Medscape Medical News

• COVID-19 Effect: Prescription Fills Mostly Down for Leading Drugs Prescriptions for the top 10 drugs are down, according to data from more than 58,000 US pharmacies. The decline could be due to fewer scripts, less access to pharmacies, or loss of insurance from unemployment, among other factors, the researchers say.
  Medscape Medical News, May 29, 2020
• COVID-19 Daily: Curve Flattened, Earlier Community Spread These are the coronavirus stories you need to know about today.
  Medscape Medical News, May 29, 2020
• Cutting Back on HTN Meds Can Be Safe Without Losing BP Control The OPTIMISE trial was meant to provide an evidence base, for highly selected patients, for cutting back on the multiple antihypertensive agents many receive to reach their blood pressure targets.
  Medscape Medical News, May 29, 2020
• ASCO 2020PPI Added to Chemo Improves Breast Tumor Response Rate When added to standard chemo, a generic drug for reflux demonstrated a higher-than-expected rate of pathologic complete response in triple negative breast cancer.
  Medscape Medical News, May 29, 2020
• US COVID-19 Spread Likely Started Earlier Than Thought New evidence suggests that US community transmission likely began in the latter half of January or early February, after a single imported case from China.
  Medscape Medical News, May 29, 2020
• ASCO 2020Avelumab Offers Post-Chemo Hope to Women With Rare Tumor Women with gestational trophoblastic tumors may be able to avoid polychemotherapy after progressing on single-agent treatment, say French clinicians who report that half were 'cured' after immunotherapy.
  Medscape Medical News, May 29, 2020
• EAN 2020Early Extubation Tied to Better Outcome After Stroke Thrombectomy Patients extubated within 6 hours after undergoing thrombectomy for stroke are twice as likely to experience better outcomes than patients extubated later, new research suggests.
  Medscape Medical News, May 29, 2020
• Hospital EHRs Miss Many Potential Medication Errors: Study Large study suggests hospital implementation and culture, not technology, are the main barriers to improved patient safety
  Medscape Medical News, May 29, 2020
• EULAR 2020Rheumatology Drugs Explored for COVID-19 in the Spotlight Questions about immunomodulatory drugs will be front and center at the upcoming European League Against Rheumatism Congress.
  Medscape Medical News, May 29, 2020
• COVID-19: Social Distancing Flattened the Curve, Studies Show Cumulative hospitalizations in Colorado, Minnesota, Ohio and Virginia — all of which had stay-at-home orders — were well short of the projected exponential growth curves, according to a JAMA study.
  Medscape Medical News, May 29, 2020
• AAN 2020Nilotinib Is Safe in Moderate and Advanced Parkinson's Disease Although nilotinib is safe and tolerable in patients with moderate or advanced Parkinson's disease, it may not affect the disease's symptoms, according to investigators.
  Medscape Medical News, May 29, 2020
• AAN 2020No Benefit of 3 Commonly Used Medications in MS Fatigue TRIUMPHANT, a new placebo-controlled trial, has not shown any benefit over placebo of three different drugs commonly used to treat fatigue in patients with multiple sclerosis.
  Medscape Medical News, May 29, 2020
• New York City Inpatient Detox Unit Keeps Running: Here's How Substance use disorder and its daily consequences take no breaks — even during a pandemic. A New York City hospitalist discusses inpatient detoxification amid an unprecedented health crisis.
  Medscape Medical News, May 29, 2020
• ASCO 2020Adjuvant Osimertinib Extends DFS in Localized NSCLC Adjuvant therapy with osimertinib yielded a nearly 80% reduction in the risk of disease recurrence or death in patients with stage IB-IIIA non–small cell lung cancer with EGFR mutations in the ADAURA trial.
  Medscape Medical News, May 29, 2020
• ASCO 2020Active Cancer Increases Death Risk in Patients With COVID-19 Patients with COVID-19 and cancer that is progressing cancer had a fivefold increased risk of 30-day mortality, compared with COVID-19 cancer patients whose disease was snot progressing, a study shows.
  Medscape Medical News, May 29, 2020
• ASCO Tops Medical Societies for Industry Payments A new analysis of Open Payments data shows that most clinician 'leaders' at medical societies receive payments from the pharmaceutical industry, calling into question their impartiality.
  Medscape Medical News, May 29, 2020
• Lockdown Bonus: Tighter Glucose Control in Type 1 Diabetes In two European studies, time-in-range measured using continuous glucose monitoring improved among adults with type 1 diabetes confined at home during COVID-19 quarantine.
  Medscape Medical News, May 29, 2020
• APA, Others Lobby to Make COVID-19 Telehealth Waivers Permanent The APA is calling on Congress to permanently lift restrictions that have allowed unfettered delivery of telehealth services during the COVID-19 pandemic.
  Medscape Medical News, May 29, 2020
• Antidepressant Fails to Improve Apathy in Dementia Patients The antidepressant bupropion was no better than placebo in reducing apathy in nondepressed patients with Alzheimer-type dementia in a randomized controlled trial.
  Medscape Medical News, May 29, 2020
• EAN 2020Most Adult Epilepsy-Related Deaths Could Be Avoided Epilepsy death rates are still high among young adults and have not declined over time despite treatment advances, researchers say.
  Medscape Medical News, May 29, 2020