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Min Yang,1 Jingdong Chao,2 Mirko Fillbrunn,1 Usha G Mallya,3 Min-Jung Wang,1 Leigh Franke,1 Lauren Cohn,4,5 Siddhesh Kamat2 1Analysis Group, Inc, Boston, MA, USA; 2Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc, Tarrytown, NY, USA; 3Sanofi, Boston, MA, USA; 4Section of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA; 5VA Connecticut Healthcare System, West Haven, CT, USACorrespondence: Min Yang, Analysis Group, Inc, 111 Huntington Avenue, Fourteenth Floor, Boston, MA, 02199, USA, Tel +1-617-425-8487, Fax +1-617-425-8001, Email Min.Yang@analysisgroup.comPurpose: Multiple biologics are available for moderate to severe asthma. Given the important relationship between patient engagement in healthcare decision-making and health outcomes, patient preference is an increasingly important consideration. This study elicited patients’ preferences for attributes of biologic therapies for moderate to severe asthma.Patient and Methods: A discrete choice experiment (DCE) questionnaire was designed to collect data from an existing survey panel of adults with moderate to severe asthma in the United States. Patients were asked to select their preferred hypothetical treatment from profiles with varying attributes related to efficacy, safety, and administration convenience. Conditional logit regression models were used to quantify patient preferences.Results: Of 301 eligible patients who completed the survey, the mean age was 46.7± 15.1 years and 71.8% were female. Patients had asthma for 22.5± 16.3 years on average, and most (97.3%) had experienced ≥ 1 asthma attack in the past 12 months. Among treatment attributes examined, patients most valued the absence of a black box warning for the risk of a life-threatening allergic reaction, effectiveness of reducing severe asthma exacerbations, and improvement in lung function (all p < 0.001). Home administration setting for subcutaneous injections (vs doctor’s office/clinic) (p = 0.009) and ability of a biologic to treat additional chronic condition(s) (p < 0.05) were also considered important. Dosing frequency and type of injection device were not significant factors.Conclusion: Patients with moderate to severe asthma valued efficacy and safety over convenience attributes when selecting biologic treatments. Awareness of these preferences can facilitate patient-physician shared decision-making when managing moderate to severe asthma in clinical practice.Keywords: asthma, patient preference, biologic, treatment

Julius I Ejiofor, Lawrence Cohn,† Tsuyoshi Kaneko Division of Cardiac Surgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA †Lawrence Cohn passed away on January 9, 2016 Abstract: Since the first mitral valvuloplasty in 1923, the technique of mitral valvuloplasty has matured over the years and now has become the first-line treatment, especially in patients with myxomatous mitral regurgitation (MR). We have highlighted some of the major problems that are encountered with the various etiologies of MR. We believe that repair is always the optimal surgical procedure for any of the above etiologies if it is consistent with a long-term result. However, replacement has shown to be a safer procedure in some instances such as severe functional MR or destructive endocarditis. Keywords: mitral regurgitation, mitral valvuloplasty, systolic anterior motion, functional mitral regurgitation, rheumatic valve disease

Summary: An eight‐week old Doberman Pinscher was diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos syndrome based on the dog's hyper‐mobile carpal, tarsal and stifle joints and abnormal skin. The skin was loose and hyper‐elastic with several wounds and large atrophic scars. The dog was euthanized after a severe degloving injury from minimal trauma. A whole‐genome sequence, generated with DNA from the dog's blood, contained a rare, homozygous C‐to‐T transition at position 2408978 on chromosome 11. This transition is predicted to alter the ADAMTS2 transcript (ADAMTS2:c.769C>T) and encode a nonsense mutation (p.Arg257Ter). Biallelic ADAMTS2 mutations have caused a type of Ehlers Danlos syndrome known as dermatosparaxis in other species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the period of September 1999 through March 2000, the University of Louisville Research Foundation conducted a series of reference energy mean emission level (REMEL) measurements of individual vehicle operations in the state of Arizona. This study was conducted to determine if the noise emission characteristics of Arizona highway vehicles are consistent with the data contained in the Federal Highway Administration's Traffic Noise Model (TNM). A comparison of the Arizona TNM REMELs with the Federal Highway Administration national TNM REMELs shows the two data sets are statistically different at a 95% confidence level for all three vehicle types addressed in this paper.