METHODS: GARFIELD-VTE is a global, prospective, non-interventional study of real-world treatment practices. In this study, we compared baseline characteristics, treatment patterns, and 12-month outcomes in Asia and ROW.
RESULTS: Of the 10,684 enrolled patients, 1822 (17.1%) were Asian (China n = 420, Hong Kong n = 98, Japan n = 148, Malaysia n = 244, South Korea n = 343, Taiwan n = 232, Thailand n = 337). Compared with ROW patients, those from Asia were more often female (57.4% vs. 48.0%), non-smokers (74.0% vs. 58.9%) and had a lower BMI (24.8 kg/m2 vs. 29.1 kg/m2). Asian patients were more likely to be managed in the hospital (86.9% vs. 70.4%) and to have active cancer (19.8% vs. 8.1%) or a history of cancer (19.1% vs. 12.0%). Asian patients received no anticoagulation more frequently than ROW patients (6.5% vs. 2.1%). Over 12-months follow-up, the rate of all-cause mortality (per 100 person-years [95% confidence interval]) was higher in Asians (15.2 [13.4-17.3] vs. 5.9 [5.4-6.5]). Adjusted hazard ratios indicated a higher risk of all-cause mortality in Asian patients than the ROW (1.32 [1.08-1.62]). The frequencies of major bleeding and recurrent VTE were similar.
CONCLUSION: Asian patients have different risk profiles, treatment patterns and a higher risk of mortality compared with the ROW.
METHODS: The prospective, non-interventional explorer6 study included patients ≥12 years old with severe HA, severe/moderate HB or HAwI/HBwI of any severity, treated according to local standard of care (excluding previous/current exposure to concizumab or emicizumab). Baseline characteristics and historical clinical data were collected and patient-reported outcomes, including treatment burden, were assessed.
RESULTS: The explorer6 study enrolled 231 patients with haemophilia (84 HAwI/HBwI) from 33 countries. At baseline, patients with HA/HB treated with prophylaxis had the lowest median annualised bleeding rates (ABRs; 2.0), irrespective of haemophilia type; of these patients, 27.5% (HA) and 31.4% (HB) had target joints. Patients with HAwI/HBwI treated episodically reported the highest treatment burden. Of these patients, 28.5% (HAwI) and 25.1% (HBwI) performed sports activities in the month before screening.
CONCLUSION: Despite receiving routine clinical care, historical and baseline information from patients enrolled in explorer6 showed that patients with HA/HB treated episodically and patients with HAwI/HBwI had higher ABRs, higher treatment burden and participated in sports less than those with HA/HB treated with prophylaxis. Emerging treatments could be beneficial in addressing these unmet medical needs.
METHODS: This prospective, multicentre, open-label, randomised, phase 3a trial (explorer8) was conducted at 69 investigational sites in 31 countries. Eligible patients were male, aged 12 years or older, and had congenital severe haemophilia A or moderate or severe haemophilia B without inhibitors and with documented treatment with clotting factor concentrate in the 24 weeks before screening. The trial was paused because of non-fatal thromboembolic events in three patients (two from this trial [explorer8] and one from a related trial in haemophilia with inhibitors [explorer7; NCT04083781]) and restarted with mitigation measures, including a revised dosing regimen of subcutaneous concizumab at 1·0 mg/kg loading dose on day 1 and subsequent daily doses of 0·20 mg/kg from day 2, with options to decrease to 0·15 mg/kg, stay on 0·20 mg/kg, or increase to 0·25 mg/kg on the basis of concizumab plasma concentration measured after 4 weeks on concizumab. Patients recruited after treatment restart were randomly assigned 1:2 using an interactive web response system to receive no prophylaxis and continue on-demand clotting factor (group 1) or concizumab prophylaxis (group 2). The primary endpoints were the number of treated spontaneous and traumatic bleeding episodes for patients with haemophilia A and haemophilia B separately, assessed at the confirmatory analysis cutoff in randomly assigned patients. Analyses were by intention-to-treat. There were two additional groups containing non-randomly-assigned patients: group 3 contained patients who entered the trial before the trial pause and were receiving concizumab in the phase 2 trial (explorer5; NCT03196297), and group 4 contained patients who received previous clotting factor concentrate prophylaxis or on-demand treatment in the non-interventional trial (explorer6; NCT03741881), patients randomly assigned to groups 1 or 2 before the treatment pause, and patients from explorer5 enrolled after the treatment pause. The safety analysis set contained all patients who received concizumab. Superiority of concizumab over no prophylaxis was established if the two-sided 95% CI of the treatment ratio was less than 1 for haemophilia A and for haemophilia B. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04082429, and its extension part is ongoing.
FINDINGS: Patients were recruited between Nov 13, 2019 and Nov 30, 2021; the cutoff date for the analyses presented was July 12, 2022. 173 patients were screened, of whom 148 (86%) were randomly assigned or allocated to the four groups in the study after trial restart on Sept 30, 2020 (nine with haemophilia A and 12 with haemophilia B in group 1; 18 with haemophilia A and 24 with haemophilia B in group 2; nine with haemophilia A in group 3; and 46 with haemophilia A and 30 with haemophilia B in group 4). The estimated mean annualised bleeding rate ratio for treated spontaneous and traumatic bleeding episodes during concizumab prophylaxis versus no prophylaxis was 0·14 (95% CI 0·07-0·29; p<0·0001) for patients with haemophilia A and 0·21 (0·10-0·45; p<0·0001) for patients with haemophilia B. The most frequent adverse events in patients who received concizumab were SARS-CoV-2 infection (19 [13%] of 151 patients), an increase in fibrin D-dimers (12 [8%] patients), and upper respiratory tract infection (ten [7%] patients). There was one fatal adverse event possibly related to treatment (intra-abdominal haemorrhage in a patient from group 4 with haemophilia A with a long-standing history of hypertension). No thromboembolic events were reported between the trial restart and confirmatory analysis cutoff.
INTERPRETATION: Concizumab was effective in reducing the bleeding rate compared with no prophylaxis and was considered safe in patients with haemophilia A or B without inhibitors. The results of this trial suggest that concizumab has the potential to be one of the first subcutaneous treatment options for patients with haemophilia B without inhibitors.
FUNDING: Novo Nordisk.
Materials and methods: This retrospective national registry of MPN was conducted from year 2009 to 2015 in Malaysia.
Results: A total of 1010 patients were registered over a period of 5 years. The mean age was 54 years with male predominance. The ethnic distribution revealed that Chinese had a relatively high weighted incidence proportion (43.2%), followed by Indian (23.8%), Malay (15.8%) and other ethnic groups (17.2%). The types of MPN reported were 40.4% of ET (n = 408), 38.1% of PV (n = 385), 9.2% of PMF (n = 93), 3.1% of hypereosinophilic syndrome (HES) (n = 31) and 7.9% of unclassifiable MPN (MPN-U) (n = 80). Splenomegaly was only palpable clinically in 32.2% of patients. The positive JAK2 V617F mutation was present in 644 patients with 46.6% in PV, 36.0% in ET, 9.0% in PMF, and 7.4% in MPN-U, and had significantly lower haemoglobin (p
OBJECTIVE: To develop consensus recommendations for anemia management in surgical patients.
METHODS: An international expert panel reviewed the current evidence and developed recommendations using modified RAND Delphi methodology.
RESULTS: The panel recommends that all patients except those undergoing minor procedures be screened for anemia before surgery. Appropriate therapy for anemia should be guided by an accurate diagnosis of the etiology. The need to proceed with surgery in some patients with anemia is expected to persist. However, early identification and effective treatment of anemia has the potential to reduce the risks associated with surgery and improve clinical outcomes. As with preoperative anemia, postoperative anemia should be treated in the perioperative period.
CONCLUSIONS: Early identification and effective treatment of anemia has the potential to improve clinical outcomes in surgical patients.
METHODS: Records of patients with thrombotic microangiopathy (TMA) were reviewed. Patients' ADAMTS13 activity levels were obtained, along with clinical/laboratory findings relevant to the PLASMIC score. Both PLASMIC scores and PLASMIC-LDH scores, in which LDH replaced traditional lysis markers, were calculated. We generated a receiver operator characteristics (ROC) curve and compared the area under the curve values (AUC) to determine the predictive ability of each score.
RESULTS: 46 patients fulfilled the inclusion criteria, of which 34 had ADAMTS13 activity levels of <10%. When the patients were divided into intermediate-to-high risk (scores 5‒7) and low risk (scores 0‒4), the PLASMIC score showed a sensitivity of 97.1% and specificity of 58.3%, with a positive predictive value (PPV) of 86.8% and negative predictive value (NPV) of 87.5%. The PLASMIC-LDH score had a sensitivity of 97.1% and specificity of 33.3%, with a PPV of 80.5% and NPV of 80.0%.
CONCLUSION: Our study validated the utility of the PLASMIC score, and demonstrated PLASMIC-LDH as a reasonable alternative in the absence of traditional lysis markers, to help identify high-risk patients for treatment via plasma exchange.
METHODS: In this prospective, observational study (IDAMS), we included patients aged 5 years and older with undifferentiated fever at presentation from 26 outpatient facilities in eight countries (Bangladesh, Brazil, Cambodia, El Salvador, Indonesia, Malaysia, Venezuela, and Viet Nam). We used multivariable logistic regression to investigate the association between clinical symptoms and laboratory tests with dengue versus other febrile illnesses between day 2 and day 5 after onset of fever (ie, illness days). We built a set of candidate regression models including clinical and laboratory variables to reflect the need of a comprehensive versus parsimonious approach. We assessed performance of these models via standard measures of diagnostic values.
FINDINGS: Between Oct 18, 2011, and Aug 4, 2016, we recruited 7428 patients, of whom 2694 (36%) were diagnosed with laboratory-confirmed dengue and 2495 (34%) with (non-dengue) other febrile illnesses and met inclusion criteria, and were included in the analysis. 2703 (52%) of 5189 included patients were younger than 15 years, 2486 (48%) were aged 15 years or older, 2179 (42%) were female and 3010 (58%) were male. Platelet count, white blood cell count, and the change in these variables from the previous day of illness had a strong association with dengue. Cough and rhinitis had strong associations with other febrile illnesses, whereas bleeding, anorexia, and skin flush were generally associated with dengue. Model performance increased between day 2 and 5 of illness. The comprehensive model (18 clinical and laboratory predictors) had sensitivities of 0·80 to 0·87 and specificities of 0·80 to 0·91, whereas the parsimonious model (eight clinical and laboratory predictors) had sensitivities of 0·80 to 0·88 and specificities of 0·81 to 0·89. A model that includes laboratory markers that are easy to measure (eg, platelet count or white blood cell count) outperformed the models based on clinical variables only.
INTERPRETATION: Our results confirm the important role of platelet and white blood cell counts in diagnosing dengue, and the importance of serial measurements over subsequent days. We successfully quantified the performance of clinical and laboratory markers covering the early period of dengue. Resulting algorithms performed better than published schemes for distinction of dengue from other febrile illnesses, and take into account the dynamic changes over time. Our results provide crucial information needed for the update of guidelines, including the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness handbook.
FUNDING: EU's Seventh Framework Programme.
TRANSLATIONS: For the Bangla, Bahasa Indonesia, Portuguese, Khmer, Spanish and Vietnamese translations of the abstract see Supplementary Materials section.