BackgroundPolypharmacy and increased sensitivity to side effects cause adverse drug events, drug–drug interactions and medication errors in the elderly.ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to investigate the prevalence and type of drug-related problems and associated factors among patients admitted to a clinical pharmacist service-naïve medical ward in an inland hospital in northern Sweden.MethodsDuring September–November 2015 and February–April 2016, clinical pharmacists working as part of a ward team on the medical ward conducted 103 medication reviews. Drug-related problems were identified and classified. Associated factors, drug classes and specific drugs involved were also investigated.ResultsThe clinical pharmacists identified 133 drug-related problems in 66% [68/103] of the study population. The most common drug-related problems in this study were inappropriate drug use and interactions. Cardiovascular drugs and psychotropic drugs were most commonly involved. Drug-related problems were more frequently observed at higher age, increasing number of drugs prescribed and in patients with reduced renal function. In the multivariate analysis, only the number of prescribed drugs was still significant.ConclusionDrug-related problems were commonly observed among patients admitted to the medical ward. Medication reviews conducted by clinical pharmacists as part of a ward team resulted in several interventions to improve the patients’ drug treatment.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSEIn patients with symptomatic vertebrobasilar intracranial atherosclerotic disease (ICAD), impaired distal flow predicts recurrent stroke, but limited data exist on the association between perfusion status and recurrent stroke in anterior circulation ICAD.METHODSThis is a retrospective study of patients hospitalized for symptomatic ICAD with 50‐99% stenosis of the intracranial carotid or middle cerebral artery. The primary outcome is recurrent symptomatic ischemic stroke in the territory of the artery with ≥50% stenosis within 90 days. The primary predictor is distal hypoperfusion on magnetic resonance (MR) or computed tomography (CT) perfusion, defined as a ≥15 mL volume of territory of the symptomatic artery with Tmax >6 seconds.RESULTSFifty patients met inclusion criteria, including 15 (30%) with recurrent stroke and 15 (30%) with distal hypoperfusion. Distal hypoperfusion was present in 10 of 15 (66.7%) with recurrent stroke versus 5 of 35 (14.3%) without recurrent stroke (P < .001). The hazard ratio for recurrent stroke in patients with distal hypoperfusion was 6.80 (95% confidence interval [CI] 2.31‐20.0).CONCLUSIONDistal hypoperfusion in acutely symptomatic ICAD with 50‐99% stenosis is associated with stroke recurrence. Distal hypoperfusion could be used to enrich future trials of secondary stroke prevention in ICAD patients.

Background: Diabetic retinopathy is a common microvascular complication of diabetes. Previous research has shown that the macrovascular complications of diabetes, including stroke, are often comorbid with shared and, possibly, synergistic pathology. Methods: This is a secondary analysis of the subgroup of patients who enrolled in the ACCORD Eye study of ACCORD. The primary outcome is stroke during follow-up. The primary predictor was presence of diabetic retinopathy on the Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study Severity Scale as assessed from seven-field stereoscopic fundus photographs at study baseline. We fit adjusted Cox models to the primary outcome to provide hazard ratios for stroke and included interaction terms with the ACCORD randomization arms. Results: We included 2,828 patients with a mean (SD) age of 62.1 years and 61.8% were male. The primary outcome of stroke was met by 117 patients during a mean (SD) of 5.4 (1.8) years of follow-up. Diabetic retinopathy was present in 874/2,828 (30.9%) of patients at baseline, and was more common in patients with stroke versus without stroke (41.0 vs 30.5%, p=0.016). In the Cox model, adjusted for baseline patient age, gender, race, total cholesterol, Hgb A1c, smoking, and randomization arm, we found that diabetic retinopathy remained associated with incident stroke (HR 1.60, 95% CI 1.10-2.32, p=0.015) (Figure 1). This association was not affected by randomization to the ACCORD glucose intervention (p=0.305), lipid intervention (p=0.546), or blood pressure intervention (p=0.422). Conclusion: Diabetic retinopathy is associated with an increased risk of stroke, which suggests that the microvascular pathology inherent to diabetic retinopathy has larger cardiovascular implications.

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