A significant mortality gap - mainly associated with somatic comorbidities - was detected between patients with schizophrenia and individually matched controls. Improved medical training to address the disparity in mortality, and many other factors including lack of resources, access to and model of medical care, lifestyle, medication side effects, smoking, stigma, need for early intervention and adequate health care organization could help to better address the physical health needs of patients with schizophrenia.

From March through December 2020, 100 autopsies were performed (Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary), with chart review, of patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection demonstrated by real-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction testing (mean age, 74.73 years, range 40–102 years; 50 males, mean age 71.96 years, and 50 females, mean age 77.5 years). Classified by the date of death, 21 cases were from the pandemic’s “first wave” (March through July) and 79 from the “second wave” (August through December). Three mortality categories were defined by relevance of SARS-CoV-2 infection: (1) “strong” association (n=57), in which COVID-19 was primary responsible for death; (2) “contributive” association (n=27), in which a pre-existing condition independent of COVID-19 was primary responsible for death, albeit with substantial COVID-19 co-morbidity; (3) “weak” association (n=16), in which COVID-19 was minimally or not at all responsible for death. Distributions among categories differed between the first wave, in which the “contributive” association cases dominated (strong: 24%, contributive: 48%, weak: 28%), and the second wave, in which the “strong” association cases dominated (strong: 66%, contributive: 21%, weak: 13%). Charted co-morbidities included hypertension (85 %), cardiovascular diseases (71 %), diabetes (40 %), cerebrovascular diseases (31 %), chronic respiratory diseases (30 %), malignant tumors (20 %), renal diseases (19 %), diseases of the central nervous system (15 %), and liver diseases (6 %). Autopsy evaluation analyzed alterations on macroscopy as well as findings on microscopy of scanned and scored sections of formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue samples (50–80 blocks/case). Severity of histological abnormalities in the lung differed significantly between “strong” and “contributive” (p<0.0001) and between “strong” and “weak” categories (p<0.0001). Abnormalities included diffuse alveolar damage, macrophage infiltration, and vascular and alveolar fibrin aggregates (lung), with macro- and microvascular thrombi and thromboemboli (lung, kidney, liver). In conclusion, autopsies clarified in what extent COVID-19 was responsible for death, demonstrated the pathological background of clinical signs and symptoms, and identified organ alterations that led to the death. Clinicopathologic correlation, with conference discussions of severity of co-morbidities and of direct pathological signs of disease, permitted accurate categorization of cause of death and COVID-19 association as “strong,” “contributive,” or “weak.” Lung involvement, with reduced ventilatory capacity, was the primary cause of death in the “strong” and “contributive” categories. Shifts in distribution among categories, with “strong” association between COVID-19 and death dominating in the second wave, may reflect improved clinical management of COVID-19 as expertise grew.

We conducted a nationwide, full-population based investigation to evaluate the comparative effectiveness of all marketed second generation antipsychotic drugs (SGA) prescribed for outpatients with the diagnosis of schizophrenia in Hungary. Using the national central register, our observational follow-up study included all patients with schizophrenia or related disorder between 01/01/2006 and 30/06/2008. The study cohort comprised 9567 patients who started new SGA during the inclusion period (01/07/2007-30/06/2008). All-cause medication discontinuation of 8 SGAs (1 depot and 7 oral formulations) marketed during the inclusion period, and the time to all-cause discontinuation were the main outcomes. Statistical models included the Kaplan-Meier and the Cox proportional hazards models with propensity score adjustment. Patients treated with a depot formulation risperidone had the longest time to discontinuation with a median of 215 days (95%CI:181-242 days), which was statistically significantly different compared to patients treated with the rest of the medications: E-mail address: czobor.pal@med.semmelweis-univ.hu (P. Czobor). 1 Istvan Bitter MD, PhD and Lajos Katona MS are co-first authors contributed equally to the article. 2 At the time of beginning of the study he worked as a psychiatry expert for NHIF.European Neuropsychopharmacology (2013Neuropsychopharmacology ( ) 23, 1383Neuropsychopharmacology ( -1390 with patients who were discharged from their first hospitalization for schizophrenia (Tiihonen et al., 2006(Tiihonen et al., , 2011; namely the median times to all-cause medication discontinuation were o120 days for the majority of the oral SGA. In terms of medication differences, our data support the superior effectiveness of the depot formulation regarding all-cause discontinuation, followed by olanzapine at the efficacy rank order.

Background Schizophrenia is a severe condition that affects approximately 1% of the population. Certain elements of antipsychotic treatment can only be examined in large population, thus the need for population-based real-world analyses has been increasing. Patients and methods Hungarian National Health Fund database includes all healthcare data of the population of Hungary. All patients diagnosed with schizophrenia between 01.01.2006 and 31.12.2015 were included in the study. We analyzed all patients with newly initiated second-generation antipsychotic during the inclusion period (01.01.2012–31.12.2013). Patients were followed for 2 years. All-cause treatment discontinuation served as the primary outcome of the study. Patients with newly initiated long-acting injectable treatments were further investigated in stratified analyses based on their previous treatment. Results 106,624 patients had schizophrenia diagnosis during the study period. 12,232 patients met the inclusion criteria for newly initiating second-generation antipsychotic during the inclusion period. The proportion of patients still on treatment after 1 year for oral treatments varied between 17% (oral risperidone) and 31% (oral olanzapine) while the analogous data for long acting injectables were between 32% (risperidone long acting) and 64% (paliperidone long acting one monthly). The 2-year data were similarly in favor of long-actings. Median time to discontinuation in the oral group varied between 57 days (clozapine) and 121 days (olanzapine). The median time to discontinuation for long-actings was significantly longer: between 176 and 287 days; in case of paliperidone long acting, median was not reached during the observation period. Patients receiving long-acting treatment switched from another long-acting remained on the newly initiated treatment significantly longer than those switched from orals. Conclusion Our results indicate the superiority of second generation long-acting antipsychotics with regard to rates of treatment discontinuation and periods of persistence to the assigned medication.

OBJECTIVES: There are numerous publications on the effects of Ketosteril (a ketoacid-aminoacid oral preparate) both in predialysis and dialysis patients. No data exists, however, to the authors' knowledge regarding its pharmacoeconomic impact on the treatment of predialysis patients. Our aim was to evaluate the costeffectiveness of Ketodiet (low/very low protein diet plus Ketosteril) started in stage 3 (GFR 60-30 ml/min) of chronic kidney disease (CKD) versus starting it in stage 4 (GFR 30-15 ml/min) of CKD. A simulation model has been developed to compare the relative costs and health-benefits of the two alternatives. METHODS: Therapeutically effectiveness was clarified on published Hungarian Ketosteril studies (nϭ171). GFR progression was estimated with a mixed (fixed and random effect) regression analysis of the data for patients treated with and without early Ketosteril for deterministic modeling. 1000 hypothetical patient curves were generated using Bayesian approach to assure the validity of our preliminary hypothesis regarding the expected time to dialysis. Cost analysis based on 80 recent Hungarian CKD patients' multicenter (nϭ9) financial resource utilization data. Quality-adjusted life year (QALY) values were assigned to the CKD stages to assess the qualitative and quantitative impact of the two different Ketodiet approaches. A deterministic and probabilistic model was developed for cost-effectiveness analysis. During lifelong modeling costs and outcomes were discounted with official Hungarian rate of 5%. RESULTS: Deterministic modeling showed a cost favour of 6 543,48 € with early (CKD 3) Ketodiet start. Early initiation proved to be also more effective (avg. difference: ϩ0,71 QALY). ICER of the deterministic model (-9 216,17 €/QALY) and 76% of cases in the probabilistic analysis resulted in a dominance with this approach. CONCLUSIONS: Early initiation of the Ketodiet in stage 3 CKD proved to be more advantageous in terms of both health care costs and outcomes than starting the treatment in stage 4 CKD.