Background: Fewer than half of all medical interventions in use today are supported by clinical evidence. Despite allocating more than $11 billion each year to support clinical research, federal funding for medical research lacks a coordinated system for prioritizing and allocating resources to efficiently address these ...

Objectives: Obesity in the U.S. population is a major public health problem with important clinical and economic implications. Bariatric surgery is currently the most effective long-term weight loss treatment for morbid obesity but less than 2% of the potentially eligible population has undergone the procedure. Our aims were ...

<bold>Introduction</bold> Glaucoma is an irreversible, progressive, optic neuropathy. Left unmanaged, glaucoma can lead to blindness. Open angle glaucoma is the most common type, and primary (idiopathic) open angle glaucoma (POAG) is the most common sub-type. POAG was estimated to affect almost 3 million Americans in 2010. ...

<bold>Background:</bold> Next generation sequencing (NGS) panels are used frequently for the evaluation of colorectal cancer and polyposis (CRCP) syndromes in specialized cancer genetics clinics. We evaluated the cost-effectiveness of NGS panels as a first diagnostic step in the evaluation of these patients, and of adding ...

<bold>Background:<bold> Frequent antibiotic use is common and associated with increased primary breast cancer risk, but no study to date has evaluated the relation between antibiotic use and breast cancer outcomes among breast cancer survivors. Detection bias is commonly cited as a potential source of confounding in observational ...

<bold>BACKGROUND</bold> <br> Migraine is an episodic neurological disorder that affects 12% of Americans and millions worldwide. Chronic migraine (CM) as ≥15 headache days per month with ≥8 days per month that meet criteria for migraine, for more than three months, with each episode lasting greater than four hours. CM is a ...

<bold>ABSTRACT</bold> <bold>Background</bold> In the last several years three new anticoagulant options have come on to the market, altering the risk/benefit profile of stroke prevention therapy. The development of useful decision analytic models in atrial fibrillation (AF) is contingent on accurate estimates of costs. Estimated ...

Background: Epilepsy is frequently debilitating and switching between bioequivalent antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) with narrow therapeutic index remains controversial. Methods: We investigated the association between A-rated switching and emergent treatment for an epilepsy-related event over a 1-year period using recent claims ...

<italic>Objective</italic>: To assess survival up to 5 years in patients who develop severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and evaluate differences in characteristics and outcomes for patients selected for treatment with a rescue therapy (inhaled nitric oxide, inhaled epoprostenol or prone position ventilation) ...

INTRODUCTION: Diabetic Macular Edema (DME) is the leading cause of blindness amongst working age adults in most developed countries. Diagnosis and treatment of DME involves many visits to specialists, numerous medications, and great cost. The primary objective of this study was to describe the economic burden of DME in a ...