Trending News: Researchers Examine Long-Term Adverse Effect of Mitoxantrone on Cardiac Function in Patients with Multiple Sclerosis

Older patients with undiagnosed or untreated obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) face a particularly steep economic burden due to associated comorbidities, according to MD Magazine. A research team at the University of Maryland examined the effect of untreated OSA on health care utilization and costs in a nationally representative sample of Medicare beneficiaries. Using fully adjusted models, the investigators identified that an OSA diagnosis relative to matched control patients during the year prior and found beneficiaries with OSA featured increased health care utilization and higher mean total annual costs.

Sepsis is associated with 1 in 5 deaths globally, twice the amount that some previous estimates indicated, according to Contagion Live. Researchers used cause of death data from approximately 109 million deaths to estimate mortality related to sepsis. Results indicate that overall sepsis cases declined from an estimated 60.2 million cases in 1990 to 48.9 million cases in 2017; however, of those 48.9 million cases, there were 11 million deaths. Despite the decline, this figure represents 19.7% of all global deaths in 2017.

Patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) treated with mitoxantrone (MTX), an antracyclin drug used to treat chronic refractory MS, may be at an increased risk of developing early and late left ventricular dysfunction, according to The American Journal of Managed Care. Researchers aimed to assess the long-term adverse effect of MTX on cardiac function by examining 49 patients with MS on MTX therapy. The study concluded MTX is an appropriate drug for patients with MS who have worsening relapsing-remitting MS despite prior therapy.