pediatric Dermatology. “There is currently limited data regarding the pediatric allergic contact dermatitis in the U.S., despite as many as 20% of children having allergic contact dermatitis.”
To date, the Pediatric Allergic Contact Dermatitis Registry consists of 10 academic medical centers with high volume pediatric patch testing across the United States: Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston; Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston; the University of Missouri–Columbia; Stanford (Calif.) University; the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston; Texas Children’s Hospital, Houston; Northwestern University, Chicago; Emory University, Atlanta; Washington University, St. Louis; and the University of California, San Diego.
For the current analysis, Ms. Tam, a research fellow in the department of dermatology at Massachusetts General Hospital, and colleagues collected data on 218 patients under age 18 who were referred for an evaluation of allergic contact dermatitis at one of the 10 participating sites between January 2016 and June 2020.
The mean age of children at the time of their patch testing was 10 years, 62% were girls, and 66% had a history of atopic dermatitis (AD). Most (75%) were White, 14% were Black, 6% were Asian, the rest were from other racial backgrounds. The distribution of dermatitis varied; the top five most commonly affected sites were the face (62%), arms (35%), legs (29%), hands (27%), and neck (20%).
Ms. Tam reported that the mean number of allergens patch tested per child was 78. In all, 81% of children had one or more positive patch test reactions, with a similar rate among those with and without a history of AD (80% vs. 82%, respectively; P = .21). The five most common allergens were hydroperoxides of linalool (22%), nickel sulfate (19%), methylisothiazolinone (17%), cobalt chloride (13%), and fragrance mix I (12%).
The top two treatments at the time of patch testing were a topical corticosteroid (78%) and a topical calcineurin inhibitor (26%).
“This study has allowed for the increased collaboration among dermatologists with expertise in pediatric dermatology and allergic contact dermatitis,” concluded Ms. Tam, a fourth-year medical student at Tufts University, Boston. “We continue to actively seek further collaboration with a goal of creating the most comprehensive pediatric allergic contact dermatitis registry, which can improve our understanding of this condition in children and hopefully guide future research in this field.”
The work was recognized as one of the top poster abstracts at the meeting. The researchers reported having no relevant disclosures.
, according to an analysis of data from the Pediatric Allergic Contact Dermatitis Registry.
The registry is the first multicenter prospective database in the United States with a focus on pediatric allergic contact dermatitis. JiaDe (Jeff) Yu, MD, a dermatologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, was awarded a Dermatology Foundation Career Development Grant and formed the registry in 2018 “in an effort to gain a better understanding of allergic contact dermatitis in children,” Idy Tam, MS, said during the virtual annual meeting of the Society for Pediatric Dermatology. “There is currently limited data regarding the pediatric allergic contact dermatitis in the U.S., despite as many as 20% of children having allergic contact dermatitis.”
To date, the Pediatric Allergic Contact Dermatitis Registry consists of 10 academic medical centers with high volume pediatric patch testing across the United States: Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston; Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston; the University of Missouri–Columbia; Stanford (Calif.) University; the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston; Texas Children’s Hospital, Houston; Northwestern University, Chicago; Emory University, Atlanta; Washington University, St. Louis; and the University of California, San Diego.
For the current analysis, Ms. Tam, a research fellow in the department of dermatology at Massachusetts General Hospital, and colleagues collected data on 218 patients under age 18 who were referred for an evaluation of allergic contact dermatitis at one of the 10 participating sites between January 2016 and June 2020.
The mean age of children at the time of their patch testing was 10 years, 62% were girls, and 66% had a history of atopic dermatitis (AD). Most (75%) were White, 14% were Black, 6% were Asian, the rest were from other racial backgrounds. The distribution of dermatitis varied; the top five most commonly affected sites were the face (62%), arms (35%), legs (29%), hands (27%), and neck (20%).
Ms. Tam reported that the mean number of allergens patch tested per child was 78. In all, 81% of children had one or more positive patch test reactions, with a similar rate among those with and without a history of AD (80% vs. 82%, respectively; P = .21). The five most common allergens were hydroperoxides of linalool (22%), nickel sulfate (19%), methylisothiazolinone (17%), cobalt chloride (13%), and fragrance mix I (12%).
The top two treatments at the time of patch testing were a topical corticosteroid (78%) and a topical calcineurin inhibitor (26%).
“This study has allowed for the increased collaboration among dermatologists with expertise in pediatric dermatology and allergic contact dermatitis,” concluded Ms. Tam, a fourth-year medical student at Tufts University, Boston. “We continue to actively seek further collaboration with a goal of creating the most comprehensive pediatric allergic contact dermatitis registry, which can improve our understanding of this condition in children and hopefully guide future research in this field.”
The work was recognized as one of the top poster abstracts at the meeting. The researchers reported having no relevant disclosures.
FROM SPD 2020