News

Managing diabetes and preventing microvascular and macrovascular complications requires a more holistic approach that goes beyond glucose, and includes careful management of other risk factors.

Allopurinol, considered the standard of care for gout, may be inadequate to lower uric acid levels in patients with gout, according to new safety and efficacy data from a large study presented at the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) 2013 annual meeting recently in San Diego, Calif.

Fluticasone furoate and vilanterol inhalation powder (Breo Ellipta, GlaxoSmithKline and Theravance) once-daily for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), is now available to pharmacies throughout the United States.

GlaxoSmithKline and Community Care North Carolina team up to put medication data to good use “What we found with small data is there are still a lot of barriers to being able to apply data,” says John Easter, senior director in the public policy department at GSK. “Providers may not have right data set or may be using legacy systems that can’t integrate with each other. What this group was able to do is create these models in a lightweight way so they only needed a small amount of data to predict the correct outcomes.”

The FDA is recommending to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that hydrodone combination products, such as Vicodin, be reclassified as a Schedule II product, placing tighter controls on the pain medications. Hydrocodone is currently a Schedule III drug, according to an FDA announcement.

Severe life-threatening allergic reactions are more common than many thought. Anaphylaxis very likely occurs in nearly 1 in 50 Americans (1.6%), and the rate is probably higher, close to 1 in 20 (5.1%), according to a study published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

FDA has approved Juvederm Voluma XC, a cosmetic filler by Allergan, to temporarily correct age-related volume loss in the cheek area in adults who are older than 21 years. The product is expected to be available this fall, the manufacturer said.

Five years of the now recommended 2-dose varicella vaccine has dramatically reduced the incidence of chicken pox among all age groups, including among infants too young to be vaccinated.

FDA approved macitentan (Opsumit, Actelion Pharmaceuticals) to treat adults with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), a chronic, progressive and debilitating disease that can lead to death or lung transplantation.

A history of 1 or more falls in the 6 months prior to an operation forecasts increased postoperative complications, need for discharge institutionalization, and 30-day readmission across surgical specialties, according to a study published in JAMA Surgery online October 9, 2013.

Secukinumab (AIN457), an interleukin-17A (IL-17A) inhibitor, was more effective in treating moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis than the anti-tumor necrosis factor etanercept and current standard of care, according to a head-to-head phase 3 study.Data from the presented at the 22nd Congress of the European Association of Dermatology and Venereology (EADV) in Istanbul showed that secukinumab was effective in treating psoriasis, with rapid onset and durable responses, and may represent a new treatment alternative for patients.

The topical anti-fungal agent ciclopirox causes HIV-infected cells to commit suicide by jamming up the cells’ powerhouse, the mitochondria, according to a recent study.The study, published in PLoS One, found that unlike currently available anti-HIV drugs, ciclopirox eradicates infectious HIV from cell cultures, with no rebound of virus when the drug is stopped.

In the treatment of pulmonary embolism (PE) in North American patients, rivaroxaban (Xarelto) reduced length of hospital stay by 1 full day compared to conventional dual therapy, according to data presented at the American College of Emergency Physicians scientific assembly, October 14-17, in Seattle.

Compared to patients with a principal diagnosis of heart failure, heart failure patients hospitalized with a diagnosis other than heart failure had lower rates of guideline-concordant care including assessment of left ventricular (LV) function or prescription for an ACE inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) at time of discharge, according to a study published in the October 9 Journal of the American College of Cardiology.