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Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf 2021 Mar 6. Epub 2021 Mar 6.

Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri IRCCS.

Purpose: To evaluate the prescription of preventive medications with questionable usefulness in community dwelling elderly adults with cancer or chronic progressive diseases during the last year of life.

Methods: Through the utilization of the healthcare utilization databases of the Lombardy region, Italy, we identified two retrospective cohorts of patients aged 65 years or more, who died in 2018 and had a diagnosis of either a solid cancer (N=19,367) or a chronic progressive disease (N=27,819). We estimated prescription of eight major classes of preventive drugs one year and one month before death; continuation or initiation of preventive drug use during the last month of life was also investigated. Read More

Pharmaceuticals (Basel) 2021 Feb 28;14(3). Epub 2021 Feb 28.

Department of Convergence Medicine, Asan Institute for Life Sciences, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul 44610, Korea.

Tumors escape immune surveillance by inducing various immunosuppressive pathways, including the activation of inhibitory receptors on tumor-infiltrating T cells. While monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) blocking programmed cell death 1 (PD-1), programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1), and cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen 4 (CTLA-4) have been approved for multiple cancer indications, only a subset of patients benefit from immune checkpoint blockade therapies, highlighting the need for additional approaches. Therefore, the identification of new target molecules acting in distinct or complementary pathways in monotherapy or combination therapy with PD-1/PD-L1 blockade is gaining immense interest. Read More

Dermatopathology (Basel) 2021 Feb 25;8(1):37-39. Epub 2021 Feb 25.

Dermato-Oncology Unit, Division of Dermatology, University Hospital of Geneva, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland.

Mucocutaneous adverse events are commonly observed under immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) therapy. Here, we report the case of a 43-year-old male patient with a stage IIIC melanoma disease who developed hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) three months after the beginning of an anti-PD-1 (nivolumab) adjuvant therapy. The patient had no comorbidities other than obesity and severe acne during adolescence. Read More

Gen Hosp Psychiatry 2021 Feb 22;70:18-24. Epub 2021 Feb 22.

School of Public Health, Oregon Health & Science University-Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, United States.

Objective: Hospital-based delivery of opioid agonist therapy ([OAT]; buprenorphine, methadone) is an often-overlooked component of the opioid use disorder (OUD) care continuum. Hospitals are complex clinical environments and organizational policies may inform access to care. This study aimed to identify and describe OUD-related hospital policies. Read More

Drug Alcohol Depend 2021 Feb 26;221:108651. Epub 2021 Feb 26.

School of Health and Social Development, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria, 3125, Australia. Electronic address:

Objectives: To update the existing evidence to identify specific barriers to initiation of opioid substitution therapy (OST) for those with opioid use disorder (OUD).

Methods: The review follows Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews andMeta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Six databases were initially searched in November 2019, with the search updated on 11 November 2020, for qualitative or quantitative studies reporting the barriers to initiating OST from the client with OUD perspective. Read More