Healthcare today
Healthcare across the world faces existential challenges: escalating demands against constrained resources, increasing co-morbidities and widening inequalities in health.
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Healthcare today posts, most recent first.
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Item refines Preprint · not peer-reviewed
Seven in ten US women stay on endocrine therapy in the first year, linked claims show
In 401,450 US women initiating adjuvant endocrine therapy for breast cancer, 69.9% had a medication possession ratio of at least 80% in the first year, with modelled behavioural attributes such as comfort following medication instructions weakly associated with adherence after adjustment.
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Item refines Preprint · not peer-reviewed
Polygenic scores add most to prediction where clinical risk is already low
Across 150 diseases in 900,000 UK Biobank and FinnGen participants, polygenic risk scores added most to clinical prediction in metabolic, cardiovascular, autoimmune and neurological disease, and their gains were consistently larger among those at lower clinical risk.
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Item new Preprint · not peer-reviewed
28% of middle-aged and older Canadians know of the hearing loss-dementia link
A cross-sectional survey of 1,404 Canadians aged 44-97 found that 28% were aware of the reported link between hearing loss and dementia, and 17% of those aware said they were more inclined to seek or continue hearing-loss treatment.
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Item new Preprint · not peer-reviewed
Gemcitabine regimens show consistent myelosuppression signals in FDA adverse-event reports
A disproportionality analysis of 18.37 million FAERS reports from 2014 to 2026 found myelosuppression the most consistent adverse-event signal across gemcitabine regimens for biliary and pancreatic cancer (reporting odds ratios 3.35 to 7.74), with liver-toxicity signals unstable on restriction.
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Item new Peer-reviewed
A multicancer blood test did not cut late-stage cancer diagnoses in 142,250 adults
In the NHS-Galleri randomised trial of 142,250 adults aged 50 to 77 in England, three annual rounds of a blood-based multicancer early-detection test alongside usual care did not reduce stage III or IV cancer incidence across 12 prespecified cancers (rate ratio 1.03).
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Item new Preprint · not peer-reviewed
England's ECHILD linkage under-covers deprived and minoritised ethnic children
ECHILD, which links hospital, school and social care records for 21 million children in England, found lower coverage in London, deprived areas and minoritised ethnic groups, with 90% of birth records linked to school records and 88% of pupils linked to a patient record.
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Item refines Peer-reviewed
Unemployed and unmarried Danes start cardioprotective diabetes drugs less often
Among 81,361 Danes with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, initiation of SGLT2 inhibitors and GLP-1 receptor agonists was 23% lower in unemployed men and 19% lower in unemployed women than in the employed, while the educational gradient vanished after adjustment.
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Item new Peer-reviewed
Photo checks put a quarter of surveyed US GLP-1 users on compounded products
In an online US survey of 322 adults reporting at least three months of weekly semaglutide or tirzepatide use, blinded review of photographs of the medication classified 25.8% as using compounded products, and self-report agreed with the photo coding for 82.6% of participants.
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Item refines Peer-reviewed
Faster door-to-balloon time tracks lower STEMI mortality only in higher-risk patients
In 4,513 Chinese STEMI patients treated by primary PCI, a door-to-balloon time over 60 minutes was associated with higher 3-year mortality among those with GRACE scores above 140 (HR 1.69), with no difference seen in lower-risk patients.
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Item refines Peer-reviewed
Gait speed predicted mortality at ages 90-94 but not at 95 and over
In 502 US adults aged 90 and over, each 0.21 m/s faster gait speed was associated with 20% lower mortality overall, but the association held only at ages 90-94 (HR 0.70) and disappeared at 95+ (HR 1.02).
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Item refines Peer-reviewed
Pacemaker after cardiac surgery carries modestly higher long-term mortality in Sweden
Among 76 223 Swedish adults undergoing cardiac surgery between 2006 and 2020, the 2.8% who received a permanent pacemaker within 30 days had a 9% higher adjusted risk of all-cause death and a 36% higher risk of heart failure hospitalisation over a mean 6.8 years.
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Item refines Peer-reviewed
GLP-1 agonists show no effect on atrial fibrillation in obese HFpEF patients
In 470 matched pairs of obese, non-diabetic patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, GLP-1 receptor agonist treatment was not associated with lower atrial fibrillation incidence (HR 0.86, 95% CI 0.53-1.39), while all-cause mortality was lower (HR 0.42, 95% CI 0.23-0.75).
