Although a small proportion of the population, CMC account for a substantial proportion of health care costs. CMC make multiple transitions across providers and care settings and CMC with TA have higher costs and home care use. Initiatives to improve their health outcomes and decrease costs need to focus on the entire continuum of care.

Objective To examine the risk of new onset diabetes among patients treated with different HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors (statins).Design Population based cohort study with time to event analyses to estimate the relation between use of particular statins and incident diabetes. Hazard ratios were calculated to determine the effect of dose and type of statin on the risk of incident diabetes.Setting Ontario, Canada.Participants All patients aged 66 or older without diabetes who started treatment with statins from 1 August 1997 to 31 March 2010. The analysis was restricted to new users who had not been prescribed a statin in at least the preceding year. Patients with established diabetes before the start of treatment were excluded.Interventions Treatment with statins. Main outcome measure Incident diabetes.Results Compared with pravastatin (the reference drug in all analyses), there was an increased risk of incident diabetes with atorvastatin (adjusted hazard ratio 1.22, 95% confidence interval 1.15 to 1.29), rosuvastatin (1.18, 1.10 to 1.26), and simvastatin (1.10, 1.04 to 1.17). There was no significantly increased risk among people who received fluvastatin (0.95, 0.81 to 1.11) or lovastatin (0.99, 0.86 to 1.14). The absolute risk for incident diabetes was about 31 and 34 events per 1000 person years for atorvastatin and rosuvastatin, respectively. There was a slightly lower absolute risk with simvastatin (26 outcomes per 1000 person years) compared with pravastatin (23 outcomes per 1000 person years). Our findings were consistent regardless of whether statins were used for primary or secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease. Although similar results were observed when statins were grouped by potency, the risk of incident diabetes associated with use of rosuvastatin became non-significant (adjusted hazard ratio 1.01, 0.94 to 1.09) when dose was taken into account. ConclusionsCompared with pravastatin, treatment with higher potency statins, especially atorvastatin and simvastatin, might be associated with an increased risk of new onset diabetes. IntroductionHydroxymethyl glutaryl coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase inhibitors (statins) are among the most widely prescribed drugs, with established benefits in patients at risk of cardiovascular events.1 Although statins are tolerated well by most patients, an association with new onset diabetes has recently been suggested. In the JUPITER (justification for the use of statins in prevention: an intervention trial evaluating rosuvastatin) trial, rosuvastatin was associated with a 27% increased risk of new onset diabetes compared with placebo.3 An increased risk compared with placebo was also observed with atorvastatin and simvastatin. [4][5][6][7] In contrast, the West of Scotland coronary prevention study (WOSCOPS) suggested that patients taking pravastatin faced a 30% lower risk of diabetes compared with placebo (relative risk 0.7, 95% confidence interval 0.5 to 0.99). 8In light of these discordant results, several meta-analyses have attempted to characterize th...

BackgroundThe use of opioids for noncancer pain is widespread, and more than 16,000 die of opioid-related causes in the United States annually. The patients at greatest risk of death are those receiving high doses of opioids. Whether sex influences the risk of dose escalation or opioid-related mortality is unknown.Methods and FindingsWe conducted a cohort study using healthcare records of 32,499 individuals aged 15 to 64 who commenced chronic opioid therapy for noncancer pain between April 1, 1997 and December 31, 2010 in Ontario, Canada. Patients were followed from their first opioid prescription until discontinuation of therapy, death from any cause or the end of the study period. Among patients receiving chronic opioid therapy, 589 (1.8%) escalated to high dose therapy and n = 59 (0.2%) died of opioid-related causes while on treatment. After multivariable adjustment, men were more likely than women to escalate to high-dose opioid therapy (adjusted hazard ratio 1.44; 95% confidence interval 1.21 to 1.70) and twice as likely to die of opioid-related causes (adjusted hazard ratio 2.04; 95% confidence interval 1.18 to 3.53). These associations were maintained in a secondary analysis of 285,520 individuals receiving any opioid regardless of the duration of therapy.ConclusionsMen are at higher risk than women for escalation to high-dose opioid therapy and death from opioid-related causes. Both outcomes were more common than anticipated.

No abstract

Objective To quantify the effect of levothyroxine dose on risk of fractures in older adults. Design Nested case-control study.

For a select group of drugs prone to misuse and diversion, legislation and a prescription monitoring program reduced the prevalence of prescriptions suggestive of misuse. This suggests that regulatory interventions can promote appropriate prescribing which could potentially be applied to other jurisdictions and drugs of concern.

In women with breast cancer and an age distribution representative of routine clinical practice, trastuzumab-based regimens, including those without anthracyclines, were associated with an increased risk of cardiotoxicity. Sequential therapy increased the risk of hospital-based CHF events.

Objectives:Our objective was to determine the impact that a patient's geographic status has on the efficacy of first-time methadone maintenance therapy (MMT) retention.Methods:We conducted an observational cohort study using administrative health care databases for patients who commenced methadone therapy between 2003 and 2012. Patients were stratified on the basis of their location of residence into 1 of 4 groups—Southern Urban, Southern Rural, Northern Urban, or Northern Rural. The primary outcome was continuous retention in treatment, defined as 1 year of uninterrupted therapy on the basis of prescription refill data. Mortality was measured as a secondary outcome.Results:We identified 17,211 patients initiating first-time MMT during this 10-year period. Nearly half of patients initiating therapy in northern regions completed 1 year of treatment (48.9%; N = 258 and 47.0%; N = 761 in Northern Rural and Urban regions, respectively), whereas lower rates of 40.6% (N = 410) and 39.3% (N = 5,518) occurred in Southern Rural and Urban regions, respectively. Patients residing in Northern Rural and Northern Urban regions were 31% (adjusted odds ratio = 1.31; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.09%–1.58%] and 14% (adjusted odds ratio = 1.14; 95% CI, 1.02%–1.27%] more likely to be retained in treatment compared with those residing in Southern Urban regions. There was no significant difference in treatment retention between those residing in Southern Rural and Southern Urban regions. A mortality rate of 3% was observed within 1 year of patients initiating treatment, with patients in the Southern Rural region having the highest rate (4.85%).Conclusions:Our study identified regional differences in retention rates and mortality of first-time MMT. These findings may relate to geographic isolation and limited methadone program availability experienced in northern regions. We interpret the data to suggest that patients who have reduced access to treatment experience higher retention rates when they are able to access therapy.