16 research outputs found

    Evaluating the Impact of Interventions by a Multidisciplinary Pediatric Behavioral Health Medication Initiative Workgroup on Medication Prescribing Trends in a Medicaid Population

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    In 2011, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported foster and non-foster children in the MassHealth, Massachusetts Medicaid program, exhibited the highest rate of behavioral health medication (BHM) utilization, with 49.3% of all Medicaid children being prescribed a psychotropic medication, and 39.1% of children in foster care prescribed these medications. The MassHealth Pharmacy Program, which is managed by UMass Medical School, implemented a PBHMI Workgroup in November 2014 with the collaboration of the Department of Children and Families and the Department of Mental Health. The workgroup proactively requires prior authorization (PA) for specific medications or combinations of BHMs prescribed to members less than 18 years of age. Interventions include telephonic prescriber outreach by a child/adolescent psychiatrist to discuss opportunities for regimen simplification, drug interactions or toxicity, and to encourage evidence-based practices. An analysis of the workgroup suggests a peer-to-peer outreach program is associated with increased awareness and implementation of evidence based medicine in a pediatric population treated with behavioral health medications

    A Comparison of the Costs Associated with the Administration of Select High-cost Infused Medications in Three Sites of Care for a State Medicaid Population

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    This poster evaluates the financial impact of high-cost infused medications across three site of care programs. Site of care programs help payers save money on specialty drug spend by shifting utilization on high costs infused medications to less costly sites of administration. The objective of this project was to evaluate the costs associated with the administration of select high-cost infused medications in site of care programs in Massachusetts Medicaid populations. Research was done through retrospective analysis that included pharmacy and medical claims data for select high cost infused medications between April 1, 2017 - September 20, 2017. This presentation was given at the 2018 Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy Annual Meeting and received the AMCP Foundation Best Poster Award in the Resident and Fellows category

    An Evaluation of a Multidisciplinary Pediatric Behavioral Health Medication Initiative Workgroup\u27s Interventions on Medication Prescribing in a Population of Medicaid Patients

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    BACKGROUND: In response to concerns surrounding pediatric behavioral health medication prescribing, the Massachusetts Medicaid Pharmacy Program implemented a Pediatric Behavioral Health Medication Initiative (PBHMI), proactively requiring prior authorization for specific behavioral health medications and combination regimens. A multidisciplinary therapeutic class management (TCM) workgroup retrospectively reviews complex cases and conducts prescriber outreach to encourage evidence-based practices in Massachusetts. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate recommendation outcomes of telephonic peer-to-peer consultations conducted by the PBHMI TCM workgroup by assessing the percentage of accepted, modified accepted, or rejected recommendations, as well as prescriber satisfaction with consultation. METHODS: This retrospective evaluation reviewed PBHMI TCM workgroup cases with completed peer-to-peer consultations from September 1, 2015, to August 28, 2016. The proportion of medication interventions (e.g., medication changes, dose reductions, and elimination of polypharmacy within or across behavioral health medication classes) accepted, modified accepted, or rejected were assessed based on pharmacy claims data and prior authorization resubmission, following a peer-to-peer consultation. The medication class and prescriber type were categorized in relation to the acceptance, modified acceptance, or rejection outcomes. Satisfaction with the TCM workgroup process was evaluated with an anonymous survey offered to prescribers who participated in prescriber outreach. RESULTS: A total of 70 cases requiring a peer-to-peer consultation by a TCM workgroup child/adolescent psychiatrist had a completed outreach attempt during the evaluation period. Peer-to-peer consultations resulted in a recommendation acceptance rate of 31.4% (22/70), modified acceptance rate of 44.3% (31/70), and a rejection rate of 24.3% (17/70). Recommendations made during a peer-to-peer consultation were rejected by 30% (12/40) of child/adolescent psychiatrists compared with 16.7% (5/30) of nonchild/adolescent psychiatrists with completed peer-to-peer consultations (P = 0.43). Antipsychotics were most frequently recommended for regimen changes. All recommendations pertaining to a benzodiazepine were accepted by the prescriber. Results of an anonymous prescriber survey assessing satisfaction with the peer-to-peer consultation process exhibited variable responses among individual prescribers. CONCLUSIONS: The small sample size in this observational evaluation and lack of a defined control group prevented direct associations between the endpoints and outcomes. Further research is required to determine if prescriber specialty and medication class may be influencing factors on recommendation acceptance. DISCLOSURES: No outside funding supported this study. The authors have nothing to disclose. A poster of this project was presented at the AMCP Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy Annual Meeting 2017; March 27-30, 2017; in Denver, CO

    Effective drug combinations in breast, colon and pancreatic cancer cells

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    Combinations of anti-cancer drugs can overcome resistance and provide new treatments1,2. The number of possible drug combinations vastly exceeds what could be tested clinically. Efforts to systematically identify active combinations and the tissues and molecular contexts in which they are most effective could accelerate the development of combination treatments. Here we evaluate the potency and efficacy of 2,025 clinically relevant two-drug combinations, generating a dataset encompassing 125 molecularly characterized breast, colorectal and pancreatic cancer cell lines. We show that synergy between drugs is rare and highly context-dependent, and that combinations of targeted agents are most likely to be synergistic. We incorporate multi-omic molecular features to identify combination biomarkers and specify synergistic drug combinations and their active contexts, including in basal-like breast cancer, and microsatellite-stable or KRAS-mutant colon cancer. Our results show that irinotecan and CHEK1 inhibition have synergistic effects in microsatellite-stable or KRAS–TP53 double-mutant colon cancer cells, leading to apoptosis and suppression of tumour xenograft growth. This study identifies clinically relevant effective drug combinations in distinct molecular subpopulations and is a resource to guide rational efforts to develop combinatorial drug treatments.Pattern Recognition and Bioinformatic

    Effective drug combinations in breast, colon and pancreatic cancer cells.

    No full text
    Combinations of anti-cancer drugs can overcome resistance and provide new treatments1,2. The number of possible drug combinations vastly exceeds what could be tested clinically. Efforts to systematically identify active combinations and the tissues and molecular contexts in which they are most effective could accelerate the development of combination treatments. Here we evaluate the potency and efficacy of 2,025 clinically relevant two-drug combinations, generating a dataset encompassing 125 molecularly characterized breast, colorectal and pancreatic cancer cell lines. We show that synergy between drugs is rare and highly context-dependent, and that combinations of targeted agents are most likely to be synergistic. We incorporate multi-omic molecular features to identify combination biomarkers and specify synergistic drug combinations and their active contexts, including in basal-like breast cancer, and microsatellite-stable or KRAS-mutant colon cancer. Our results show that irinotecan and CHEK1 inhibition have synergistic effects in microsatellite-stable or KRAS-TP53 double-mutant colon cancer cells, leading to apoptosis and suppression of tumour xenograft growth. This study identifies clinically relevant effective drug combinations in distinct molecular subpopulations and is a resource to guide rational efforts to develop combinatorial drug treatments

    Emerging role of 12/15-Lipoxygenase (ALOX15) in human pathologies

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    Chasing Gravitational Waves with the Chereknov Telescope Array

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    Presented at the 38th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC 2023), 2023 (arXiv:2309.08219)2310.07413International audienceThe detection of gravitational waves from a binary neutron star merger by Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo (GW170817), along with the discovery of the electromagnetic counterparts of this gravitational wave event, ushered in a new era of multimessenger astronomy, providing the first direct evidence that BNS mergers are progenitors of short gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Such events may also produce very-high-energy (VHE, > 100GeV) photons which have yet to be detected in coincidence with a gravitational wave signal. The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is a next-generation VHE observatory which aims to be indispensable in this search, with an unparalleled sensitivity and ability to slew anywhere on the sky within a few tens of seconds. New observing modes and follow-up strategies are being developed for CTA to rapidly cover localization areas of gravitational wave events that are typically larger than the CTA field of view. This work will evaluate and provide estimations on the expected number of of gravitational wave events that will be observable with CTA, considering both on- and off-axis emission. In addition, we will present and discuss the prospects of potential follow-up strategies with CTA

    Sensitivity of the Cherenkov Telescope Array to the gamma-ray emission from neutrino sources detected by IceCube

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    Gamma-ray observations of the astrophysical neutrino sources are fundamentally important for understanding the underlying neutrino production mechanism. We investigate the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) ability to detect the very-high-energy (VHE) gamma-ray counterparts to the neutrino-emitting Active Galaxies. The CTA performance under different configurations and array layouts is computed based on the neutrino and gamma-ray simulations of steady and transient types of sources, assuming that the neutrino events are detected with the IceCube neutrino telescope. The CTA detection probability is calculated for both CTA sites taking into account the visibility constraints. We find that, under optimal observing conditions, CTA could observe the VHE gamma-ray emission from at least 3 neutrino events per year
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