Comparison of Visual Methods to Reanalyze Provocative Test Data from Randomized Controlled Clinical Trials in New- or Recent-Onset Type 1 Diabetes.

INTRODUCTION: Over the last 13 years, the Immune Tolerance Network (ITN), has conducted trials of agents to abrogate the autoimmunity underlying type 1 diabetes. Primary endpoints center on the change of C-peptide production during mixed meal tolerance tests (MMTT), measured as the area under the curve (AUC) or AUC mean over 2-3 years. Studies permit rapid-acting insulin until a few hours before the MMTT, and thus do not exclude overnight hyperglycemia prior to testing. We hypothesize that overnight or fasting hyperglycemia will deplete pre-formed insulin and impact measurements of first-phase insulin secretion and C-peptide AUC. METHODS: Publicly available, deidentified, subject-level data were obtained from ITN TrialShare. We developed several graphical analyses to reexamine results from each MMTT including combined glucose and C-peptide response curves, the centroids of polygons of MMTT timepoints, and ratios comparing extents of excursions of glucose and c-peptide production. RESULTS: We have applied these graphical analyses to 1161 MMTT from 245 subjects in 8 studies. Graphical analyses of MMTT results for individuals over the course of the follow-up period reflect the expected loss of c-peptide and higher blood glucose during MMTT; centroids move accordingly, upwards and leftwards. CONCLUSIONS: We were able to analyze MMTT data from ITN studies with several graphical analyses. We are poised to apply these approaches to test our central hypothesis by comparing how deviations from modeled rates of predicted changes for an individual over time correlate with blood glucose levels in the hours before a MMTT. This may lead to refinement of future trial protocols to ensure tighter regulation of glycemic excursions ahead of provocative testing.

Palliative care: An update for internists.

All clinicians should maintain basic skills in general palliative care to help address the needs of patients and families. Because keeping up with the information provided by the growing palliative care literature can be challenging, we conducted a detailed search via Medline for palliative care articles published in 2020 in top peer-reviewed medical journals. Using a consensus-driven process of selection, we reviewed and summarized 11 articles to enhance knowledge of the practice-changing palliative care literature for general internists.

OPPORTUNISTIC SCREENING FOR DIABETES AND PREDIABETES USING HEMOGLOBIN A1C IN AN URBAN PRIMARY CARE SETTING.

OBJECTIVE: In 2010, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) endorsed hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) as 1 of 3 tests for diabetes and prediabetes screening. We describe the use of HbA1c testing for screening during routine visits in primary care clinics of an urban health care system in the U.S. METHODS: In 2013 to 2014, retrospective analyses of deidentified electronic health records over a 2-year period, January 2010 to December 2011, for academic private practices (clinic group 1) and federally-qualified Community Health Centers (clinic group 2) identified 11,885 adults without prior diabetes or recent HbA1c testing. We estimated the proportion of patients eligible for screening according to ADA and U.S. Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) guidelines and calculated the potential yield of previously undiagnosed diabetes or prediabetes among those who received at least 1 HbA1c test. RESULTS: Overall, 3,316 and 5,613 patients of clinic groups 1 and 2 (75.2% of each) were eligible for screening by ADA guidelines, while only 1,764 (39.9%) of clinic group 1 and 3,799 (50.9%) of clinic group 2 were eligible by USPSTF guidelines. In those eligible by either guideline, 731 (21.4%) patients of clinic group 1 and 1,293 (21.5%) of clinic group 2 received HbA1c testing; among these, in 71 (9.7%) and 121 (9.4%) patients from clinic groups 1 and 2, respectively, HbA1c results were in the diabetes range, and in 330 (45.2%) and 733 (56.7%), results were in the prediabetes range. CONCLUSION: In urban primary care settings, appropriate HbA1c testing could result in the detection of a substantial number of previously undiagnosed diabetes and prediabetes cases needing treatment.

Use of prognostic tools in the hospital, assessment of factors behind their use or lack thereof through a physician-oriented survey.

Physician's use of prognostic tools may help to decide on the intensity of therapies provided and communicate with patients and their caregivers in a timely fashion. However, literature that describes knowledge, perceived limitations and overall use of these tools by doctors is lacking. By way of a physician survey, we attempted to look at the use of prognostic tools in our community of doctors in our department of internal medicine. Our results showed that overall physicians have superficial knowledge of prognostic tools. We also discovered that physicians believe these tools to be helpful, yet their availability is compromised by lack of exposure during formative years, their cumbersome structure and the impracticalities of remembering them at bedside.

Expansion of electronic health record-based screening, prevention, and management of diabetes in New York City.

To address the increasing burden of diabetes in New York City, we designed 2 electronic health records (EHRs)-facilitated diabetes management systems to be implemented in 6 primary care practices on the West Side of Manhattan, a standard system and an enhanced system. The standard system includes screening for diabetes. The enhanced system includes screening and ensures close patient follow-up; it applies principles of the chronic care model, including community-clinic linkages, to the management of patients newly diagnosed with diabetes and prediabetes through screening. We will stagger implementation of the enhanced system across the 6 clinics allowing comparison, through a quasi-experimental design (pre-post difference with a control group), of patients treated in the enhanced system with similar patients treated in the standard system. The findings could inform health system practices at multiple levels and influence the integration of community resources into routine diabetes care.