Health System

This year's most-viewed content in infectious disease was dominated by COVID-19, as the Delta variant continued to strain the US health care system. It also included news about Clostridioides difficile.

The top 5 most-read ophthalmology articles of 2021 on AJMC.com evaluated the effectiveness of novel therapies in several ophthalmic diseases, racial/ethnic disparities in clinical trial participation, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on childhood nearsightedness.

CDC data shown to overstate US vaccination rates; school-based cognitive behavioral therapy for overwhelmed children; Moderna to develop Omicron-specific COVID-19 booster dose.

Anne Barmettler, MD, an associate professor of ophthalmology, visual sciences, and plastic surgery at Montefiore Medical Center, discusses the cost of teprotumumab for thyroid eye disease.

The top 5 most-read psoriasis articles of 2021 on AJMC.com covered risk factors involved in the pathogenesis and treatment of psoriatic disease and cost considerations for treatment.

Physicians said it is in payers’ interest to use artificial intelligence to address social determinants of health, to cover tests, and to gather data. Doing so could let them stratify who needs certain screenings and diagnostic procedures and who doesn’t, which could lead to less consumption of health care.

Today’s challenge, according to Microsoft's Iksha Herr, MS, is learning how to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to process the waves of health care data and to drive insights that lead to better care delivery.

As the pandemic wore on, fewer patients with sickle cell disease who did contract COVID-19 needed to be hospitalized.

Interest in the use of digital inhalers is growing, as they may provide real-world evidence about how patients monitor and treat their chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma at home, but additional questions need to be answered, according to a recent review.

When a flu season is mild, it can make developing a vaccine for the following season a bit more difficult as it can be hard to find the right match, but on the other hand, the US health system could benefit from less stress this winter given the unrelenting demands posed by COVID-19, says Leslie Kantor, PhD, MPH, chair and professor of the Department of Urban-Global Public Health, Rutgers School of Public Health.

A case series of patients with pustular psoriasis indicated a lack of standardized treatment and continued health care utilization, in which men were at greater risk of an emergency department or hospital encounter.

Daniel Greer, PharmD, BCPP, clinical assistant professor, Rutgers Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, speaks on how capabilities of cognitive behavioral therapy have evolved to a more user-friendly approach in the management of chronic insomnia.

Robert J. Hopkin, MD, clinical geneticist, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, provides an overview of the evolving treatment landscape in Fabry disease.

Coverage of our peer-reviewed research and news reporting in the health care and mainstream press.

The CDC is recommending that people at risk of developing blood clots receive the Moderna or Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines instead of Johnson & Johnson (J&J); the FDA lifts restrictions on mail order access to abortion pills; US health care spending more than doubled during the first year of the pandemic.

Two doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine have reduced efficacy against the Omicron variant; a federal appeals court reinstates the Biden administration’s health care worker vaccine mandate in 26 states; a new combination therapy may reduce breast cancer progression.

Patients with comorbid nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and chronic plaque psoriasis were shown to have significantly lower estimated glomerular filtration rate levels and greater prevalence of more advanced chronic kidney disease.

Results presented at the 63rd Annual American Society of Hematology Meeting showed that using polatuzumab vedotin instead of vincristine in R-CHOP improved progression-free survival in patients with newly diagnosed diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

Frederick Locke, MD, vice chair, Department of Blood and Marrow Transplant and Cellular Immunotherapy Program, co-leader, Immuno-Oncology, Moffitt Cancer Center, discusses findings of the phase 3 ZUMA-7 trial presented at ASH 2021 and how use of axicabtagene ciloleucel can be optimally applied in a real-world setting.

Sattva S. Neelapu, MD, professor and deputy department chair in the Department of Lymphoma/Myeloma in the Division of Cancer Medicine at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses findings of the ZUMA-12 study examining axicabtagene ciloleucel (axi-cel) as a first-line treatment option for high-risk patients with large B-cell lymphoma.

Mark Wildgust, PhD, vice president, Global Medical Affairs, Oncology, Janssen, speaks on progression-free survival, complete response, and overall survival benefits observed with ciltacabtagene autoleucel (cilta-cel) in CARTITUDE-1 and other studies presented at the 63rd Annual American Society of Hematology Meeting and Exposition.

Lori Muffly, MD, associate professor of medicine, Blood & Marrow Transplantation, Stanford University, discusses findings of her study showing disparities in clinical trial enrollment and patient outcomes for at-risk pediatric minority populations with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).

Findings about the willingness of primary care providers to prescribe artificial pancreas systems have positive implications for increasing access to and reducing disparities around this technology by alleviating the need to see a specialist.

Posters review how a patient’s neighborhood impacts access to the liver transplant waitlist and how Medicaid expansion improved waitlist mortality.