Practice of antiplatelet therapy in acute myocardial infarction / A thrombocytaaggregáció-gátló kezelés gyakorlata heveny szívinfarktusban

Introduction: In patients who have survived myocardial infarction, platelet aggregation inhibitor (TAG) treatment plays an important role in preventing recurrent ischemic events. Objective: to investigate the proportion of patients who received aspirin, clopidogrel, prasugrel and ticagrelor during the hospitalization and the proportion of patients who continued taking the recommended therapy during follow-up. All patients treated for myocardial infarction who had a medical ID number were included in the study. Results: 16 273 patients had ST-elevation (STEMI) and 20 305 patients had non-ST-elevation (NSTEMI) infarction. 80% of patients were hypertensive. Diabetes mellitus (35%) and impaired renal function (30%) were demonstrated in one in three patients. The TAG treatment recommendation was analysed in 36 578 patients who left the hospital. Clopidogrel 12.7%, prasugrel 4.3%, ticagrelor, 93.9%, 77.7%, 8.3% and 3.2% were found in the NSTEMI group. For medicines available under special conditions (prasugrel, ticagrelor), there were significant differences between cen­tres: the proposal varied between 1.2­4.3% for prasugrel and 0.3­10.8% for ticagrelor. Drug switching events were monitored using the National Institute of Health Insurance Fund database. Pharmacovigilance data were available for 29 405 patients. We considered the longest period in the adherence study, and the grace period was 2 months. Adherence durations were processed using a standard survival analysis toolkit (Kaplan­Meier method). At 1 year after the first switch, 76.1%, 78.3%, and 80.9% of the patients in clopidogrel, prasugrel and ticagrelor were adherents to the recommended treatment. Conclusion: The frequency of use of certain antiplatelet drugs varies significantly across different intervention centres. More than three-quarters of the patients are adherent to treatment 1 year after starting treatment.

A Real-World, Prospective, Multicenter, Single-Arm Observational Study of Duloxetine in Patients With Major Depressive Disorder or Generalized Anxiety Disorder.

Background: Suboptimal treatment response during anti-depressive treatment is fairly common with the first antidepressant (AD) choice, followed by switching to another agent in the majority of cases. However, the efficacy of this strategy over continuation of the original agent is less solidly documented in real-life studies. The aim of our present study was to ascertain the effects of switching to duloxetine following inadequate response to prior ADs on general illness severity, pain, and health-related quality of life in a large sample of major depressive disorder (MDD) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) patients in a prospective, real-world, multicenter, observational study. Methods: A total of 578 participants with MDD or GAD were enrolled in 58 outpatient sites in an 8-week, single-arm, open-label, flexible-dose trial with duloxetine. Severity of symptoms [with Clinical Global Impression-Severity (CGI-S) and Clinical Global Impression-Improvement (CGI-I)], severity of pain (with a Visual Analog Scale), satisfaction with current treatment, and health-related quality of life [with the three-level version of the EuroQol five-dimensional questionnaire (EQ-5D-3L)] measures were recorded at baseline and at follow-up visits 4 and 8 weeks after initiation of treatment. Data were analyzed using ANOVA and mixed linear models. Results: 565 patients completed the study and comprised the analyzed dataset. Results indicated that severity of illness significantly decreased over the 8 weeks of the study and already at 4 weeks in both patient groups. Overall quality of life and all of its subindicators also significantly improved in both patient groups and so did subjective experience of pain. Satisfaction with current treatment also significantly increased during the study period. Frequency of side effects was low. In both GAD and MDD groups, two patients dropped out of the study due to adverse effects, leading to treatment termination in four cases (0.7%). Conclusions: This 8-week, multicenter, flexible-dosing, single-arm, open-label, observational real-life study in MDD and GAD patients switched to duloxetine after inadequate response or low tolerability to other ADs showed a significant positive effect on all outcome measures, including a significant decrease in illness severity as well as significant overall symptomatic improvement, with good tolerability.