Patients were largely satisfied with DTC telemedicine, yet satisfaction varied by coupon use and prescription receipt. The impact of telemedicine on primary care and emergency department use is likely to be small under present usage patterns.

knee. The knee arthroplasty rate increased, but most of the increase preceded the decline in arthroscopy rates.Between 1999 and 2014, the prevalence of osteoarthritis in the US adult population more than doubled from 6.6% to 14.3%. 6 Trends in per capita knee surgical procedures, which are not adjusted for the increase in the prevalence of osteoarthritis, likely understate the degree to which use of arthroscopic surgery as a treatment for knee pain has declined.Some private insurers have started to require physicians to obtain authorization before an arthroscopic knee procedure. The fee-for-service Medicare program does not require prior authorization. Private insurers covered 72% of knee arthroscopies in patients younger than 65 years, and Medicare covered 83% of these procedures in patients aged 65 years or older. I could not observe the impact of prior authorization requirements directly, but trends in arthroscopy rates in these age groups were similar, indicating that the requirements may not be a major factor behind the decline in rates.The results suggest that the accumulating evidence on the lack of benefit associated with knee arthroscopy, compared with medical management, has altered treatment decisions. Despite the lower use rates, knee arthroscopy is still a common procedure. There may be additional opportunities to reduce the use of knee arthroscopy without adversely affecting patient outcomes.

Background Due to the rarity of adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC), information on outcome is based upon small retrospective case series. The aim of our study was to create a large multiinstitutional international dataset of patients with ACC in order to design predictive nomograms for outcome. Methods ACC patients managed at 10 international centers were identified. Patient, tumor, and treatment characteristics were recorded and an international collaborative dataset created. Multivariable competing risk models were then built to predict the 10 year recurrence free probability (RFP), distant recurrence free probability (DRFP), overall survival (OS) and cancer specific mortality (CSM). All predictors of interest were added in the starting full models before selection, including age, gender, tumor site, clinical T stage, perineural invasion, margin status, pathologic N-status, and M-status. Stepdown method was used in model selection to choose predictive variables. An external dataset of 99 patients from 2 other institutions was used to validate the nomograms. Findings Of 438 ACC patients, 27.2% (119/438) died from ACC and 38.8% (170/438) died of other causes. Median follow-up was 56 months (range 1–306). The nomogram for OS had 7 variables (age, gender, clinical T stage, tumor site, margin status, pathologic N-status and M-status) with a concordance index (CI) of 0.71. The nomogram for CSM had the same variables, except margin status, with a concordance index (CI) of 0.70. The nomogram for RFP had 7 variables (age, gender, clinical T stage, tumor site, margin status, pathologic N status and perineural invasion) (CI 0.66). The nomogram for DRFP had 6 variables (gender, clinical T stage, tumor site, pathologic N-status, perineural invasion and margin status) (CI 0.64). Concordance index for the external validation set were 0.76, 0.72, 0.67 and 0.70 respectively. Interpretation Using an international collaborative database we have created the first nomograms which estimate outcome in individual patients with ACC. These predictive nomograms will facilitate patient counseling in terms of prognosis and subsequent clinical follow-up. They will also identify high risk patients who may benefit from clinical trials on new targeted therapies for patients with ACC. Funding None.

SummaryBackgroundEvidence for endoscopic balloon dilation of small intestinal strictures in Crohn's disease (CD) using balloon‐assisted enteroscopy is scarce.AimTo evaluate endoscopic balloon dilation for the treatment of small intestinal CD strictures using balloon‐assisted enteroscopy.MethodsCitations in Embase, MEDLINE, and Cochrane were systematically reviewed. In a meta‐analysis of 18 studies with 463 patients and 1189 endoscopic balloon dilations, technical success was defined as the ability to dilate a stricture. Individual data were also obtained on 218 patients to identify outcome‐relevant risk factors.ResultsIn the pooled per‐study analysis, technical success rate of endoscopic balloon dilation was 94.9%, resulting in short‐term clinical efficacy in 82.3% of patients. Major complications occurred in 5.3% of patients. During follow‐up, 48.3% of patients reported symptom recurrence, 38.8% were re‐dilated and 27.4% proceeded to surgery. On the per‐patient‐based multivariable analysis, that patients with disease activity in the small intestine had lower short‐term clinical efficacy (odds ratio 0.32; 95% confidence interval 0.14‐0.73, P = 0.007). Patients with concomitant active disease in the small and/or large intestine had an increased risk to proceed toward surgery (hazard ratio 1.85; 95% confidence interval 1.09‐3.13, P = 0.02 and hazard ratio 1.77; 95% confidence interval 1.34‐2.34, P < 0.001).ConclusionsBalloon‐assisted enteroscopy for dilatation of CD‐associated small intestinal strictures has high short‐term technical and clinical efficacy and low complication rates. However, up to two‐thirds of patients need re‐dilation or surgery.

Circulating cardiac [N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), and high-sensitivity troponin T (hsTnT)], neurohumoral [mid-regional pro-adrenomedullin (MR-proADM) and copeptin], renal (cystatin C), and inflammatory [high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP)] biomarkers were measured at randomization in 1853 participants with complete data. The relationship between these biomarkers and the primary composite endpoint of heart failure hospitalization or cardiovascular death over 28 months of follow-up (n = 834) was evaluated using Cox proportional hazards regression, the c-statistic and the net reclassification index (NRI). After adjustment, the hazard ratio (HR) for the composite outcome in the top tertile of the distribution compared to the lowest tertile for each biomarker was: NT-proBNP 3.96 (95% CI 3.16-4.98), hsTnT 3.09 (95% CI 2.47-3.88), MR-proADM 2.28 (95% CI 1.83-2.84), copeptin 1.66 (95% CI 1.35-2.04), cystatin C 1.92 (95% CI 1.55-2.37), and hsCRP 1.51 (95% CI 1.27-1.80). A basic clinical prediction model was improved on addition of each biomarker individually, most strongly by NT-proBNP (NRI +62.3%, P < 0.001), but thereafter was only improved marginally by addition of hsTnT (NRI +33.1%, P = 0.004). Further addition of biomarkers did not improve discrimination further. Findings were similar for all-cause mortality.

Chronic pulmonary aspergillosis (CPA) has recently been recognized as a significant global health burden. In China, the diagnosis of CPA is still unfamiliar to most doctors. The aim of this study was to demonstrate the clinical manifestations and diagnoses of CPA in China.A multidisciplinary team of doctors retrospectively screened 690 records of patients diagnosed with pulmonary aspergillosis from January 2000 to December 2016 at Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Beijing, China. Of these, 69 patients were diagnosed with CPA. The patients’ clinical characteristics were then retrieved and analyzed. Demographic, laboratory, and radiological data for these patients were compared by CPA type.Of the 69 patients diagnosed with CPA, 10 patients were diagnosed with chronic cavitary pulmonary aspergillosis (CCPA), 15 patients with semi-invasive aspergillosis (SAIA), 41 patients with simple aspergilloma, and 3 patients with Aspergillus nodule. Further, 53.3% of the SAIA patients were obviously immunocompromised, and 60% of the CCPA patients, 26.7% of the SAIA patients, 7.3% of the simple aspergilloma cases were mildly immunocompromised. Previous underlying lung abnormalities were observed in 20% of CCPA patients, 53.3% of SAIA patients, and 80.5% of simple aspergilloma patients. The most common symptoms in the CPA patients were cough (92.8%), hemoptysis (63.8%), chronic sputum (23.2%), and fever (17.4%). The most common computerized tomography abnormalities were cavities (94.2%), nodule (84.1%), consolidation (4.3%), pleural thickening (2.9%), and infiltration (2.9%). CCPA, SAIA and simple aspergilloma patients were significantly different with respect to their course before diagnosis, constitutional symptoms, fever, hemoptysis, breathlessness, white blood cell count, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein count, presence of nodule, and presence of a solitary lesion (all P < .05). Furthermore, SAIA patients had a significantly shorter course before diagnosis and a significantly higher white blood cell count compared with CCPA patients (both P < .01).In China, underlying systemic immunocompromising conditions and lung diseases with mechanical impediments contribute to CPA. Simple aspergillosis was the most common diagnosis in CPA patients. The imaging characteristics of simple aspergillosis and Aspergillus nodules were quite discriminable, while CCPA, and SAIA were similar in their clinical and radiological features. Distinguishing between CCPA and SAIA depends mainly on the physician's clinical judgment.

SummaryBackgroundPulmonary cryptococcosis (PC) is not considered an rare, opportunistic infection anymore. The immunocompetent population accounts for an increasing proportion of the morbidity.ObjectiveThis study investigated the clinical characteristics of PC patients spanning 20 years, in a referral centre of China.Patients/MethodsWe retrospectively investigated the clinical data of 99 patients with PC who were diagnosed at Peking Union Medical College Hospital (PUMCH) from January 1998 to December 2017.ResultsPulmonary cryptococcosis incidence in PUMCH has seen sharp increase in two decades. There were 40.4% (40/99), 17.2% (17/99) and 42.4% (42/99) immunocompetent, mildly immunocompromised and severe immunocompromised patients, respectively. Significantly higher (P = .035) male predominance in immunocompetent and mildly immunocompromised groups (68.4%, 39/57) compared with severe immunocompromised group (45.2%, 19/42) was found. Overall, 27.5% (11/40) immunocompetent patients reported a significant difference (P = .02) in history of more than weekly drinking, higher than mildly or severe immunocompromised. No significant difference occurred in symptoms and radiographic characteristics among the groups. In pulmonary computerised tomography findings, the non‐air pathway feature was the dominant distribution characteristics in all patients with PC (P = .002). The gap in body dissemination frequency between immunocompetent combined with mildly immunocompromised (5.26%, 3/57) and severe immunocompromised (19.0%, 8/42) was marginally significant (P = .05).ConclusionsGender and alcohol drinking could be PC risk factors of concern in patients without severe immunodeficiency. No significant difference occurred in symptoms or radiographic characteristics between patients with different levels of immune status. The unique radiographic non‐air pathway distribution in the lung may be the feature of Cryptococcus invasion that may enhance accurate diagnosis.

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