BACKGROUND Although most randomized trials and meta-analyses suggest a slight or no increase in the risk of cancer in statin users, results from observational studies have been conflicting, and some have even suggested a large protective effect of statins on certain cancers. Long-term statin users tend to be healthier, less frail, and more adherent to therapy than nonusers, however. This could ...

BACKGROUND We longitudinally assessed predictors of insulin resistance (IR) change among HIV-uninfected and HIV-infected (ART-initiators and ART-non-initiators) Rwandan women. METHODOLOGY HIV-infected (HIV+) and uninfected (HIV-) women provided demographic and clinical measures: age, body mass index (BMI) in Kg/(height in meters)2, Fat-Mass (FMI) and Fat-Free-Mass (FFMI) index, fasting serum ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Stroke risk may increase shortly after warfarin initiation in nonvalvular atrial fibrillation patients. Because of the brief period and limited number of events, large samples are needed to study this effect. We compared 30-day rates of ischemic stroke between nonvalvular atrial fibrillation patients initiating warfarin to nonwarfarin comparators using an insurance claims...

In this work, the oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) fiber was used as a source of lignocellulosic filler to fabricate a novel type of cost effective biodegradable composite, based on the aliphatic aromatic co-polyester poly(butylene adipate-co-terephtalate) PBAT (Ecoflex™), as a fully biodegradable thermoplastic polymer matrix. The aim of this research was to improve the new biocomposites' perfo...

INTRODUCTION Oral antidiabetes medications, including dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitors (DPP-4is) saxagliptin and sitagliptin, are used for the treatment of type 2 diabetes (T2D). The study objective was to compare all-cause and diabetes-related costs following initiation of saxagliptin or sitagliptin. METHODS Patients aged ≥ 18 years initiating saxagliptin or sitagliptin between January 1, 2...

A new class of biocomposites based on oil palm empty fruit bunch fiber and poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT), which is a biodegradable aliphatic aromatic co-polyester, were prepared using melt blending technique. The composites were prepared at various fiber contents of 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 wt% and characterized. Chemical treatment of oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) fiber was suc...

BACKGROUND We examined the cardiovascular risk of abatacept compared with tumor necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitors in patients with rheumatoid arthritis with and without diabetes mellitus (DM). METHODS AND RESULTS We conducted a cohort study of patients with rheumatoid arthritis who newly started abatacept or TNF inhibitors using claims data from Medicare and MarketScan. The primary outcome was...

INTRODUCTION Analyses of efficacy and tolerability of pharmacologic interventions are based on clinical trials that often include predominately white populations, in part because of challenges associated with recruitment and retention of racial/ethnically diverse study populations. Using real-world electronic health record (EHR) data, we sought to evaluate the tolerability and effectiveness of ...

WHAT IS KNOWN AND OBJECTIVE Pharmacy claims are commonly used to assess medication adherence. It is unclear how different approaches to handling hospitalizations compare to the gold standard of using outpatient and inpatient drug data. This study aimed to compare the impact of different approaches to handling hospitalizations on medication adherence estimation in administrative claims data. M...