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Background: Demand for total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is increasing as it remains the gold-standard treatment for end-stage osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of the knee are not indicated for diagnosing knee OA and represent a possible delay to orthopaedic surgeon referral and unnecessary expenditure. The purpose of this study was to determine the proportion of patients who underwent an MRI in the two years prior to their primary TKA for OA and determine patient and physician associations with increased MRI usage. Methods: This is a population-based cohort study using administrative data from Ontario, Canada. All patients over 40 years old who underwent their first primary TKA between April 1, 2008, and March 31, 2019, were included. Statistical analyses were performed using SAS and included the Cochran–Armitage test for trend of MRI prior to surgery. A predictive multivariable regression model was used to determine features correlated to receiving an MRI. Results: There were 194,989 eligible first-time TKA recipients, of which 38,244 (19.6%) received an MRI in the two years prior to their surgery. The majority of these (69.6%) were ordered by primary care physicians. Patients who received an MRI were younger, had fewer comorbidities and were more affluent than patients who did not (p < 0.001). MRI use prior to TKA increased from 2008 to 2018 (p < 0.001). Conclusion: Despite MRIs rarely being indicated for the work-up of end-stage OA, nearly one in five patients have an MRI in the two years prior to their TKA. This may be increasing healthcare expenditure and surgical wait-times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Clinical practice guidelines recommend early serum electrolyte monitoring when starting antidepressants in older adults due to the increased risk of hyponatremia. It is unclear whether this monitoring improves outcomes. Methods: Population‐based, retrospective cohort study of Ontario adults aged ≥66 years who initiated therapy with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) or selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI) between April 1, 2013, and January 31, 2020. The index date was the date of the first such prescription, and the exposure of interest was serum electrolyte measurement during the subsequent 7 days. The primary outcome was any emergency department or hospital admission with hyponatremia within 8–60 days of antidepressant initiation. Poisson regression models compared individuals who had versus did not have their serum electrolytes tested in the week following SSRI/SNRI initiation, weighting by propensity score‐based overlap weights. Results: Among the 420,085 patients aged ≥66 years initiating treatment with an SSRI/SNRI, 26,808 (6.4%) had serum electrolytes measured in the subsequent 7 days and 6109 (1.5%) subsequently presented to hospital with hyponatremia. The time from drug initiation to hospitalization varied (median 29, interquartile range [IQR] 17–44 days), and the median sodium concentration measured in the community (136, IQR 133–138 mmol/L) was marginally higher than those at the time of hospitalization (132, IQR 130–134 mmol/L). Patients who underwent electrolyte testing in the week following SSRI/SNRI treatment were more likely to attend an emergency department (ED) or hospital with hyponatremia within 8–60 days relative to those who did not (relative risk = 2.31, 95% confidence interval: 2.16–2.46). Conclusions: Testing serum electrolytes in the week after starting an SSRI/SNRI is not associated with a reduced risk of a hospital visit with hyponatremia. These findings do not support current guidelines recommending routine electrolyte monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: With improved survival among children after transplantation, our understanding of the risk for developing other comorbidities is improving, yet little is known about the long-term risk of cardiovascular events and mortality after solid organ transplantation. Methods: In a cohort study using health administrative data, we compared cardiovascular events in children (n = 615) with liver, lung, kidney, small bowel, or multi-organ transplant at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada, with asthmatic children (n = 481,697) between 1996 and 2014. Outcomes included non-fatal cardiovascular events, cardiovascular death, all-cause mortality, and a composite of non-fatal and fatal cardiovascular events. Time-stratified Cox proportional hazards models were used. Results: Among 615 children, 317 (52%) were recipients of kidneys, 253 (41%) of livers, and the remaining 45 (7%) had lung, small bowel, or multi-organ transplants. Median follow-up was 12.1 [7.2, 16.7] years. Non-fatal incident cardiovascular events were 34 times higher among solid organ transplant recipients than non-transplanted children (incidence rate ratio (IRR) 34.4, 95% CI: 25.5, 46.4). Among transplant recipients, the cumulative incidence of non-fatal and fatal cardiovascular events was 2.3% and 13.0%, 5 and 15 years after transplantation, respectively. Conclusions: Increased rate of cardiovascular events in children after transplantation highlights the need for surveillance during transition into adulthood and beyond. A higher resolution version of the Graphical abstract is available as Supplementary information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Aims: To characterize comparative risks and benefits of methadone versus buprenorphine/naloxone in a contemporary cohort where the unregulated drug supply is dominated by fentanyl. Design, Setting and Participants: Population‐based propensity‐score matched cohort study conducted in Ontario, Canada among people aged 18+ initiating opioid agonist therapy (OAT) for an opioid use disorder between October 2016 and December 2018 (n = 18 880). Intervention: Initiation of methadone versus buprenorphine/naloxone. Measurements The primary outcome was opioid overdose (fatal and non‐fatal) while on treatment, with secondary outcomes including opioid overdose (first 30 days of treatment), treatment discontinuation, health‐care interactions related to treatment of opioid use disorder, receiving a weekly supply of take‐home doses and opioid overdose within 30 days of treatment discontinuation. Outcomes were assessed over 1 year. Findings Overall, 7517 people initiating buprenorphine were matched to an equal number of methadone‐treated individuals. Risk of opioid overdose while on treatment [hazard ratio (HR) = 0.50; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.37–0.68] or within the first 30 days of treatment (HR = 0.51, 95% CI = 0.31–0.85) was lower among buprenorphine recipients compared to methadone recipients. In secondary analyses, people initiating buprenorphine had a higher risk of treatment discontinuation within the first year (median time to discontinuation 104 versus 265 days, HR = 1.43, 95% CI = 1.37–1.49), had lower rates of health‐care interactions for OUD (186.4 versus 254.3 per person‐year; rate ratio = 0.73; 95% CI = 0.72–0.75), and a higher rate of receiving weekly take‐home doses (HR = 2.33; 95% CI = 2.20–2.46). Overdose rates in the period following OAT discontinuation were higher than those observed while on treatment, but did not differ significantly by OAT type. Conclusions: Although treatment retention is higher among methadone recipients, overdose risk is also elevated compared to buprenorphine recipients. These findings demonstrate the benefits of any OAT on avoidance of overdose, particularly following treatment discontinuation and with the increasingly unpredictable drug supply in North America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantifying the contribution of rheumatoid arthritis to the acquisition of subsequent health care costs is an emerging focus of the rheumatologic community and payers of health care. Our objective was to determine the healthcare costs before and after diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) from the public payer's perspective. The study design was a longitudinal observational administrative data-based cohort with RA cases from Ontario Canada (n = 104,933) and two control groups, matched 1:1 on year of cohort entry from 2001 to 2016. The first control group was matched on age, sex and calendar year of cohort entry (diagnosis year for those with RA); the second group added medical history to the match before RA diagnosis year. The main exposure was new onset RA. The secondary exposure was calendar year of RA diagnosis to compare attributable costs over the study observation window. Main outcomes were health care costs in 2015 Canadian dollars, overall and by cost category. We used attribution methods to classify costs into those associated with RA, those associated with comorbidities, and age/sex-related underlying costs. Health care costs associated with RA increased up to the year of diagnosis, where they reached $8,591: $4,142 in RA associated costs; $1,242 in RA comorbidity associated costs; and $3,207 in underlying costs. In the eighth-year post diagnosis, the RA costs declined to $2,567 while the RA comorbidity associated costs remained relatively constant at $1,142, and the underlying age/sex related cost increased to $4,426. RA patients had lower costs when diagnosed in later calendar years. Our results suggest a large proportion of disease related health care costs are a result of costs associated with RA comorbidities, which may appear many years before diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Regulatory agencies warn about the risk of acute kidney injury (AKI) after the initiation of sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibitors. Our objective was to quantify the 90-day risk of AKI in older adults after initiation of SGLT2 inhibitors in routine clinical practice.Methods: We conducted a population-based retrospective cohort study in Ontario, Canada, involving adults with diabetes who were aged 66 years or older and who were newly dispensed either an SGLT2 inhibitor or a dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP4) inhibitor in an outpatient setting between 2015 and 2017. We used inverse probability of treatment weighting based on a propensity score to balance the 2 groups on measured baseline characteristics. The primary outcome was 90-day risk of a hospital encounter (i.e., visit to the emergency department or admission to hospital) with AKI, which we defined by a 50% or greater increase in the concentration of serum creatinine from the baseline value or an absolute increase of at least 27 μmol/L after an SGLT2 or DDP4 inhibitor was dispensed. We obtained weighted risk ratios using modified Poisson regression and weighted risk differences using binomial regression.Results: We included 39 094 patients with a median age of 70 (interquartile range 68-74) years in the study. Relative to new use of a DPP4 inhibitor, initiation of a SGLT2 inhibitor was associated with a lower 90-day risk of a hospital encounter with AKI: 216 events in 19 611 patients (1.10%) versus 388 events in 19 483 patients (1.99%); weighted risk ratio 0.79 (95% confidence interval 0.64-0.98).Interpretation: In routine care of older adults, new use of SGLT2 inhibitors compared with use of DPP4 inhibitors was associated with a lower risk of AKI. Together with previous evidence, our findings suggest that regulatory warnings about AKI risk with SGLT2 inhibitors are unwarranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To quantify population-level and practice-level encounters with rheumatologists over time.Methods: We conducted a population-based study from 2000 to 2015 in Ontario, Canada, where all residents are covered by a single-payer healthcare system. Annual total number of unique patients seen by rheumatologists, the number of new patients seen, and total number of encounters with rheumatologists were identified.Results: From 2000 to 2015, the percentage of the population seen by rheumatologists was constant over time (2.7%). During this time, Ontario had a stable supply of rheumatologists (0.8 full-time equivalents/75,000). From 2000 to 2015, the number of annual rheumatology encounters increased from 561,452 to 786,061, but the adjusted encounter rates remained stable over time (at 62 encounters per 1000 population). New patient assessment rates declined over time from 10 new outpatient assessments per 1000 in 2000 to 6 per 1000 in 2015. The crude volume of new patients seen annually decreased and an increasing proportion of rheumatology encounters were with established patients. We observed a shift in patient case mix over time, with more assessments for systemic inflammatory conditions. Rheumatologists' practice volumes, practice sizes, and the annual number of days providing clinical care decreased over time.Conclusion: Over a 15-year period, the annual percentage of the population seen by a rheumatologist remained constant and the volume of new patients decreased, while followup patient encounters increased. Patient encounters per rheumatologist decreased over time. Our findings provide novel information for rheumatology workforce planning. Factors affecting clinical activity warrant further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Waiting for hip fracture surgery is associated with complications. The objective of this study was to determine whether waiting for hip fracture surgery is associated with health-care costs.Methods: We conducted a population-based, propensity-matched cohort study of patients treated between 2009 and 2014 in Ontario, Canada. The primary exposure was early hip fracture surgery, performed within 24 hours after arrival at the emergency department. The primary outcome was direct medical costs, estimated for each patient in 2013 Canadian dollars, from the payer perspective. The costs in the early and delayed groups were then compared using a difference-in-differences approach: the baseline cost in the year prior to the hip fracture that had been accrued by patients with early surgery was subtracted from the cost in the first year following the surgery (first difference), and the difference was then compared with the same difference among propensity-score-matched patients who had received delayed surgery (second difference). The secondary outcome was the postoperative length of stay (in days).Results: The study included 42,230 patients who received hip fracture surgery from a total of 522 different surgeons at 72 hospitals. The mean cost (and standard deviation) attributed to the hip fracture was $39,497 ± $46,645 per person. The matched patients who underwent surgery after 24 hours had direct 1-year medical costs that were an average of $2,638 higher (95% confidence interval [CI] = $1,595 to $3,680, p < 0.0001) and a postoperative length of stay that was an average of 0.610 day longer (95% CI = 0.1749 to 1.0331 days, p = 0.0058) compared with those who underwent surgery within 24 hours.Conclusions: Waiting >24 hours for hip fracture surgery was associated with increased medical costs and length of stay. Costs incurred by waiting may provide a financial incentive to mitigate delays in hip fracture surgery.Level Of Evidence: Economic Level III. Please see Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Total knee arthroplasty (TKA) and total hip arthroplasty (THA) are common and effective surgical procedures. This study sought to compare utilization and short‐term outcomes of primary TKA and THA in adjacent regions of Canada and the United States. Methods: The study was designed as a retrospective cohort study of patients who underwent primary TKA or THA, comparing administrative data from New York and Ontario in 2012–2013. Demographic features of the TKA and THA patients, per capita utilization rates, and short‐term outcomes were compared between the jurisdictions. Results: A higher percentage of New York hospitals performed TKA compared to Ontario hospitals (75.7% versus 42.1%; P < 0.001), and the mean annual procedural volume for TKAs was lower in New York hospitals (mean 179 versus 327 in Ontario hospitals; P < 0.001). After direct standardization, utilization was significantly lower in New York compared to Ontario, both for TKA (16.1 TKAs versus 21.4 TKAs per 10,000 population per year; P < 0.001) and for THA (10.5 THAs versus 11.5 THAs per 10,000 population per year; P < 0.001). For those who underwent TKA, the length of stay in Ontario hospitals was significantly longer (mean 3.7 days versus 3.4 days in New York hospitals; P < 0.001). A smaller percentage of New York patients were discharged directly home (46.2% versus 90.9% of Ontario patients; P < 0.001), but 30‐day and 90‐day readmission rates were higher in New York compared to Ontario (30‐day rates, 4.6% versus 3.9% [P < 0.001]; 90‐day rates, 8.4% versus 6.7% [P < 0.001]). For the THA cohorts, the results with regard to length of stay, discharge disposition, and readmission rates were similar to those for TKA. Conclusion: Ontario has higher utilization of total joint arthroplasty than New York but has a smaller percentage of hospitals performing these procedures. Patients are more likely to be discharged home and less likely to be readmitted in Ontario. Our results suggest areas where each jurisdiction could improve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Importance: Although wait times for hip fracture surgery have been linked to mortality and are being used as quality-of-care indicators worldwide, controversy exists about the duration of the wait that leads to complications.Objective: To use population-based wait-time data to identify the optimal time window in which to conduct hip fracture surgery before the risk of complications increases.Design, Setting, and Participants: Population-based, retrospective cohort study of adults undergoing hip fracture surgery between April 1, 2009, and March 31, 2014, at 72 hospitals in Ontario, Canada. Risk-adjusted restricted cubic splines modeled the probability of each complication according to wait time. The inflection point (in hours) when complications began to increase was used to define early and delayed surgery. To evaluate the robustness of this definition, outcomes among propensity-score matched early and delayed surgical patients were compared using percent absolute risk differences (RDs, with 95% CIs).Exposure: Time elapsed from hospital arrival to surgery (in hours).Main Outcomes and Measures: Mortality within 30 days. Secondary outcomes included a composite of mortality or other medical complications (myocardial infarction, deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, and pneumonia).Results: Among 42 230 patients with hip fracture (mean [SD] age, 80.1 years [10.7], 70.5% women) who met study entry criteria, overall mortality at 30 days was 7.0%. The risk of complications increased when wait times were greater than 24 hours, irrespective of the complication considered. Compared with 13 731 propensity-score matched patients who received surgery earlier, 13 731 patients who received surgery after 24 hours had a significantly higher risk of 30-day mortality (898 [6.5%] vs 790 [5.8%]; % absolute RD, 0.79; 95% CI, 0.23-1.35) and the composite outcome (1680 [12.2%]) vs 1383 [10.1%]; % absolute RD, 2.16; 95% CI, 1.43-2.89).Conclusions and Relevance: Among adults undergoing hip fracture surgery, increased wait time was associated with a greater risk of 30-day mortality and other complications. A wait time of 24 hours may represent a threshold defining higher risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Bariatric surgery has been shown to significantly reduce cardiovascular risk factors. However, whether surgery can reduce major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), especially in patients with established cardiovascular disease, remains poorly understood. The present study aims to determine the association between bariatric surgery and MACE among patients with cardiovascular disease and severe obesity.Methods: This was a propensity score-matched cohort study using province-wide multiple-linked administrative databases in Ontario, Canada. Patients with previous ischemic heart disease or heart failure who received bariatric surgery were matched on age, sex, heart failure history, and a propensity score to similar controls from a primary care medical record database in a 1:1 ratio. The primary outcome was the incidence of extended MACE (first occurrence of all-cause mortality, myocardial infarction, coronary revascularization, cerebrovascular events, and heart failure hospitalization). Secondary outcome included 3-component MACE (myocardial infarction, ischemic stroke, and all-cause mortality). Outcomes were evaluated through a combination of matching via propensity score and subsequent multivariable adjustment.Results: A total of 2638 patients (n=1319 in each group) were included, with a median follow-up time of 4.6 years. The primary outcome occurred in 11.5% (151/1319) of the surgery group and 19.6% (259/1319) of the controls (adjusted hazard ratio [HR], 0.58 [95% CI, 0.48-0.71]; P<0.001). The association was notable for those with heart failure (HR, 0.44 [95% CI, 0.31-0.62]; P<0.001; absolute risk difference, 19.3% [95% CI, 12.0%-26.7%]) and in those with ischemic heart disease (HR, 0.60 [95% CI, 0.48-0.74]; P<0.001; absolute risk difference, 7.5% [95% CI, 4.7%-10.5%]). Surgery was also associated with a lower incidence of the secondary outcome (HR, 0.66 [95% CI, 0.52-0.84]; P=0.001) and cardiovascular mortality (HR, 0.35 [95% CI, 0.15-0.80]; P=0.001).Conclusions: Bariatric surgery was associated with a lower incidence of MACE in patients with cardiovascular disease and obesity. These findings require confirmation by a large-scale randomized trial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a study related to the increase onset of diabetes with use of higher potency statins that was published in the June 2014 issue of the periodical. The study was conducted on 136,966 patients with age above 40 years. The study was conducted on 37,936 patients suffering with ADHD from 2006-2009 from healthcare databases of various provinces in Canada including Alberta, Manitoba and Nova Scotia. The study was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Background: There is concern that antidiabetic incretin-based drugs, including dipeptidyl peptidase 4 (DPP-4) inhibitors and glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) analogues, can increase the risk of heart failure. Ongoing clinical trials may not have large enough samples to effectively address this issue.Methods: We applied a common protocol in the analysis of multiple cohorts of patients with diabetes. We used health care data from four Canadian provinces, the United States, and the United Kingdom. With the use of a nested case-control analysis, we matched each patient who was hospitalized for heart failure with up to 20 controls from the same cohort; matching was based on sex, age, cohort-entry date, duration of treated diabetes, and follow-up time. Cohort-specific hazard ratios for hospitalization due to heart failure among patients receiving incretin-based drugs, as compared with those receiving oral antidiabetic-drug combinations, were estimated by means of conditional logistic regression and pooled across cohorts with the use of random-effects models.Results: The cohorts included a total of 1,499,650 patients, with 29,741 hospitalized for heart failure (incidence rate, 9.2 events per 1000 persons per year). The rate of hospitalization for heart failure did not increase with the use of incretin-based drugs as compared with oral antidiabetic-drug combinations among patients with a history of heart failure (hazard ratio, 0.86; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.62 to 1.19) or among those without a history of heart failure (hazard ratio, 0.82; 95% CI, 0.67 to 1.00). The results were similar for DPP-4 inhibitors and GLP-1 analogues.Conclusions: In this analysis of data from large cohorts of patients with diabetes, incretin-based drugs were not associated with an increased risk of hospitalization for heart failure, as compared with commonly used combinations of oral antidiabetic drugs. (Funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT02456428.). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]