IMPORTANCE Pharmaceutical products, including unused portions, may contribute to financial and environmental costs in the United States. Because cataract surgery is performed millions of times each year in the United States and throughout the rest of the world, understanding these financial and environmental costs associated with cataract surgery is warranted. OBJECTIVE To investigate the financial and environmental costs of unused pharmaceutical products after phacoemulsification surgery. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS This descriptive qualitative study included 4 surgical sites in the northeastern United States (a private ambulatory care center, private tertiary care center, private outpatient center, and federally run medical center for veterans). Prices and data for use of services and pharmaceuticals were obtained for the tertiary care and outpatient centers from
A 49-year-old otherwise healthy male presented with an odontogenic abscess and mild left facial swelling. CT imaging revealed gaseous hypodensities within the inferior orbital fissure and pterygopalatine fossa in addition to infection of the left masseter and temporalis muscle. Despite dental drainage, this rapidly progressed to orbital cellulitis with temporalis muscles abscess leading to compartment syndrome and globe tenting. He had an excellent outcome after canthotomy and cantholysis, urgent endoscopic and transconjunctival orbital decompression, temporalis muscle abscess drainage, and intravenous antibiotics. This case describes the use of bony orbital decompression for orbital compartment syndrome and globe tenting from odontogenic orbital cellulitis. In addition, this case radiographically demonstrates a transinferior orbital fissure passageway of an odontogenic abscess in the orbit.
Purpose:
To estimate the economic effects of implementing a universal screening and treatment program for retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) in the Philippines with the Economic Model for Retinopathy of Prematurity (EcROP).
Methods:
The EcROP is a cost-effectiveness, cost-benefit, and cost-utility analysis. Fifty parents of legally blind individuals (aged 3 to 28 years) from three schools for the blind in the Philippines were interviewed to estimate the societal burden of raising a blind child. A decision tree analytic model, with deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analysis, was used to calculate the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (primary outcome) and the incremental monetary benefit (secondary outcome) for implementing an optimal national ROP program, compared to estimates of the current policy. Findings were extrapolated to estimate the national economic benefit of an ideal screening and treatment program.
Results:
The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio for a national program over the current policy was strongly favorable to the ideal program for the Philippines and represents an opportunity for substantial societal cost savings. The per-child incremental, annual monetary benefit of a national program over the current policy was $2,627. Extrapolating to the population of children at risk in 1 year showed that the national annual net benefit estimate would be $64,320,692, which is favorable to the current policy.
Conclusions:
The EcROP demonstrates that implementing a national ROP screening and treatment program is cost-saving and cost-effective, and would substantially decrease childhood blindness in the Philippines.
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J Pediatr Ophthalmol Strabismus
. 2019;56(6):388–396.]
Purpose:
To determine the prevalence of reduced visual acuity and ocular disease in the children of migrant farmworkers in Georgia.
Methods:
A retrospective chart review of data acquired by a vision screening was performed on 156 Haitian and Hispanic children of migrant farmworkers attending a summer school in Georgia. Reduced visual acuity at presentation was analyzed and stratified by ethnicity, type of ocular disease, and immediate resolution with refractive correction.
Results:
The authors found that 20% of migrant farmworker children have a high prevalence of reduced visual acuity in the worse eye. Of those with worse-eye reduced visual acuity, 83% had uncorrected refractive error. The prevalence of uncorrected refractive error from astigmatism and high astigmatism was significantly higher among Hispanics than Haitians. The prevalence of amblyopia suspects among migrant farmworker children was 3%. Of the amblyopia suspects, 80% were anisometropic.
Conclusions:
Children of migrant farmworkers in Georgia have a higher rate of reduced visual acuity, largely from uncorrected refractive error, when compared to other Hispanic and African American children in the United States with a prevalence more aligned to children in Asian and Latin American countries than school children in the United States. This illustrates the need for improved access to screening and care in this vulnerable population.
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J Pediatr Ophthalmol Strabismus
. 2019;56(1):28–34.]
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