scholarly journals Can Calendar Customs Engender Stewardship of Our Natural Environment? An Investigation into Real-world and Fictional Calendar Customs in the UK and Their Potential for Environmental Engagement

Green Letters ◽  
2022 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Sophie Parkes-Nield
Blood ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tina Dutt ◽  
Rebecca J Shaw ◽  
Matthew James Stubbs ◽  
Jun Yong ◽  
Benjamin Bailiff ◽  
...  

The cornerstone of life-saving therapy in immune mediated thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (iTTP) has been plasma exchange (PEX) combined with immunomodulatory strategies. Caplacizumab, a novel anti-von Willebrand factor nanobody, trialled in two multicentre, randomised-placebo-controlled trials leading to EU and FDA approval, has been available in the UK through a patient-access scheme. Data was collected retrospectively from 2018-2020 for 85 patients receiving caplacizumab, including 4 children, from 22 UK hospitals. Patient characteristics and outcomes in the real-world clinical setting were compared with caplacizumab trial endpoints and historical outcomes in the pre-caplacizumab era. 84/85 patients received steroid and rituximab alongside PEX; 26% required intubation. Median time to platelet count normalisation (3 days), duration of PEX (7 days) and hospital stay (12 days) was comparable with RCT data. Median duration of PEX and time from PEX initiation to platelet count normalisation was favourable compared with historical outcomes (p<0.05). TTP recurrence occurred in 5/85 patients; all with persistent ADAMTS13 activity <5iu/dL. Of 31 adverse events in 26 patients, 17/31 (55%) were bleeding episodes and 5/31 (16%) were thrombotic events (two unrelated to caplacizumab); mortality was 6% (5/85), with no deaths attributed to caplacizumab. In 4/5 deaths caplacizumab was introduced >48 hours after PEX initiation (3-21 days). This real-world evidence represents the first and largest series of TTP patients receiving caplacizumab outside clinical trials, including paediatric patients. Representative of true clinical practice, the findings provide valuable information for clinicians treating TTP globally.


2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (Supplement_2) ◽  
Author(s):  
P McEwan ◽  
L Hoskin ◽  
K Badora ◽  
D Sugrue ◽  
G James ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), heart failure (HF), resistant hypertension (RHTN) and diabetes are at an increased risk of hyperkalaemia (HK) which can be potentially life-threatening, as a result of cardiac arrhythmias, cardiac arrest leading to sudden death. In these patients, renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system inhibitors (RAASi), are used to manage several cardiovascular and renal conditions, and are associated with an increased risk of HK. Assessing the burden of HK in real-world clinical practice may concentrate relevant care on those patients most in need, potentially improving patient outcomes and efficiency of the healthcare system. Purpose To assess the burden of HK in a real-world population of UK patients with at least one of: RHTN, Type I or II diabetes, CKD stage 3+, dialysis, HF, or in receipt of a prescription for RAASi. Methods Primary and secondary care data for this retrospective study were obtained from the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) and linked Hospital Episode Statistics (HES). Eligible patients were identified using READ codes defining the relevant diagnosis, receipt of indication-specific medication, or, in the case of CKD, an estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) ≤60 ml/min/1.73m2 within the study period (01 January 2008 to 30 June 2018) or in the five-year lookback period (2003–2007). The index date was defined as 01 January 2008 or first diagnosis of an eligible condition or RAASi prescription, whichever occurred latest. HK was defined as K+ ≥5.0 mmol/L; thresholds of ≥5.5 mmol/L and ≥6.0 mmol/L were explored as sensitivity analyses. Incidence rates of HK were calculated with 95% confidence intervals (CI). Results The total eligible population across all cohorts was 931,460 patients. RHTN was the most prevalent comorbidity (n=317,135; 34.0%) and dialysis the least prevalent (n=4,415; 0.5%). The majority of the eligible population were prescribed RAASi during follow-up (n=754,523; 81.0%). At a K+ threshold of ≥5.0 mmol/L, the dialysis cohort had the highest rate of HK (501.0 events per 1,000 patient-years), followed by HF (490.9), CKD (410.9), diabetes (355.0), RHTN (261.4) and the RAASi cohort (211.2) (Figure 1). This pattern was still observed at alternative threshold definitions of HK. Conclusion This large real-world study of UK patients demonstrates the burden of hyperkalaemia in high-risk patient populations from the UK. There is a need for effective prevention and treatment of HK, particularly in patients with CKD, dialysis or HF where increased incidence rates are observed which in turn will improve patient outcomes and healthcare resource usage. Figure 1. Rates of HK by condition Funding Acknowledgement Type of funding source: Private company. Main funding source(s): AstraZeneca


Author(s):  
Ioannis N. Anastopoulos ◽  
Chloe K. Herczeg ◽  
Kasey N. Davis ◽  
Atray C. Dixit

While the clinical approval process is able to filter out medications whose utility does not offset their adverse drug reaction profile in humans, it is not well suited to characterizing lower frequency issues and idiosyncratic multi-drug interactions that can happen in real world diverse patient populations. With a growing abundance of real-world evidence databases containing hundreds of thousands of patient records, it is now feasible to build machine learning models that incorporate individual patient information to provide personalized adverse event predictions. In this study, we build models that integrate patient specific demographic, clinical, and genetic features (when available) with drug structure to predict adverse drug reactions. We develop an extensible graph convolutional approach to be able to integrate molecular effects from the variable number of medications a typical patient may be taking. Our model outperforms standard machine learning methods at the tasks of predicting hospitalization and death in the UK Biobank dataset yielding an R2 of 0.37 and an AUC of 0.90, respectively. We believe our model has potential for evaluating new therapeutic compounds for individualized toxicities in real world diverse populations. It can also be used to prioritize medications when there are multiple options being considered for treatment.


Author(s):  
Amanda McDonell ◽  
Urpo Kiiskinen ◽  
Danielle Zammit ◽  
Robert Kotchie ◽  
Per-Olof Thuresson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
The Real ◽  

Blood ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 134 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 3434-3434
Author(s):  
Jenny Byrne ◽  
Joanne Ewing ◽  
Adam J. Mead ◽  
Heather Oakervee ◽  
Gavin Campbell ◽  
...  

Background: The prognosis of patients with chronic-phase myeloid leukaemia (CML) has drastically improved with the introduction of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs). During the period of this study, availability of treatment options in the UK were limited and determined by the date reimbursement was granted and when restrictions on the use of individual licensed TKIs were removed. Currently, imatinib, nilotinib and dasatinib are reimbursed for 1st line treatment (1L) with bosutinib and ponatinib reimbursed for 2nd line or subsequent lines of treatment. Aims: The primary aim was to determine the sequence of 2nd generation (2G) TKIs (nilotinib, dasatinib, bosutinib) in patients with chronic-phase Philadelphia chromosome-positive (Ph+) CML who had received their 3rd and subsequent lines of TKIs in a real world UK setting. Methods: A multi-centre, retrospective, chart review was undertaken in the UK from November 2018 to July 2019. To be included, patients had to be aged ≥18 with chronic phase Ph+ CML who had started a third line of TKI treatment between June 2013 and February 2018. Patients were excluded if they had >3-month gap in treatment before progression or relapse, or were treated with a 2G TKI within an interventional clinical study during third line treatment. At each line, molecular responses, cytogenetic responses, duration of therapy and reasons for stopping were recorded until the date of last hospital follow-up or death. Overall survival was determined from date of initiation of 3rd or 4th line TKI therapy until death by any cause. Results: An interim analysis was undertaken for 65 patients from 11 sites. Median age at diagnosis was 53.0 years. 50.8% were male and 49.2% were female. Of these 65 patients, 48 patients were still being treated at the end of observation (29 patients in 3rd, 18 in 4th and 1 in 5th line). Patient demographics are typical of CML populations. Throughout the study, imatinib was 1L treatment of choice for the majority of patients (57/65; 88%) and this held true (21/22; 95%) even when nilotinib and dasatinib were reimbursed for use 1L. Nilotinib was most commonly prescribed in 2L (42/65; 56%), reflecting the greater availability of this drug during the study period. Dasatinib and bosutinib constituted 22% and 4% respectively of 2L treatments. The most frequent sequencing pathway observed was I1-N2-D3 (Table 1, Fig. 1). 19 other pathways at low frequencies were observed across 39 patients. 97% of patients (63/65) achieved an optimal response at any time as defined by the 2013 ELN guidelines (Table 2) during the observation period. Of the 31 (48%) patients who were resistant to 1L, 24 (37%) achieved a response in 2L and of the 7 (10.7%) patients who were resistant to 1L and 2L, 5 (7.7%) achieved a response in 3L. At the end of the observation period, only 2 (3%) patients never achieved a response. In 3L: 29 (45%) patients are still ongoing, 4 died, 3 were lost to follow up and 3 underwent transplantation. In 4L: 18 (69%) are still ongoing, 3 died, and 3 underwent transplantation. Median overall survival for L3 was 21 months and 12 months in L4. In all lines of treatment, the main cause of switching away from imatinib was lack of efficacy (61%), and for all 2G TKIs the main cause was intolerance (66%). During the period when only imatinib was available in 1L, median duration of 1L treatment was longer at 26 months for patients failing to respond vs 9 months when nilotinib and dasatinib were also available. Conclusions: In this UK real-world study, for patients requiring 3 or more lines of treatment, sequencing of TKIs may have been determined by drug reimbursement. As availability of TKIs increased, time to switch therapy decreased for all patients, suggesting that clinicians were following guidelines and switching treatments more readily. However, initial 1L prescribing behaviour has not changed in this observation period despite better access to 2G TKI, and there appears to be a trend of physicians preferring to repeat 2G TKIs treatment sequences that yield a favourable outcome. Disclosures Byrne: Ariad/Incyte: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau. Ewing:Novartis: Honoraria, Other: Meeting attendance sponsorship ; Bristol Myers-Squibb: Other: Meeting attendance sponsorship . Mead:Novartis: Consultancy, Honoraria, Other: Travel/accommodation expenses, Research Funding, Speakers Bureau; Bristol Myers-Squibb: Consultancy; CTI: Honoraria, Research Funding; Pfizer: Consultancy; Celgene: Consultancy, Research Funding. Oakervee:Novartis: Honoraria; Pfizer: Honoraria; Bristol Myers-Squibb: Honoraria. Campbell:Novartis: Consultancy, Other: Educational support; Takeda: Consultancy, Other: Educational support; Bristol Myers-Squibb: Other: Educational support; Roche: Other: Educational support; Celgene: Other: Educational support. Amott:Celgene: Other: Meeting attendance sponsorship . Goringe:Novartis: Consultancy, Other: Speaker. Heartin:Celgene: Other: Speaker's fees; Janssen: Other: Speaker's fees; Takeda: Other: Speaker's fees; Alexion: Other: Speaker's fees; Novartis: Other: Speaker's fees. Dimitriadou:Celgene: Other: Meeting attendance sponsorship . Arami:Takeda: Other: Meeting attendance sponsorship ; Gilead: Other: Meeting attendance sponsorship ; Roche: Other: Meeting attendance sponsorship ; Celgene: Other: Meeting attendance sponsorship . Neelakantan:Novartis: Honoraria; Celgene: Honoraria. Frewin:Novartis: Consultancy, Other: Meeting attendance sponsorship ; AbbVie: Other: Meeting attendance sponsorship . Pillai:Celgene: Honoraria. De Lavallade:BMS: Honoraria, Research Funding, Speakers Bureau; Pfizer: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Novartis: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Incyte biosciences: Honoraria, Research Funding, Speakers Bureau. Cross:Novartis: Consultancy, Research Funding; Incyte: Consultancy. Thompson:Incyte: Employment.


Author(s):  
Arshad Muhammad Fahad ◽  
Ahmed Iqbal ◽  
James Weeks ◽  
Ines Fonseca ◽  
Alia Munir ◽  
...  

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 38-49
Author(s):  
Liz Varga ◽  
Fatih Camci ◽  
Joby Boxall ◽  
Amir Toossi ◽  
John Machell ◽  
...  

The application of complexity science to policy for critical infrastructure systems has never been more important. A number of issues highlight the need for policy to match the complexity of the co-evolving environment: increasing interdependency between utilities, uncontrolled demand leading to over use of diminishing resources, diverse technological opportunities with unclear investment choices, governance at different scales, public-private ownership differences and emerging business models. Systems are now so complex that people do not understand the interdependencies. Individual utilities are optimised with limited redundancy so that even minor failures can lead to major impacts throughout the whole infrastructure environment. This article proposes an ontology of critical infrastructure in which the points of conversion in the system are the generic units of analysis. Each conversion point has a set of properties representing its real world description. This ontological perspective highlights the inter-disciplinary nature of critical infrastructure systems. It also allows, through the adoption of an agent-based modelling approach, the simulation of different environmental constraints, such as those of resource availability. Methodologically, such modelling provides an abstracted view of infrastructure systems that simplifies the real world but allows policy options to be tested based on assumptions about behaviour in response to exogenous changes. Epistemologically, it focuses on a dynamic, co-evolutionary understanding of the system transition over time by examining holistic, systemic outcomes, connecting micro behaviours with macro structures. A case study of critical infrastructure in Yorkshire in the UK provides an exemplar of complexity in the real world. The model, a metaphysical representation, demonstrates how policy can be connected with the real world. This paper focuses on the infrastructure in the UK but the principles will apply to other countries.


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