Search

Objective: To describe clinical characteristics and regional treatment patterns of episodic cluster headache (CH)., Methods: A point-in-time survey of physicians and their patients with CH was conducted in the United States, United Kingdom and Germany in 2017., Results: Overall, 1012 patients with episodic CH were analyzed. Demographic and clinical findings were generally consistent across regions. Most patients were men (66.6%) and the mean age was 40.9 years. The greatest proportion of patients (38.3%) had ≤1 attack per day. The mean number of attacks per day (APD) was 2.4 and mean number of cluster periods per year was 2.6; the mean cluster period duration was 30.8 days. Most patients (69.3%) did not report a specific or predicable time when cluster periods occurred. Acute treatment was prescribed for 47.6% of patients, 10.3% of patients received preventive treatment, and 37.9% of patients received combined acute and preventive treatment; 4.2% of patients were not receiving treatment. Frequently prescribed acute treatments were sumatriptan, oxygen, and zolmitriptan; oxygen use varied considerably across countries and was prescribed least often in the United States. Frequently prescribed preventive treatments were verapamil, topiramate, and lithium. Lack of efficacy and tolerability were the most common reasons for discontinuing preventive treatment., Conclusions: We observed high use of acute treatments, but only half of patients used preventive treatments despite experiencing several cluster periods per year with multiple cluster APD. Further studies about the need for and benefits of preventive treatment for episodic CH are warranted.

Background: COVID-19 data have been generated across the United Kingdom as a by-product of clinical care and public health provision, as well as numerous bespoke and repurposed research endeavors. Analysis of these data has underpinned the United Kingdom's response to the pandemic, and informed public health policies and clinical guidelines. However, these data are held by different organizations, and this fragmented landscape has presented challenges for public health agencies and researchers as they struggle to find relevant data to access and interrogate the data they need to inform the pandemic response at pace., Objective: We aimed to transform UK COVID-19 diagnostic data sets to be findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR)., Methods: A federated infrastructure model (COVID - Curated and Open Analysis and Research Platform [CO-CONNECT]) was rapidly built to enable the automated and reproducible mapping of health data partners' pseudonymized data to the Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership Common Data Model without the need for any data to leave the data controllers' secure environments, and to support federated cohort discovery queries and meta-analysis., Results: A total of 56 data sets from 19 organizations are being connected to the federated network. The data include research cohorts and COVID-19 data collected through routine health care provision linked to longitudinal health care records and demographics. The infrastructure is live, supporting aggregate-level querying of data across the United Kingdom., Conclusions: CO-CONNECT was developed by a multidisciplinary team. It enables rapid COVID-19 data discovery and instantaneous meta-analysis across data sources, and it is researching streamlined data extraction for use in a Trusted Research Environment for research and public health analysis. CO-CONNECT has the potential to make UK health data more interconnected and better able to answer national-level research questions while maintaining patient confidentiality and local governance procedures., (©Emily Jefferson, Christian Cole, Shahzad Mumtaz, Samuel Cox, Thomas Charles Giles, Sam Adejumo, Esmond Urwin, Daniel Lea, Calum Macdonald, Joseph Best, Erum Masood, Gordon Milligan, Jenny Johnston, Scott Horban, Ipek Birced, Christopher Hall, Aaron S Jackson, Clare Collins, Sam Rising, Charlotte Dodsley, Jill Hampton, Andrew Hadfield, Roberto Santos, Simon Tarr, Vasiliki Panagi, Joseph Lavagna, Tracy Jackson, Antony Chuter, Jillian Beggs, Magdalena Martinez-Queipo, Helen Ward, Julie von Ziegenweidt, Frances Burns, Joanne Martin, Neil Sebire, Carole Morris, Declan Bradley, Rob Baxter, Anni Ahonen-Bishopp, Paul Smith, Amelia Shoemark, Ana M Valdes, Benjamin Ollivere, Charlotte Manisty, David Eyre, Stephanie Gallant, George Joy, Andrew McAuley, David Connell, Kate Northstone, Katie Jeffery, Emanuele Di Angelantonio, Amy McMahon, Mat Walker, Malcolm Gracie Semple, Jessica Mai Sims, Emma Lawrence, Bethan Davies, John Kenneth Baillie, Ming Tang, Gary Leeming, Linda Power, Thomas Breeze, Duncan Murray, Chris Orton, Iain Pierce, Ian Hall, Shamez Ladhani, Natalie Gillson, Matthew Whitaker, Laura Shallcross, David Seymour, Susheel Varma, Gerry Reilly, Andrew Morris, Susan Hopkins, Aziz Sheikh, Philip Quinlan. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 27.12.2022.)

Objective: To examine real-world treatment persistence, colectomy-free survival and treatment switching patterns in UK patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) prescribed golimumab or adalimumab., Design: This was a retrospective chart review study in adult patients diagnosed with UC using data from 16 National Health Service sites in the UK. Patient records were included in the study if they had initiated first or second-line adalimumab or golimumab between 1 March 2016 and 30 September 2017 (index date). Subjects were required for ≥6 months post treatment initiation. Demographics, clinical characteristics, treatment-related data and colectomy data were extracted over a follow-up period of 6-12 months. Treatment persistence rate was the primary outcome. Colectomy-free survival and treatment switching were secondary outcomes. Outcomes were compared between treatments using χ 2 tests and Fisher's exact test for categorical variables. The t-tests were used for continuous variables. Time-to-event variables were evaluated using Kaplan-Meier curves and log-rank tests., Results: The study included a total of 183 patients (96 (52.5%) prescribed adalimumab; 87 (47.5%) golimumab), and patients were mostly first line (79.8%). Demographic and clinical characteristics were generally similar between treatment groups. Persistence rates within 12 months were 64.6% for adalimumab and 64.4% for golimumab (p=0.681). Overall, 20.2% switched to other therapy within 1 year, with 8.2% golimumab and 12.0% adalimumab switching to another biologic. Of patients prescribed adalimumab, 14.6% had ≥1 dose change, mainly dose escalations. In the 12 months post treatment initiation, 8.2% of patients underwent colectomy, with no significant difference in colectomy-free survival by treatment, p=0.73., Conclusion: This study provides evidence of clinical outcomes and real-world persistence for adalimumab and golimumab in UC. The persistence rates of both therapies were above 64.0% at 12 months following treatment initiation. In addition, the 1-year colectomy-free survival was relatively similar between the two treatments., Competing Interests: Competing interests: Sami Hoque has no conflict of interest. Amy Puenpatom and Christopher Black are employed by Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, NJ, USA (who funded this study).Simona Boccaletti and Chloe Green were employed by MSD Ltd., UK Jenna Roberts, Ivana Rajkovic and Gary Milligan are employed by Adelphi Real World., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2020. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)