Jim Kling

An alternative disease activity index for patients with systemic lupus erythematosus called the SLE-DAS (Disease Activity Score) has shown similar results to the Lupus Low Disease Activity State (LLDAS) in classifying low disease activity but may be easier to potentially apply in daily clinical practice in treat-to-target strategies, according to research presented at the annual European Congress of Rheumatology, held online this year because of COVID-19.

A treat-to-target approach, in which therapies are adjusted and the patient monitored to achieve the desired endpoint, has been proposed for patients with SLE. Clinical remission is the ideal goal, followed by achieving low disease activity (LDA) when clinical remission is unattainable, the first author of the SLE-DAS study, Helena Assunção, MD, of the department of rheumatology at Centro Hospitalar e Universitário de Coimbra (Portugal), said in an interview prior to the presentation of the study at the e-congress.

But to conduct a treat-to-target approach in the clinical setting, clinicians must have reliable, user-friendly targets to assess a patient’s progress, she said. But that’s not available right now. Proposed definitions of LDA, such as the LLDAS, are based on the Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Index 2000 (SLEDAI-2K). This index doesn’t address some important manifestations of SLE and it is scored dichotomously – for example, giving a similar score for thrombocytopenia when platelet count is reduced to 100,000 or to 10,000.

To compensate for these limitations, the current LLDAS definition also requires the Physician Global Assessment and other steps, including a review of medication and changes to treatment or clinical status since the previous visit.

“It is not easy to apply,” Dr. Assunção said.

The SLE-DAS is a continuous index involving 17 parameters (4 continuous: arthritis, proteinuria, thrombocytopenia, and leukopenia), assigning higher scores when a manifestation is more severe, and has manifestation information that SLEDAI-2K lacks (cardiopulmonary involvement, lupus enteritis, and hemolytic anemia).

In contrast, the LLDAS is defined as:
 

• A SLEDAI-2k score of 4 or less with no major organ involvement
• No new disease activity
• A physician global assessment of the patient of 1 or less on a 0-3 scale
• Maintenance on a prednisolone dosage of 7.5 mg/day or less
• Maintenance on a standard immunosuppressive regimen

A previous study validated the SLE-DAS (Ann Rheum Dis. 2019 Mar;78[3]:365-71), and another exploratory study identified a cutoff SLE-DAS value of 3.77 or lower for LDA with SLE-DAS (Ann Rheum Dis. 2019;78:411-2).

Her group compared LDA status as measured with LLDAS versus the SLE-DAS in a cross-sectional study of 292 consecutive patients at their hospital. LDA on the SLE-DAS was defined as a score 3.77 or lower and a prednisolone dose of 7.5 mg/day or less. A total of 85% of patients were in LDA with SLE-DAS and 83.9% with LLDAS, and the agreement between LLDAS and SLE-DAS LDA was very high (Cohen’s kappa coefficient test; kappa = 0.831; P < .01). Out of 292 patients, only 13 were classified differently by the two definitions, 8 of which were classified as LDA by SLE-DAS, and 5 by LLDAS. Overall, 87% of patients were women and had a mean age of nearly 49 years, with a mean disease duration of about 14 years.

Dr. Assunção feels that the SLE-DAS LDA should be sufficient to monitor disease activity without adding the Physician Global Assessment and other steps, which would make it easier to apply than LLDAS. The fact that it is based on a continuous index is also an important difference. “Especially for low disease activity, it’s very good to be able to define it with a continuous index, because you are not that bad, but not that good, you’re in the middle,” she said.

The study should be regarded as exploratory, she said, but the results were encouraging. “We got similar results, and it’s definitely easier to apply.” She can also personally attest that the new model is easier to use, since she personally collected data for LLDAS assignment. “I had to check this, and this, and this … [SLE-DAS] is easier.”

Future work from her group will aim at deriving and validating a more robust definition of LDA, which will again be compared with the current LLDAS definition.

Her colleagues have already developed and validated a definition for clinical remission using SLE-DAS, although those results have not yet been published. They hope to define activity states using SLE-DAS, including mild, moderate, and high disease activity.

The team has produced an online SLE-DAS calculator (http://sle-das.eu/) where clinicians can score the 17 parameters. “You just input the values and it gives a number reflecting disease activity. Using this definition of SLE-DAS LDA you only need that number and to verify that the prednisolone dose is equal to or inferior to 7.5 mg/day,” said Dr. Assunção.

The study received no funding. Dr. Assunção has no financial disclosures, but one coauthor reported receiving grant/research support from Pfizer and AbbVie and serving as a consultant to Pfizer, AbbVie, Roche, Lilly, and Novartis.

SOURCE: Assunção H et al. Ann Rheum Dis 2020;79[suppl 1]:60, Abstract OP0092.

An alternative disease activity index for patients with systemic lupus erythematosus called the SLE-DAS (Disease Activity Score) has shown similar results to the Lupus Low Disease Activity State (LLDAS) in classifying low disease activity but may be easier to potentially apply in daily clinical practice in treat-to-target strategies, according to research presented at the annual European Congress of Rheumatology, held online this year because of COVID-19.

A treat-to-target approach, in which therapies are adjusted and the patient monitored to achieve the desired endpoint, has been proposed for patients with SLE. Clinical remission is the ideal goal, followed by achieving low disease activity (LDA) when clinical remission is unattainable, the first author of the SLE-DAS study, Helena Assunção, MD, of the department of rheumatology at Centro Hospitalar e Universitário de Coimbra (Portugal), said in an interview prior to the presentation of the study at the e-congress.

But to conduct a treat-to-target approach in the clinical setting, clinicians must have reliable, user-friendly targets to assess a patient’s progress, she said. But that’s not available right now. Proposed definitions of LDA, such as the LLDAS, are based on the Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Index 2000 (SLEDAI-2K). This index doesn’t address some important manifestations of SLE and it is scored dichotomously – for example, giving a similar score for thrombocytopenia when platelet count is reduced to 100,000 or to 10,000.

To compensate for these limitations, the current LLDAS definition also requires the Physician Global Assessment and other steps, including a review of medication and changes to treatment or clinical status since the previous visit.

“It is not easy to apply,” Dr. Assunção said.

The SLE-DAS is a continuous index involving 17 parameters (4 continuous: arthritis, proteinuria, thrombocytopenia, and leukopenia), assigning higher scores when a manifestation is more severe, and has manifestation information that SLEDAI-2K lacks (cardiopulmonary involvement, lupus enteritis, and hemolytic anemia).

In contrast, the LLDAS is defined as:
 

• A SLEDAI-2k score of 4 or less with no major organ involvement
• No new disease activity
• A physician global assessment of the patient of 1 or less on a 0-3 scale
• Maintenance on a prednisolone dosage of 7.5 mg/day or less
• Maintenance on a standard immunosuppressive regimen

A previous study validated the SLE-DAS (Ann Rheum Dis. 2019 Mar;78[3]:365-71), and another exploratory study identified a cutoff SLE-DAS value of 3.77 or lower for LDA with SLE-DAS (Ann Rheum Dis. 2019;78:411-2).

Her group compared LDA status as measured with LLDAS versus the SLE-DAS in a cross-sectional study of 292 consecutive patients at their hospital. LDA on the SLE-DAS was defined as a score 3.77 or lower and a prednisolone dose of 7.5 mg/day or less. A total of 85% of patients were in LDA with SLE-DAS and 83.9% with LLDAS, and the agreement between LLDAS and SLE-DAS LDA was very high (Cohen’s kappa coefficient test; kappa = 0.831; P < .01). Out of 292 patients, only 13 were classified differently by the two definitions, 8 of which were classified as LDA by SLE-DAS, and 5 by LLDAS. Overall, 87% of patients were women and had a mean age of nearly 49 years, with a mean disease duration of about 14 years.

Dr. Assunção feels that the SLE-DAS LDA should be sufficient to monitor disease activity without adding the Physician Global Assessment and other steps, which would make it easier to apply than LLDAS. The fact that it is based on a continuous index is also an important difference. “Especially for low disease activity, it’s very good to be able to define it with a continuous index, because you are not that bad, but not that good, you’re in the middle,” she said.

The study should be regarded as exploratory, she said, but the results were encouraging. “We got similar results, and it’s definitely easier to apply.” She can also personally attest that the new model is easier to use, since she personally collected data for LLDAS assignment. “I had to check this, and this, and this … [SLE-DAS] is easier.”

Future work from her group will aim at deriving and validating a more robust definition of LDA, which will again be compared with the current LLDAS definition.

Her colleagues have already developed and validated a definition for clinical remission using SLE-DAS, although those results have not yet been published. They hope to define activity states using SLE-DAS, including mild, moderate, and high disease activity.

The team has produced an online SLE-DAS calculator (http://sle-das.eu/) where clinicians can score the 17 parameters. “You just input the values and it gives a number reflecting disease activity. Using this definition of SLE-DAS LDA you only need that number and to verify that the prednisolone dose is equal to or inferior to 7.5 mg/day,” said Dr. Assunção.

The study received no funding. Dr. Assunção has no financial disclosures, but one coauthor reported receiving grant/research support from Pfizer and AbbVie and serving as a consultant to Pfizer, AbbVie, Roche, Lilly, and Novartis.

SOURCE: Assunção H et al. Ann Rheum Dis 2020;79[suppl 1]:60, Abstract OP0092.

An alternative disease activity index for patients with systemic lupus erythematosus called the SLE-DAS (Disease Activity Score) has shown similar results to the Lupus Low Disease Activity State (LLDAS) in classifying low disease activity but may be easier to potentially apply in daily clinical practice in treat-to-target strategies, according to research presented at the annual European Congress of Rheumatology, held online this year because of COVID-19.

A treat-to-target approach, in which therapies are adjusted and the patient monitored to achieve the desired endpoint, has been proposed for patients with SLE. Clinical remission is the ideal goal, followed by achieving low disease activity (LDA) when clinical remission is unattainable, the first author of the SLE-DAS study, Helena Assunção, MD, of the department of rheumatology at Centro Hospitalar e Universitário de Coimbra (Portugal), said in an interview prior to the presentation of the study at the e-congress.

But to conduct a treat-to-target approach in the clinical setting, clinicians must have reliable, user-friendly targets to assess a patient’s progress, she said. But that’s not available right now. Proposed definitions of LDA, such as the LLDAS, are based on the Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Index 2000 (SLEDAI-2K). This index doesn’t address some important manifestations of SLE and it is scored dichotomously – for example, giving a similar score for thrombocytopenia when platelet count is reduced to 100,000 or to 10,000.

To compensate for these limitations, the current LLDAS definition also requires the Physician Global Assessment and other steps, including a review of medication and changes to treatment or clinical status since the previous visit.

“It is not easy to apply,” Dr. Assunção said.

The SLE-DAS is a continuous index involving 17 parameters (4 continuous: arthritis, proteinuria, thrombocytopenia, and leukopenia), assigning higher scores when a manifestation is more severe, and has manifestation information that SLEDAI-2K lacks (cardiopulmonary involvement, lupus enteritis, and hemolytic anemia).

In contrast, the LLDAS is defined as:
 

• A SLEDAI-2k score of 4 or less with no major organ involvement
• No new disease activity
• A physician global assessment of the patient of 1 or less on a 0-3 scale
• Maintenance on a prednisolone dosage of 7.5 mg/day or less
• Maintenance on a standard immunosuppressive regimen

A previous study validated the SLE-DAS (Ann Rheum Dis. 2019 Mar;78[3]:365-71), and another exploratory study identified a cutoff SLE-DAS value of 3.77 or lower for LDA with SLE-DAS (Ann Rheum Dis. 2019;78:411-2).

Her group compared LDA status as measured with LLDAS versus the SLE-DAS in a cross-sectional study of 292 consecutive patients at their hospital. LDA on the SLE-DAS was defined as a score 3.77 or lower and a prednisolone dose of 7.5 mg/day or less. A total of 85% of patients were in LDA with SLE-DAS and 83.9% with LLDAS, and the agreement between LLDAS and SLE-DAS LDA was very high (Cohen’s kappa coefficient test; kappa = 0.831; P < .01). Out of 292 patients, only 13 were classified differently by the two definitions, 8 of which were classified as LDA by SLE-DAS, and 5 by LLDAS. Overall, 87% of patients were women and had a mean age of nearly 49 years, with a mean disease duration of about 14 years.

Dr. Assunção feels that the SLE-DAS LDA should be sufficient to monitor disease activity without adding the Physician Global Assessment and other steps, which would make it easier to apply than LLDAS. The fact that it is based on a continuous index is also an important difference. “Especially for low disease activity, it’s very good to be able to define it with a continuous index, because you are not that bad, but not that good, you’re in the middle,” she said.

The study should be regarded as exploratory, she said, but the results were encouraging. “We got similar results, and it’s definitely easier to apply.” She can also personally attest that the new model is easier to use, since she personally collected data for LLDAS assignment. “I had to check this, and this, and this … [SLE-DAS] is easier.”

Future work from her group will aim at deriving and validating a more robust definition of LDA, which will again be compared with the current LLDAS definition.

Her colleagues have already developed and validated a definition for clinical remission using SLE-DAS, although those results have not yet been published. They hope to define activity states using SLE-DAS, including mild, moderate, and high disease activity.

The team has produced an online SLE-DAS calculator (http://sle-das.eu/) where clinicians can score the 17 parameters. “You just input the values and it gives a number reflecting disease activity. Using this definition of SLE-DAS LDA you only need that number and to verify that the prednisolone dose is equal to or inferior to 7.5 mg/day,” said Dr. Assunção.

The study received no funding. Dr. Assunção has no financial disclosures, but one coauthor reported receiving grant/research support from Pfizer and AbbVie and serving as a consultant to Pfizer, AbbVie, Roche, Lilly, and Novartis.

SOURCE: Assunção H et al. Ann Rheum Dis 2020;79[suppl 1]:60, Abstract OP0092.

The direct oral anticoagulant (DOAC) drugs apixaban, dabigatran, and rivaroxaban are associated with a lower risk of osteoporotic fracture than is warfarin in patients with atrial fibrillation (AFib), according to a new retrospective analysis.

There was no difference in risk between individual DOAC medications.

The study drew from an EHR database of the Hong Kong Hospital Authority. It was led by Wallis C.Y. Lau, PhD, of the University of Hong Kong and appeared online May 19 in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Warfarin is suspected to contribute to osteoporotic fracturing in AFib patients, but previous studies returned mixed results. The more recently introduced DOACs were not tested for fracture risks, and it hasn’t been determined if individual DOACs have different risks. The question is even more important in AFib, in which patients are older and often have comorbidities that could predispose them to fractures.

The study included 23,515 patients with AFib who used anticoagulants. 3,241 used apixaban, 6,867 dabigatran, 3,866 rivaroxaban, and 9,541 used warfarin. The median follow-up was 423 days.

According to Cox proportional hazards model analyses, DOAC use was associated with fewer fractures than was warfarin (hazard ratio for apixaban vs. warfarin, 0.62; 95% confidence interval, 0.41-0.94; HR for dabigatran, 0.65; 95% CI, 0.49-0.86; HR for rivaroxaban, 0.52; 95% CI, 0.37-0.73). Subanalyses in men and women showed similar results (P for interaction >.05).

Head-to-head comparisons between individual DOACs yielded no statistically significant differences in osteoporotic fracture risk.

Although the findings couldn’t absolutely rule out a difference in osteoporotic fracture risk between different DOACs, the authors argue that any clinical significance would likely be small.

“Given the supportive evidence from experimental settings, findings from our study using clinical data, and the indirect evidence provided by the previous meta-analysis of randomized, controlled trials, there exists a compelling case for evaluating whether the risk for osteoporotic fractures should be considered at the point of prescribing an oral anticoagulant to minimize fracture risk,” the authors wrote.

The study is limited by the potential for residual confounding, the investigators noted.

The study was funded by the University of Hong Kong and University College London Strategic Partnership Fund.

SOURCE: Lau WCY et al. Ann Intern Med. 2020 May 19. doi: 10.7326/M19-3671.

The direct oral anticoagulant (DOAC) drugs apixaban, dabigatran, and rivaroxaban are associated with a lower risk of osteoporotic fracture than is warfarin in patients with atrial fibrillation (AFib), according to a new retrospective analysis.

There was no difference in risk between individual DOAC medications.

The study drew from an EHR database of the Hong Kong Hospital Authority. It was led by Wallis C.Y. Lau, PhD, of the University of Hong Kong and appeared online May 19 in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Warfarin is suspected to contribute to osteoporotic fracturing in AFib patients, but previous studies returned mixed results. The more recently introduced DOACs were not tested for fracture risks, and it hasn’t been determined if individual DOACs have different risks. The question is even more important in AFib, in which patients are older and often have comorbidities that could predispose them to fractures.

The study included 23,515 patients with AFib who used anticoagulants. 3,241 used apixaban, 6,867 dabigatran, 3,866 rivaroxaban, and 9,541 used warfarin. The median follow-up was 423 days.

According to Cox proportional hazards model analyses, DOAC use was associated with fewer fractures than was warfarin (hazard ratio for apixaban vs. warfarin, 0.62; 95% confidence interval, 0.41-0.94; HR for dabigatran, 0.65; 95% CI, 0.49-0.86; HR for rivaroxaban, 0.52; 95% CI, 0.37-0.73). Subanalyses in men and women showed similar results (P for interaction >.05).

Head-to-head comparisons between individual DOACs yielded no statistically significant differences in osteoporotic fracture risk.

Although the findings couldn’t absolutely rule out a difference in osteoporotic fracture risk between different DOACs, the authors argue that any clinical significance would likely be small.

“Given the supportive evidence from experimental settings, findings from our study using clinical data, and the indirect evidence provided by the previous meta-analysis of randomized, controlled trials, there exists a compelling case for evaluating whether the risk for osteoporotic fractures should be considered at the point of prescribing an oral anticoagulant to minimize fracture risk,” the authors wrote.

The study is limited by the potential for residual confounding, the investigators noted.

The study was funded by the University of Hong Kong and University College London Strategic Partnership Fund.

SOURCE: Lau WCY et al. Ann Intern Med. 2020 May 19. doi: 10.7326/M19-3671.

The direct oral anticoagulant (DOAC) drugs apixaban, dabigatran, and rivaroxaban are associated with a lower risk of osteoporotic fracture than is warfarin in patients with atrial fibrillation (AFib), according to a new retrospective analysis.

There was no difference in risk between individual DOAC medications.

The study drew from an EHR database of the Hong Kong Hospital Authority. It was led by Wallis C.Y. Lau, PhD, of the University of Hong Kong and appeared online May 19 in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Warfarin is suspected to contribute to osteoporotic fracturing in AFib patients, but previous studies returned mixed results. The more recently introduced DOACs were not tested for fracture risks, and it hasn’t been determined if individual DOACs have different risks. The question is even more important in AFib, in which patients are older and often have comorbidities that could predispose them to fractures.

The study included 23,515 patients with AFib who used anticoagulants. 3,241 used apixaban, 6,867 dabigatran, 3,866 rivaroxaban, and 9,541 used warfarin. The median follow-up was 423 days.

According to Cox proportional hazards model analyses, DOAC use was associated with fewer fractures than was warfarin (hazard ratio for apixaban vs. warfarin, 0.62; 95% confidence interval, 0.41-0.94; HR for dabigatran, 0.65; 95% CI, 0.49-0.86; HR for rivaroxaban, 0.52; 95% CI, 0.37-0.73). Subanalyses in men and women showed similar results (P for interaction >.05).

Head-to-head comparisons between individual DOACs yielded no statistically significant differences in osteoporotic fracture risk.

Although the findings couldn’t absolutely rule out a difference in osteoporotic fracture risk between different DOACs, the authors argue that any clinical significance would likely be small.

“Given the supportive evidence from experimental settings, findings from our study using clinical data, and the indirect evidence provided by the previous meta-analysis of randomized, controlled trials, there exists a compelling case for evaluating whether the risk for osteoporotic fractures should be considered at the point of prescribing an oral anticoagulant to minimize fracture risk,” the authors wrote.

The study is limited by the potential for residual confounding, the investigators noted.

The study was funded by the University of Hong Kong and University College London Strategic Partnership Fund.

SOURCE: Lau WCY et al. Ann Intern Med. 2020 May 19. doi: 10.7326/M19-3671.

A high-intensity exercise program, already shown effective in improving bone density and performance in women, is also effective in older men with low bone density, according to the LIFTMOR-M study, published in Bone. The protocol incorporates barbell-based weightlifting and impact training involving jumping chin-ups.

sbm Hotting/Fotolia.com

“When you’ve got a condition primarily in one of the sexes, the other sex often gets ignored, and that’s absolute the case with osteoporosis,” said lead author Belinda Beck, PhD, a professor at Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia, in an interview.

In older adults with low bone density, when it comes to building bone and reducing fracture, a review of the literature suggests that exercise doesn’t work. That’s not really true though, according to Dr. Beck. An unpublished analysis of studies of high-intensity exercise only at her institution shows promise. “It looks like exercise doesn’t work. It’s not that, it’s that the wrong kind of exercise doesn’t work,” she stressed.

The original LIFTMOR trial, in women, was inspired by a collaboration with Lisa Weis, an Olympic weightlifter who specialized in training older women, who subsequently showed improvements on bone scans. “That’s what jump-started it, because just like every other scientist, I would have been too scared to do this kind of loading in this fragile population, and that’s the reason why people haven’t been doing it. They don’t want to break people,” said Dr. Beck.

The investigators “cherry-picked some of those exercises and tested them in the LIFTMOR trial. I was nervous about the study because the weights we were lifting were much heavier than most people had applied for people with osteoporosis. The risk was, we would cause the fractures we were trying to prevent,” said Dr. Beck. Her team tested a high-intensity resistance and impact (HiRIT) protocol in postmenopausal women with low bone mass (J Bone Miner Res. 2019 Mar;34[3]:572. Controls underwent a home-based, low-intensity exercise program. They found improvements in bone density and functional performance, compared with controls.

“The exercise was effective and safe for this population if practiced with proper technique under close supervision,” said Dr. Beck, but she emphasized that the exercises must be led by experienced coaches because of the potential for injury.

The investigators then looked at men. “There are still one in five men over 50 who are going to fracture,” Dr. Beck said.

Her team launched LIFTMOR-M, which enrolled 93 men (mean age, 67.1 years) with a lower than average proximal femur areal bone mineral density. Of them, 34 were randomized to HiRIT, 33 to supervised machine-based isometric axial compression (IAC) exercise training, and 26 were designated as controls and self-selected to usual activities.

The intervention included 8 months of twice-weekly, supervised, 30-minute HiRIT sessions, which included five sets of five repetitions, using more than 85% the weight of the single repetition maximum. The routine included the deadlift, squat, and overhead press. The impact component included five sets of five repetitions of jumping chin-ups followed by a firm, flat-footed landing.

After 8 months, there was no difference in compliance between the two intervention groups. Those in the HiRIT group had improved medial femoral neck cortical thickness, compared with controls (5.6% vs. –0.1%; P = .028) and IAC (5.6% vs. 0.7%; P = .044). Those in the HiRIT group maintained distal tibia trabecular area, while the control group experienced a loss (0.2% vs. –1.6%; P = .013). The IAC group did not show any improvement in bone strength in any of the sites examined, though some findings suggest it may counteract age-related loss in bone strength indices in the distal tibia and radius.

The program requires a fluid movement that maintains a neutral spine throughout. Dr. Beck has developed the Onero program (theboneclinic.com.au/onero/) based on the routine, and licenses it to physical therapists and exercise physiologists.

The study was funded by the Australian Research Foundation and the Australian Government Research Training Program. Dr. Beck owns the Bone Clinic, which sells licenses to the Onero program based on the exercise program used in the study.

SOURCE: Beck B et al. Bone. 2020 April 11. doi: 10.1016/j.bone.2020.115362.

A high-intensity exercise program, already shown effective in improving bone density and performance in women, is also effective in older men with low bone density, according to the LIFTMOR-M study, published in Bone. The protocol incorporates barbell-based weightlifting and impact training involving jumping chin-ups.

sbm Hotting/Fotolia.com

“When you’ve got a condition primarily in one of the sexes, the other sex often gets ignored, and that’s absolute the case with osteoporosis,” said lead author Belinda Beck, PhD, a professor at Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia, in an interview.

In older adults with low bone density, when it comes to building bone and reducing fracture, a review of the literature suggests that exercise doesn’t work. That’s not really true though, according to Dr. Beck. An unpublished analysis of studies of high-intensity exercise only at her institution shows promise. “It looks like exercise doesn’t work. It’s not that, it’s that the wrong kind of exercise doesn’t work,” she stressed.

The original LIFTMOR trial, in women, was inspired by a collaboration with Lisa Weis, an Olympic weightlifter who specialized in training older women, who subsequently showed improvements on bone scans. “That’s what jump-started it, because just like every other scientist, I would have been too scared to do this kind of loading in this fragile population, and that’s the reason why people haven’t been doing it. They don’t want to break people,” said Dr. Beck.

The investigators “cherry-picked some of those exercises and tested them in the LIFTMOR trial. I was nervous about the study because the weights we were lifting were much heavier than most people had applied for people with osteoporosis. The risk was, we would cause the fractures we were trying to prevent,” said Dr. Beck. Her team tested a high-intensity resistance and impact (HiRIT) protocol in postmenopausal women with low bone mass (J Bone Miner Res. 2019 Mar;34[3]:572. Controls underwent a home-based, low-intensity exercise program. They found improvements in bone density and functional performance, compared with controls.

“The exercise was effective and safe for this population if practiced with proper technique under close supervision,” said Dr. Beck, but she emphasized that the exercises must be led by experienced coaches because of the potential for injury.

The investigators then looked at men. “There are still one in five men over 50 who are going to fracture,” Dr. Beck said.

Her team launched LIFTMOR-M, which enrolled 93 men (mean age, 67.1 years) with a lower than average proximal femur areal bone mineral density. Of them, 34 were randomized to HiRIT, 33 to supervised machine-based isometric axial compression (IAC) exercise training, and 26 were designated as controls and self-selected to usual activities.

The intervention included 8 months of twice-weekly, supervised, 30-minute HiRIT sessions, which included five sets of five repetitions, using more than 85% the weight of the single repetition maximum. The routine included the deadlift, squat, and overhead press. The impact component included five sets of five repetitions of jumping chin-ups followed by a firm, flat-footed landing.

After 8 months, there was no difference in compliance between the two intervention groups. Those in the HiRIT group had improved medial femoral neck cortical thickness, compared with controls (5.6% vs. –0.1%; P = .028) and IAC (5.6% vs. 0.7%; P = .044). Those in the HiRIT group maintained distal tibia trabecular area, while the control group experienced a loss (0.2% vs. –1.6%; P = .013). The IAC group did not show any improvement in bone strength in any of the sites examined, though some findings suggest it may counteract age-related loss in bone strength indices in the distal tibia and radius.

The program requires a fluid movement that maintains a neutral spine throughout. Dr. Beck has developed the Onero program (theboneclinic.com.au/onero/) based on the routine, and licenses it to physical therapists and exercise physiologists.

The study was funded by the Australian Research Foundation and the Australian Government Research Training Program. Dr. Beck owns the Bone Clinic, which sells licenses to the Onero program based on the exercise program used in the study.

SOURCE: Beck B et al. Bone. 2020 April 11. doi: 10.1016/j.bone.2020.115362.

A high-intensity exercise program, already shown effective in improving bone density and performance in women, is also effective in older men with low bone density, according to the LIFTMOR-M study, published in Bone. The protocol incorporates barbell-based weightlifting and impact training involving jumping chin-ups.

sbm Hotting/Fotolia.com

“When you’ve got a condition primarily in one of the sexes, the other sex often gets ignored, and that’s absolute the case with osteoporosis,” said lead author Belinda Beck, PhD, a professor at Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia, in an interview.

In older adults with low bone density, when it comes to building bone and reducing fracture, a review of the literature suggests that exercise doesn’t work. That’s not really true though, according to Dr. Beck. An unpublished analysis of studies of high-intensity exercise only at her institution shows promise. “It looks like exercise doesn’t work. It’s not that, it’s that the wrong kind of exercise doesn’t work,” she stressed.

The original LIFTMOR trial, in women, was inspired by a collaboration with Lisa Weis, an Olympic weightlifter who specialized in training older women, who subsequently showed improvements on bone scans. “That’s what jump-started it, because just like every other scientist, I would have been too scared to do this kind of loading in this fragile population, and that’s the reason why people haven’t been doing it. They don’t want to break people,” said Dr. Beck.

The investigators “cherry-picked some of those exercises and tested them in the LIFTMOR trial. I was nervous about the study because the weights we were lifting were much heavier than most people had applied for people with osteoporosis. The risk was, we would cause the fractures we were trying to prevent,” said Dr. Beck. Her team tested a high-intensity resistance and impact (HiRIT) protocol in postmenopausal women with low bone mass (J Bone Miner Res. 2019 Mar;34[3]:572. Controls underwent a home-based, low-intensity exercise program. They found improvements in bone density and functional performance, compared with controls.

“The exercise was effective and safe for this population if practiced with proper technique under close supervision,” said Dr. Beck, but she emphasized that the exercises must be led by experienced coaches because of the potential for injury.

The investigators then looked at men. “There are still one in five men over 50 who are going to fracture,” Dr. Beck said.

Her team launched LIFTMOR-M, which enrolled 93 men (mean age, 67.1 years) with a lower than average proximal femur areal bone mineral density. Of them, 34 were randomized to HiRIT, 33 to supervised machine-based isometric axial compression (IAC) exercise training, and 26 were designated as controls and self-selected to usual activities.

The intervention included 8 months of twice-weekly, supervised, 30-minute HiRIT sessions, which included five sets of five repetitions, using more than 85% the weight of the single repetition maximum. The routine included the deadlift, squat, and overhead press. The impact component included five sets of five repetitions of jumping chin-ups followed by a firm, flat-footed landing.

After 8 months, there was no difference in compliance between the two intervention groups. Those in the HiRIT group had improved medial femoral neck cortical thickness, compared with controls (5.6% vs. –0.1%; P = .028) and IAC (5.6% vs. 0.7%; P = .044). Those in the HiRIT group maintained distal tibia trabecular area, while the control group experienced a loss (0.2% vs. –1.6%; P = .013). The IAC group did not show any improvement in bone strength in any of the sites examined, though some findings suggest it may counteract age-related loss in bone strength indices in the distal tibia and radius.

The program requires a fluid movement that maintains a neutral spine throughout. Dr. Beck has developed the Onero program (theboneclinic.com.au/onero/) based on the routine, and licenses it to physical therapists and exercise physiologists.

The study was funded by the Australian Research Foundation and the Australian Government Research Training Program. Dr. Beck owns the Bone Clinic, which sells licenses to the Onero program based on the exercise program used in the study.

SOURCE: Beck B et al. Bone. 2020 April 11. doi: 10.1016/j.bone.2020.115362.

Bone fracture in older adults is associated with greater mortality risk, but the location of the break may be a key factor, according to a new study of outcomes in a Danish database.

Over the follow-up period, those with proximal fractures – breaks in the hip, femur, pelvis, rib, clavicle, and humerus – were more likely to be hospitalized and to die, compared with their matched controls, than were those were with distal fractures in regions like the ankle, forearm, hand, or foot, where the mortality was similar to the matched controls.

“Compared with someone with similar comorbidities without a proximal fracture, there seemed to be an increased hospitalization rate for things like diabetes, heart disease, and lung disease, and then for some of those hospitalizations, there seemed to be an increased mortality, compared with people who hadn’t fractured who were hospitalized,” said Jacqueline Center, MBBS, PhD, of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Sydney, in an interview. The study abstract was released online by the Endocrine Society. It had been slated for presentation during ENDO 2020, the society's annual meeting, which was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.*

The study included 212,498 women and 95,372 men aged over 50 years who had a fragility fracture between 2001 and 2014. The researchers excluded high-trauma fractures. They matched each fracture patient with four nonfracture patients, based on sex, age, and comorbidity status. There were 30,677 deaths among women over 384,995 person-years of follow-up, and 19,519 deaths in men over 163,482 person-years of follow-up. Women were a mean age of 72 at the time of fracture, while men were a mean age of 75.

The researchers found that proximal fractures were associated with increased risk of mortality, compared with nonfractured controls, with hazard ratios ranging between 1.5 and 4.0. Distal fractures were not associated with any increased mortality risk.

Comorbidities were common in the study population, with 75% of men and 60% of women having at least one. The risk of mortality increased with increasing numbers of comorbidities in each fracture type, but only proximal fractures were associated with an independent increase in mortality risk over and above comorbidity status.

In the 2 years following fracture, compared with matched controls, proximal fractures were associated with a greater risk of major hospital admission for conditions like cardiovascular disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, pneumonia, and pulmonary disease. There was no significant difference between controls and those with distal fractures in hospital admission rate. The 2-year mortality risk was higher among subjects with proximal fractures, compared with patients in the no-fracture control group, regardless of whether they were admitted to the hospital, but there was no significant difference in those with distal fractures.

The differing clinical trajectories between those with proximal and distal fractures is a key finding, according to Dr. Center. The cause still isn’t clear, but she suspects that, in those patients who do badly, the fractures are either a signal that something is happening with existing comorbidities of the underlying frailty or that it may exacerbate them. Comorbidity independently and additively contributes to mortality, so that someone with a hip fracture and no comorbidities might have a similar mortality risk as someone with an upper-arm fracture and a couple of comorbidities. “I think it tells us that the person has to be treated as a whole. We need to treat the fracture to treat the underlying osteoporosis, but we also need to look closely at the person with the fracture and treat their comorbidities as well, because they seem to be more vulnerable,” Dr. Center said.

Although patients and clinicians are attuned to the concerns over hip fractures, other fractures should also be noted, according to Nelson Watts, MD, who is director of osteoporosis and bone-health services at Mercy Health in Cincinnati and was not involved in the research. “I think the message for clinicians and patients is that all of these [proximal] fractures need to be taken seriously. The good news is that that we have medications that can cut the risk of further fractures by 50%-70%,” he said in an interview.

Dr. Center has been on an advisory board for Amgen. Dr. Watts has been a speaker for Amgen and Radius and has conducted numerous clinical trials of osteoporosis drugs.

In addition to a series of news conferences, the Endocrine Society is also planning to host ENDO Online 2020 during June 8-22, which will feature on-demand and live programming for clinicians and researchers.

SOURCE: Center J et al. ENDO 2020, Abstract OR13-03.

Correction, 4/21/20: An earlier version of this article misstated when the interview with Dr. Center took place.

Bone fracture in older adults is associated with greater mortality risk, but the location of the break may be a key factor, according to a new study of outcomes in a Danish database.

Over the follow-up period, those with proximal fractures – breaks in the hip, femur, pelvis, rib, clavicle, and humerus – were more likely to be hospitalized and to die, compared with their matched controls, than were those were with distal fractures in regions like the ankle, forearm, hand, or foot, where the mortality was similar to the matched controls.

“Compared with someone with similar comorbidities without a proximal fracture, there seemed to be an increased hospitalization rate for things like diabetes, heart disease, and lung disease, and then for some of those hospitalizations, there seemed to be an increased mortality, compared with people who hadn’t fractured who were hospitalized,” said Jacqueline Center, MBBS, PhD, of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Sydney, in an interview. The study abstract was released online by the Endocrine Society. It had been slated for presentation during ENDO 2020, the society's annual meeting, which was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.*

The study included 212,498 women and 95,372 men aged over 50 years who had a fragility fracture between 2001 and 2014. The researchers excluded high-trauma fractures. They matched each fracture patient with four nonfracture patients, based on sex, age, and comorbidity status. There were 30,677 deaths among women over 384,995 person-years of follow-up, and 19,519 deaths in men over 163,482 person-years of follow-up. Women were a mean age of 72 at the time of fracture, while men were a mean age of 75.

The researchers found that proximal fractures were associated with increased risk of mortality, compared with nonfractured controls, with hazard ratios ranging between 1.5 and 4.0. Distal fractures were not associated with any increased mortality risk.

Comorbidities were common in the study population, with 75% of men and 60% of women having at least one. The risk of mortality increased with increasing numbers of comorbidities in each fracture type, but only proximal fractures were associated with an independent increase in mortality risk over and above comorbidity status.

In the 2 years following fracture, compared with matched controls, proximal fractures were associated with a greater risk of major hospital admission for conditions like cardiovascular disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, pneumonia, and pulmonary disease. There was no significant difference between controls and those with distal fractures in hospital admission rate. The 2-year mortality risk was higher among subjects with proximal fractures, compared with patients in the no-fracture control group, regardless of whether they were admitted to the hospital, but there was no significant difference in those with distal fractures.

The differing clinical trajectories between those with proximal and distal fractures is a key finding, according to Dr. Center. The cause still isn’t clear, but she suspects that, in those patients who do badly, the fractures are either a signal that something is happening with existing comorbidities of the underlying frailty or that it may exacerbate them. Comorbidity independently and additively contributes to mortality, so that someone with a hip fracture and no comorbidities might have a similar mortality risk as someone with an upper-arm fracture and a couple of comorbidities. “I think it tells us that the person has to be treated as a whole. We need to treat the fracture to treat the underlying osteoporosis, but we also need to look closely at the person with the fracture and treat their comorbidities as well, because they seem to be more vulnerable,” Dr. Center said.

Although patients and clinicians are attuned to the concerns over hip fractures, other fractures should also be noted, according to Nelson Watts, MD, who is director of osteoporosis and bone-health services at Mercy Health in Cincinnati and was not involved in the research. “I think the message for clinicians and patients is that all of these [proximal] fractures need to be taken seriously. The good news is that that we have medications that can cut the risk of further fractures by 50%-70%,” he said in an interview.

Dr. Center has been on an advisory board for Amgen. Dr. Watts has been a speaker for Amgen and Radius and has conducted numerous clinical trials of osteoporosis drugs.

In addition to a series of news conferences, the Endocrine Society is also planning to host ENDO Online 2020 during June 8-22, which will feature on-demand and live programming for clinicians and researchers.

SOURCE: Center J et al. ENDO 2020, Abstract OR13-03.

Correction, 4/21/20: An earlier version of this article misstated when the interview with Dr. Center took place.

Bone fracture in older adults is associated with greater mortality risk, but the location of the break may be a key factor, according to a new study of outcomes in a Danish database.

Over the follow-up period, those with proximal fractures – breaks in the hip, femur, pelvis, rib, clavicle, and humerus – were more likely to be hospitalized and to die, compared with their matched controls, than were those were with distal fractures in regions like the ankle, forearm, hand, or foot, where the mortality was similar to the matched controls.

“Compared with someone with similar comorbidities without a proximal fracture, there seemed to be an increased hospitalization rate for things like diabetes, heart disease, and lung disease, and then for some of those hospitalizations, there seemed to be an increased mortality, compared with people who hadn’t fractured who were hospitalized,” said Jacqueline Center, MBBS, PhD, of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Sydney, in an interview. The study abstract was released online by the Endocrine Society. It had been slated for presentation during ENDO 2020, the society's annual meeting, which was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.*

The study included 212,498 women and 95,372 men aged over 50 years who had a fragility fracture between 2001 and 2014. The researchers excluded high-trauma fractures. They matched each fracture patient with four nonfracture patients, based on sex, age, and comorbidity status. There were 30,677 deaths among women over 384,995 person-years of follow-up, and 19,519 deaths in men over 163,482 person-years of follow-up. Women were a mean age of 72 at the time of fracture, while men were a mean age of 75.

The researchers found that proximal fractures were associated with increased risk of mortality, compared with nonfractured controls, with hazard ratios ranging between 1.5 and 4.0. Distal fractures were not associated with any increased mortality risk.

Comorbidities were common in the study population, with 75% of men and 60% of women having at least one. The risk of mortality increased with increasing numbers of comorbidities in each fracture type, but only proximal fractures were associated with an independent increase in mortality risk over and above comorbidity status.

In the 2 years following fracture, compared with matched controls, proximal fractures were associated with a greater risk of major hospital admission for conditions like cardiovascular disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, pneumonia, and pulmonary disease. There was no significant difference between controls and those with distal fractures in hospital admission rate. The 2-year mortality risk was higher among subjects with proximal fractures, compared with patients in the no-fracture control group, regardless of whether they were admitted to the hospital, but there was no significant difference in those with distal fractures.

The differing clinical trajectories between those with proximal and distal fractures is a key finding, according to Dr. Center. The cause still isn’t clear, but she suspects that, in those patients who do badly, the fractures are either a signal that something is happening with existing comorbidities of the underlying frailty or that it may exacerbate them. Comorbidity independently and additively contributes to mortality, so that someone with a hip fracture and no comorbidities might have a similar mortality risk as someone with an upper-arm fracture and a couple of comorbidities. “I think it tells us that the person has to be treated as a whole. We need to treat the fracture to treat the underlying osteoporosis, but we also need to look closely at the person with the fracture and treat their comorbidities as well, because they seem to be more vulnerable,” Dr. Center said.

Although patients and clinicians are attuned to the concerns over hip fractures, other fractures should also be noted, according to Nelson Watts, MD, who is director of osteoporosis and bone-health services at Mercy Health in Cincinnati and was not involved in the research. “I think the message for clinicians and patients is that all of these [proximal] fractures need to be taken seriously. The good news is that that we have medications that can cut the risk of further fractures by 50%-70%,” he said in an interview.

Dr. Center has been on an advisory board for Amgen. Dr. Watts has been a speaker for Amgen and Radius and has conducted numerous clinical trials of osteoporosis drugs.

In addition to a series of news conferences, the Endocrine Society is also planning to host ENDO Online 2020 during June 8-22, which will feature on-demand and live programming for clinicians and researchers.

SOURCE: Center J et al. ENDO 2020, Abstract OR13-03.

Correction, 4/21/20: An earlier version of this article misstated when the interview with Dr. Center took place.

Because of their place at the interface between critical care and cardiovascular medicine, critical care cardiologists are in a good position to come up with novel approaches to adapting critical care systems to the current crisis. Health care and clinical resources have been severely strained in some places, and increasing evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2 can cause injury to most organ systems. More than a quarter of hospitalized patients have cardiac injury, which can be a key reason for clinical deterioration.

An international group of critical care cardiologists led by Jason Katz, MD, of Duke University, Durham, N.C., offered suggestions for scalable models for critical care delivery in the context of COVID-19 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Critical care cardiology developed in response to changes in patient populations and their clinical needs. Respiratory insufficiency, heart failure, structural heart disease, and multisystem organ dysfunction became more common than patients with complicated acute MI, leading cardiologists in critical care cardiology to become more proficient in general critical care medicine, and to become leaders in forming collaborative multidisciplinary teams. The authors argued that COVID-19 is precipitating a similar need to adapt to the changing needs of patients.

“This pandemic should serve as a clarion call to our health care systems that we should continue to develop a nimble workforce that can adapt to change quickly during a crisis. We believe critical care cardiologists are well positioned to help serve society in this capacity,” the authors wrote.
 

Surge staging

They proposed four surge stages based in part on an American College of Chest Physicians–endorsed model (Chest 2014 Oct;146:e61S-74S), which regards a 25% capacity surge as minor. At the other end of the spectrum, a 200% surge is defined as a “disaster.” In minor surges (less than 25% increase), the traditional cardiac ICU (CICU) model can continue to be applied. During moderate (25%-100% increases) or major (100%-200%) surges, the critical care cardiologist should collaborate or consult within multiple health care teams. Physicians not trained in critical care can assist with care of intubated and critically ill patients under the supervision of a critical care cardiologist or under the supervision of a partnership between a non–cardiac critical care medicine provider and a cardiologist. The number of patients cared for by each team should increase in step with the size of the surge.

In disaster situations (more than 200% surge), there should be adaptive and dynamic staffing reorganization. The report included an illustration of a range of steps that can be taken, including alterations to staffing, regional care systems, resource management, and triage practices. Scoring systems such as Sequential Organ Failure Assessment may be useful for triaging, but the authors also suggest employment of validated cardiac disease–specific scores, because traditional ICU measures don’t always apply well to CICU populations.

At the hospital level, deferrals should be made for elective cardiac procedures that require CICU or postanesthesia care unit recovery periods. Semielective procedures should be considered after risk-benefit considerations when delays could lead to morbidity or mortality. Even some traditional emergency procedures may need to be reevaluated in the COVID-19 context: For example, some low-risk ST-segment elevation MI (STEMI) patients don’t require ICU care but are manageable in cardiac intermediate care beds instead. Historical triage practices should be reexamined to predict which STEMI patients will require ICU care.
 

Resource allocation

The CICU work flow will be affected as some of its beds are opened up to COVID-19 patients. Standard philosophies of concentrating intense resources will have to give way to a utilitarian approach that evaluates operations based on efficiency, equity, and justice. Physician-patient contact should be minimized using technological links when possible, and rounds might be reorganized to first examine patients without COVID-19, in order to minimize between-patient spread.

Military medicine, which is used to ramping up operations during times of crisis, has potential lessons for the current pandemic. In the face of mass casualties, military physicians often turn to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization triage system, which separates patients into four categories: immediate, requiring lifesaving intervention; delayed, requiring intervention within hours to days; minimal, where the patient is injured but ambulatory; and expectant patients who are deceased or too injured to save. Impersonal though this system may be, it may be required in the most severe scenarios when resources are scarce or absent.

The authors reported no relevant financial disclosures.

SOURCE: Katz J et al. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2020 Apr 15. doi: 10.1016/j.annonc.2020.02.01.

Because of their place at the interface between critical care and cardiovascular medicine, critical care cardiologists are in a good position to come up with novel approaches to adapting critical care systems to the current crisis. Health care and clinical resources have been severely strained in some places, and increasing evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2 can cause injury to most organ systems. More than a quarter of hospitalized patients have cardiac injury, which can be a key reason for clinical deterioration.

An international group of critical care cardiologists led by Jason Katz, MD, of Duke University, Durham, N.C., offered suggestions for scalable models for critical care delivery in the context of COVID-19 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Critical care cardiology developed in response to changes in patient populations and their clinical needs. Respiratory insufficiency, heart failure, structural heart disease, and multisystem organ dysfunction became more common than patients with complicated acute MI, leading cardiologists in critical care cardiology to become more proficient in general critical care medicine, and to become leaders in forming collaborative multidisciplinary teams. The authors argued that COVID-19 is precipitating a similar need to adapt to the changing needs of patients.

“This pandemic should serve as a clarion call to our health care systems that we should continue to develop a nimble workforce that can adapt to change quickly during a crisis. We believe critical care cardiologists are well positioned to help serve society in this capacity,” the authors wrote.
 

Surge staging

They proposed four surge stages based in part on an American College of Chest Physicians–endorsed model (Chest 2014 Oct;146:e61S-74S), which regards a 25% capacity surge as minor. At the other end of the spectrum, a 200% surge is defined as a “disaster.” In minor surges (less than 25% increase), the traditional cardiac ICU (CICU) model can continue to be applied. During moderate (25%-100% increases) or major (100%-200%) surges, the critical care cardiologist should collaborate or consult within multiple health care teams. Physicians not trained in critical care can assist with care of intubated and critically ill patients under the supervision of a critical care cardiologist or under the supervision of a partnership between a non–cardiac critical care medicine provider and a cardiologist. The number of patients cared for by each team should increase in step with the size of the surge.

In disaster situations (more than 200% surge), there should be adaptive and dynamic staffing reorganization. The report included an illustration of a range of steps that can be taken, including alterations to staffing, regional care systems, resource management, and triage practices. Scoring systems such as Sequential Organ Failure Assessment may be useful for triaging, but the authors also suggest employment of validated cardiac disease–specific scores, because traditional ICU measures don’t always apply well to CICU populations.

At the hospital level, deferrals should be made for elective cardiac procedures that require CICU or postanesthesia care unit recovery periods. Semielective procedures should be considered after risk-benefit considerations when delays could lead to morbidity or mortality. Even some traditional emergency procedures may need to be reevaluated in the COVID-19 context: For example, some low-risk ST-segment elevation MI (STEMI) patients don’t require ICU care but are manageable in cardiac intermediate care beds instead. Historical triage practices should be reexamined to predict which STEMI patients will require ICU care.
 

Resource allocation

The CICU work flow will be affected as some of its beds are opened up to COVID-19 patients. Standard philosophies of concentrating intense resources will have to give way to a utilitarian approach that evaluates operations based on efficiency, equity, and justice. Physician-patient contact should be minimized using technological links when possible, and rounds might be reorganized to first examine patients without COVID-19, in order to minimize between-patient spread.

Military medicine, which is used to ramping up operations during times of crisis, has potential lessons for the current pandemic. In the face of mass casualties, military physicians often turn to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization triage system, which separates patients into four categories: immediate, requiring lifesaving intervention; delayed, requiring intervention within hours to days; minimal, where the patient is injured but ambulatory; and expectant patients who are deceased or too injured to save. Impersonal though this system may be, it may be required in the most severe scenarios when resources are scarce or absent.

The authors reported no relevant financial disclosures.

SOURCE: Katz J et al. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2020 Apr 15. doi: 10.1016/j.annonc.2020.02.01.

Because of their place at the interface between critical care and cardiovascular medicine, critical care cardiologists are in a good position to come up with novel approaches to adapting critical care systems to the current crisis. Health care and clinical resources have been severely strained in some places, and increasing evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2 can cause injury to most organ systems. More than a quarter of hospitalized patients have cardiac injury, which can be a key reason for clinical deterioration.

An international group of critical care cardiologists led by Jason Katz, MD, of Duke University, Durham, N.C., offered suggestions for scalable models for critical care delivery in the context of COVID-19 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Critical care cardiology developed in response to changes in patient populations and their clinical needs. Respiratory insufficiency, heart failure, structural heart disease, and multisystem organ dysfunction became more common than patients with complicated acute MI, leading cardiologists in critical care cardiology to become more proficient in general critical care medicine, and to become leaders in forming collaborative multidisciplinary teams. The authors argued that COVID-19 is precipitating a similar need to adapt to the changing needs of patients.

“This pandemic should serve as a clarion call to our health care systems that we should continue to develop a nimble workforce that can adapt to change quickly during a crisis. We believe critical care cardiologists are well positioned to help serve society in this capacity,” the authors wrote.
 

Surge staging

They proposed four surge stages based in part on an American College of Chest Physicians–endorsed model (Chest 2014 Oct;146:e61S-74S), which regards a 25% capacity surge as minor. At the other end of the spectrum, a 200% surge is defined as a “disaster.” In minor surges (less than 25% increase), the traditional cardiac ICU (CICU) model can continue to be applied. During moderate (25%-100% increases) or major (100%-200%) surges, the critical care cardiologist should collaborate or consult within multiple health care teams. Physicians not trained in critical care can assist with care of intubated and critically ill patients under the supervision of a critical care cardiologist or under the supervision of a partnership between a non–cardiac critical care medicine provider and a cardiologist. The number of patients cared for by each team should increase in step with the size of the surge.

In disaster situations (more than 200% surge), there should be adaptive and dynamic staffing reorganization. The report included an illustration of a range of steps that can be taken, including alterations to staffing, regional care systems, resource management, and triage practices. Scoring systems such as Sequential Organ Failure Assessment may be useful for triaging, but the authors also suggest employment of validated cardiac disease–specific scores, because traditional ICU measures don’t always apply well to CICU populations.

At the hospital level, deferrals should be made for elective cardiac procedures that require CICU or postanesthesia care unit recovery periods. Semielective procedures should be considered after risk-benefit considerations when delays could lead to morbidity or mortality. Even some traditional emergency procedures may need to be reevaluated in the COVID-19 context: For example, some low-risk ST-segment elevation MI (STEMI) patients don’t require ICU care but are manageable in cardiac intermediate care beds instead. Historical triage practices should be reexamined to predict which STEMI patients will require ICU care.
 

Resource allocation

The CICU work flow will be affected as some of its beds are opened up to COVID-19 patients. Standard philosophies of concentrating intense resources will have to give way to a utilitarian approach that evaluates operations based on efficiency, equity, and justice. Physician-patient contact should be minimized using technological links when possible, and rounds might be reorganized to first examine patients without COVID-19, in order to minimize between-patient spread.

Military medicine, which is used to ramping up operations during times of crisis, has potential lessons for the current pandemic. In the face of mass casualties, military physicians often turn to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization triage system, which separates patients into four categories: immediate, requiring lifesaving intervention; delayed, requiring intervention within hours to days; minimal, where the patient is injured but ambulatory; and expectant patients who are deceased or too injured to save. Impersonal though this system may be, it may be required in the most severe scenarios when resources are scarce or absent.

The authors reported no relevant financial disclosures.

SOURCE: Katz J et al. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2020 Apr 15. doi: 10.1016/j.annonc.2020.02.01.

COVID-19 infection in patients with type 2 diabetes is associated with a greater increase in inflammatory and coagulation markers, compared with COVID-19 patients without diabetes, according to preliminary findings from a retrospective analysis of COVID-19 patients in Wuhan, China.

The results, though preliminary, could help explain why patients with diabetes and COVID-19 are at greater risk for more severe disease and death.

The results also suggest that more severe disease in patients with diabetes may be the result of a cytokine storm, in which the patient’s immune system overreacts to the virus and inflicts collateral damage on its own organs, according to Herbert I. Rettinger, MD, a clinical endocrinologist in Orange County, Calif., and member of the editorial advisory board for Clinical Endocrinology News. “Understanding the mechanism might help us understand the best way to treat,” COVID-19 in patients with diabetes, he said in an interview.

Dr. Rettinger, who was not involved in the research, noted that the study included only 24 patients with diabetes. Nevertheless, the finding of heightened inflammatory and coagulation markers was “fascinating.”

“This is the first paper I’ve seen [suggesting] that. I don’t know if we can extrapolate [the findings] to other populations, but if biomarkers are elevated in patients with COVID-19 and diabetes, then it’s something worth looking into, and to be aware of and cautious of. We need to pay attention to this,” he commented.

The study was led by Weina Guo and Desheng Hu at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, and published in Diabetes/Metabolism Research and Reviews.

The sample included 174 patients with COVID-19, who were treated consecutively during Feb. 10-29, 2020, at a single center. The researchers first assigned the patients to one of two groups – those with comorbid diabetes and those without. They further excluded all other comorbidities, focusing only on 26 patients with no comorbidities and 24 with only diabetes as a comorbidity, to remove all other comorbidities as possible confounding factors. Patients in the diabetes group were significantly older than those without diabetes (61 vs. 41 years, P < .01). The mortality rate was 16.5% in patients with diabetes and 0% in those without (P = .03).

COVID-19 patients with diabetes alone as a comorbidity had a greater risk for severe pneumonia, as evidenced by a higher mean CT score, compared with those without diabetes and no other comorbidities (P = .04). Patients with diabetes also had higher measures of release of tissue injury–related enzymes and were at higher risk of uncontrolled inflammation and hypercoagulable state. In particular, they had higher levels of interleukin-6 (13.7 vs. 4.1 pg/mL, respectively; P < .01), C-reactive protein (76.4 vs. 7.43 mg/L; P < .01), serum ferritin (764.8 vs. 128.9 ng/mL; P < .01), and D-dimer (1.16 vs. 0.25 mcg/mL; P < .01).

“It’s noteworthy that, for diseases that can induce a cytokine storm, IL-6 is a very good predictor of disease severity and prognosis, and its expression time is longer than other cytokines ([tumor necrosis factor] and IL-1). In addition, a significant rise in serum ferritin indicates the activation of the monocyte-macrophage system, which is a crucial part of inflammatory storm. These results indicate that patients with diabetes are susceptible to form an inflammatory storm, which eventually lead to rapid deterioration of COVID-19,” the authors wrote.

They also cited previous findings suggesting that coronavirus might exacerbate, or even cause, diabetes by seriously damaging islets (Acta Diabetol. 2010;47[3]:193-9). “Since viral infection may cause sharp fluctuation of the blood glucose levels of diabetes patients, which adversely affect the recovery of patients, there is reason to suspect that diabetes combined with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia may form a vicious circle,” they wrote.

That’s one more reason to carefully monitor diabetes patients, said Dr. Rettinger. “Those patients who are able to make insulin might not be able to do so with the infection, and that may last a while, and they may require insulin. You want to keep a watch on things, and if oral agents are not working well, you want to go to insulin as quickly as you can. Probably diabetics should be way more careful and maybe visit the emergency department at earlier than a nondiabetic would.”

Raghavendra Mirmira, MD, PhD, who conducts translational research on diabetes and insulin production, said that the finding was not a complete surprise to him. “With a lot of diseases, having diabetes as a comorbidity can mean worse outcomes, and that’s certainly true of influenza. It was true for the other COVID-like illnesses, such as SARS and MERS,” Dr. Mirmira, who was not involved in the research, said in an interview.

If the findings hold up in larger numbers of patients and across multiple centers, they have the potential to inform patient management, said Dr. Mirmira, director of the Translational Research Center in the department of medicine at the University of Chicago. That will be especially true as data from long-term follow-up of become available. Elevated values in some biomarkers might dictate a patient be sent straight to the ICU or dictate admission to the hospital rather than being sent home, or it could assist patient selection for some of the new therapies that physicians hope will become available.

“The more information we get [about] total outcome, the more informed we’d be about who would benefit from some of the therapies that are in clinical trials now,” he said. Still, it will be a challenge to prove causation, because patients with diabetes have unique clinical characteristics that could also be the source of the difference.

Dr. Mirmira noted that patients with diabetes only were 20 years older on average than those with no comorbidities. “It’s really hard to know if what you’re looking at for the worse outcomes for people with diabetes is because they were older, and we know that older people tend to do much worse with COVID than younger people.” Ideally, patients would also be matched by age, but there are not enough data to do that yet.

The study was funded by the China National Natural Science Foundation. The authors reported no conflicts of interest. Dr. Rettinger has no relevant financial disclosures. Dr. Mirmira is on scientific advisory boards for Veralox Therapeutics, Sigilon Therapeutics, the Indiana Biosciences Research Institute, and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
 

SOURCE: Guo W et al. Diabetes Metab Res Rev. 2020 Mar 31. doi: 10.1002/dmrr.3319.

COVID-19 infection in patients with type 2 diabetes is associated with a greater increase in inflammatory and coagulation markers, compared with COVID-19 patients without diabetes, according to preliminary findings from a retrospective analysis of COVID-19 patients in Wuhan, China.

The results, though preliminary, could help explain why patients with diabetes and COVID-19 are at greater risk for more severe disease and death.

The results also suggest that more severe disease in patients with diabetes may be the result of a cytokine storm, in which the patient’s immune system overreacts to the virus and inflicts collateral damage on its own organs, according to Herbert I. Rettinger, MD, a clinical endocrinologist in Orange County, Calif., and member of the editorial advisory board for Clinical Endocrinology News. “Understanding the mechanism might help us understand the best way to treat,” COVID-19 in patients with diabetes, he said in an interview.

Dr. Rettinger, who was not involved in the research, noted that the study included only 24 patients with diabetes. Nevertheless, the finding of heightened inflammatory and coagulation markers was “fascinating.”

“This is the first paper I’ve seen [suggesting] that. I don’t know if we can extrapolate [the findings] to other populations, but if biomarkers are elevated in patients with COVID-19 and diabetes, then it’s something worth looking into, and to be aware of and cautious of. We need to pay attention to this,” he commented.

The study was led by Weina Guo and Desheng Hu at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, and published in Diabetes/Metabolism Research and Reviews.

The sample included 174 patients with COVID-19, who were treated consecutively during Feb. 10-29, 2020, at a single center. The researchers first assigned the patients to one of two groups – those with comorbid diabetes and those without. They further excluded all other comorbidities, focusing only on 26 patients with no comorbidities and 24 with only diabetes as a comorbidity, to remove all other comorbidities as possible confounding factors. Patients in the diabetes group were significantly older than those without diabetes (61 vs. 41 years, P < .01). The mortality rate was 16.5% in patients with diabetes and 0% in those without (P = .03).

COVID-19 patients with diabetes alone as a comorbidity had a greater risk for severe pneumonia, as evidenced by a higher mean CT score, compared with those without diabetes and no other comorbidities (P = .04). Patients with diabetes also had higher measures of release of tissue injury–related enzymes and were at higher risk of uncontrolled inflammation and hypercoagulable state. In particular, they had higher levels of interleukin-6 (13.7 vs. 4.1 pg/mL, respectively; P < .01), C-reactive protein (76.4 vs. 7.43 mg/L; P < .01), serum ferritin (764.8 vs. 128.9 ng/mL; P < .01), and D-dimer (1.16 vs. 0.25 mcg/mL; P < .01).

“It’s noteworthy that, for diseases that can induce a cytokine storm, IL-6 is a very good predictor of disease severity and prognosis, and its expression time is longer than other cytokines ([tumor necrosis factor] and IL-1). In addition, a significant rise in serum ferritin indicates the activation of the monocyte-macrophage system, which is a crucial part of inflammatory storm. These results indicate that patients with diabetes are susceptible to form an inflammatory storm, which eventually lead to rapid deterioration of COVID-19,” the authors wrote.

They also cited previous findings suggesting that coronavirus might exacerbate, or even cause, diabetes by seriously damaging islets (Acta Diabetol. 2010;47[3]:193-9). “Since viral infection may cause sharp fluctuation of the blood glucose levels of diabetes patients, which adversely affect the recovery of patients, there is reason to suspect that diabetes combined with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia may form a vicious circle,” they wrote.

That’s one more reason to carefully monitor diabetes patients, said Dr. Rettinger. “Those patients who are able to make insulin might not be able to do so with the infection, and that may last a while, and they may require insulin. You want to keep a watch on things, and if oral agents are not working well, you want to go to insulin as quickly as you can. Probably diabetics should be way more careful and maybe visit the emergency department at earlier than a nondiabetic would.”

Raghavendra Mirmira, MD, PhD, who conducts translational research on diabetes and insulin production, said that the finding was not a complete surprise to him. “With a lot of diseases, having diabetes as a comorbidity can mean worse outcomes, and that’s certainly true of influenza. It was true for the other COVID-like illnesses, such as SARS and MERS,” Dr. Mirmira, who was not involved in the research, said in an interview.

If the findings hold up in larger numbers of patients and across multiple centers, they have the potential to inform patient management, said Dr. Mirmira, director of the Translational Research Center in the department of medicine at the University of Chicago. That will be especially true as data from long-term follow-up of become available. Elevated values in some biomarkers might dictate a patient be sent straight to the ICU or dictate admission to the hospital rather than being sent home, or it could assist patient selection for some of the new therapies that physicians hope will become available.

“The more information we get [about] total outcome, the more informed we’d be about who would benefit from some of the therapies that are in clinical trials now,” he said. Still, it will be a challenge to prove causation, because patients with diabetes have unique clinical characteristics that could also be the source of the difference.

Dr. Mirmira noted that patients with diabetes only were 20 years older on average than those with no comorbidities. “It’s really hard to know if what you’re looking at for the worse outcomes for people with diabetes is because they were older, and we know that older people tend to do much worse with COVID than younger people.” Ideally, patients would also be matched by age, but there are not enough data to do that yet.

The study was funded by the China National Natural Science Foundation. The authors reported no conflicts of interest. Dr. Rettinger has no relevant financial disclosures. Dr. Mirmira is on scientific advisory boards for Veralox Therapeutics, Sigilon Therapeutics, the Indiana Biosciences Research Institute, and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
 

SOURCE: Guo W et al. Diabetes Metab Res Rev. 2020 Mar 31. doi: 10.1002/dmrr.3319.

COVID-19 infection in patients with type 2 diabetes is associated with a greater increase in inflammatory and coagulation markers, compared with COVID-19 patients without diabetes, according to preliminary findings from a retrospective analysis of COVID-19 patients in Wuhan, China.

The results, though preliminary, could help explain why patients with diabetes and COVID-19 are at greater risk for more severe disease and death.

The results also suggest that more severe disease in patients with diabetes may be the result of a cytokine storm, in which the patient’s immune system overreacts to the virus and inflicts collateral damage on its own organs, according to Herbert I. Rettinger, MD, a clinical endocrinologist in Orange County, Calif., and member of the editorial advisory board for Clinical Endocrinology News. “Understanding the mechanism might help us understand the best way to treat,” COVID-19 in patients with diabetes, he said in an interview.

Dr. Rettinger, who was not involved in the research, noted that the study included only 24 patients with diabetes. Nevertheless, the finding of heightened inflammatory and coagulation markers was “fascinating.”

“This is the first paper I’ve seen [suggesting] that. I don’t know if we can extrapolate [the findings] to other populations, but if biomarkers are elevated in patients with COVID-19 and diabetes, then it’s something worth looking into, and to be aware of and cautious of. We need to pay attention to this,” he commented.

The study was led by Weina Guo and Desheng Hu at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, and published in Diabetes/Metabolism Research and Reviews.

The sample included 174 patients with COVID-19, who were treated consecutively during Feb. 10-29, 2020, at a single center. The researchers first assigned the patients to one of two groups – those with comorbid diabetes and those without. They further excluded all other comorbidities, focusing only on 26 patients with no comorbidities and 24 with only diabetes as a comorbidity, to remove all other comorbidities as possible confounding factors. Patients in the diabetes group were significantly older than those without diabetes (61 vs. 41 years, P < .01). The mortality rate was 16.5% in patients with diabetes and 0% in those without (P = .03).

COVID-19 patients with diabetes alone as a comorbidity had a greater risk for severe pneumonia, as evidenced by a higher mean CT score, compared with those without diabetes and no other comorbidities (P = .04). Patients with diabetes also had higher measures of release of tissue injury–related enzymes and were at higher risk of uncontrolled inflammation and hypercoagulable state. In particular, they had higher levels of interleukin-6 (13.7 vs. 4.1 pg/mL, respectively; P < .01), C-reactive protein (76.4 vs. 7.43 mg/L; P < .01), serum ferritin (764.8 vs. 128.9 ng/mL; P < .01), and D-dimer (1.16 vs. 0.25 mcg/mL; P < .01).

“It’s noteworthy that, for diseases that can induce a cytokine storm, IL-6 is a very good predictor of disease severity and prognosis, and its expression time is longer than other cytokines ([tumor necrosis factor] and IL-1). In addition, a significant rise in serum ferritin indicates the activation of the monocyte-macrophage system, which is a crucial part of inflammatory storm. These results indicate that patients with diabetes are susceptible to form an inflammatory storm, which eventually lead to rapid deterioration of COVID-19,” the authors wrote.

They also cited previous findings suggesting that coronavirus might exacerbate, or even cause, diabetes by seriously damaging islets (Acta Diabetol. 2010;47[3]:193-9). “Since viral infection may cause sharp fluctuation of the blood glucose levels of diabetes patients, which adversely affect the recovery of patients, there is reason to suspect that diabetes combined with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia may form a vicious circle,” they wrote.

That’s one more reason to carefully monitor diabetes patients, said Dr. Rettinger. “Those patients who are able to make insulin might not be able to do so with the infection, and that may last a while, and they may require insulin. You want to keep a watch on things, and if oral agents are not working well, you want to go to insulin as quickly as you can. Probably diabetics should be way more careful and maybe visit the emergency department at earlier than a nondiabetic would.”

Raghavendra Mirmira, MD, PhD, who conducts translational research on diabetes and insulin production, said that the finding was not a complete surprise to him. “With a lot of diseases, having diabetes as a comorbidity can mean worse outcomes, and that’s certainly true of influenza. It was true for the other COVID-like illnesses, such as SARS and MERS,” Dr. Mirmira, who was not involved in the research, said in an interview.

If the findings hold up in larger numbers of patients and across multiple centers, they have the potential to inform patient management, said Dr. Mirmira, director of the Translational Research Center in the department of medicine at the University of Chicago. That will be especially true as data from long-term follow-up of become available. Elevated values in some biomarkers might dictate a patient be sent straight to the ICU or dictate admission to the hospital rather than being sent home, or it could assist patient selection for some of the new therapies that physicians hope will become available.

“The more information we get [about] total outcome, the more informed we’d be about who would benefit from some of the therapies that are in clinical trials now,” he said. Still, it will be a challenge to prove causation, because patients with diabetes have unique clinical characteristics that could also be the source of the difference.

Dr. Mirmira noted that patients with diabetes only were 20 years older on average than those with no comorbidities. “It’s really hard to know if what you’re looking at for the worse outcomes for people with diabetes is because they were older, and we know that older people tend to do much worse with COVID than younger people.” Ideally, patients would also be matched by age, but there are not enough data to do that yet.

The study was funded by the China National Natural Science Foundation. The authors reported no conflicts of interest. Dr. Rettinger has no relevant financial disclosures. Dr. Mirmira is on scientific advisory boards for Veralox Therapeutics, Sigilon Therapeutics, the Indiana Biosciences Research Institute, and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
 

SOURCE: Guo W et al. Diabetes Metab Res Rev. 2020 Mar 31. doi: 10.1002/dmrr.3319.

Erectile dysfunction may be an early warning sign of broader health problems. That’s the suggestion from a new retrospective analysis of European men, which found that erectile dysfunction and other sexual symptoms were associated with a greater risk of death, independent of testosterone levels.

Similar studies have shown links between mortality and sexual dysfunction, or between mortality and testosterone level, but the current study is unique, Leen Antonio, MD, PhD, assistant professor of endocrinology at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium), said during a virtual news conference held by the Endocrine Society. The study had been slated for presentation during ENDO 2020, the society's annual meeting, which was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s the first time we have put both together in the same group of people, and we can say that it’s mostly the sexual symptoms that are predicting the mortality risk, independent of the testosterone levels of these men,” Dr. Antonio said in an interview.

“We can regard sexual symptoms as a marker for adverse health status in general. It’s like a warning signal that you’re at risk for more severe problems,” Dr. Antonio added.

Dr. Antonio advised clinicians to test blood pressure and cholesterol levels in men presenting with sexual dysfunction and to counsel lifestyle changes, such as physical activity and weight management. “These can be beneficial for sexual symptoms and for general health and the risk for cardiovascular disease in the future.”

Although the study could not identify a reason for the relationship between sexual dysfunction and mortality, Dr. Antonio hypothesized that the narrow penile artery may be more likely to suffer noticeable effects in the early stages of atherosclerosis, before clinical effects occur in the coronary artery.

Michael Blaha, MD, professor of medicine and director of clinical research at the Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, who has studied erectile dysfunction (ED) and its association with cardiovascular disease, said that the study is further evidence that ED is an important and independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease and other health risks. He would like to see a move toward establishing men’s health clinics, where risk factors can be identified and mitigated through lifestyle changes and therapies.

“There needs to be a complete rethink of the way we approach the whole group of patients who present with erectile dysfunction to various specialists,” he said in an interview, noting that middle-aged men often present to ED specialists after years of not having any contact with the health system. In that group, ED can be an early warning sign that could trigger broader interventions.

“This points to the need for more men’s health clinics that are focused on the early detection of risk factors, and treating erectile dysfunction and other risk factors in a more comprehensive way,” said Dr. Blaha, who was not associated with the study.

Dr. Antonio and colleagues studied 1,913 community-dwelling men, who participated in the European Male Ageing Study. Baseline information on sexual function and testosterone levels was collected between 2003 and 2005. The men were aged 40-79 years at study entry, and “because of the wide age range at study entry, age was used as time scale, instead of years since inclusion adjusting for age,” the researchers explained.

Over a mean follow-up of 12.4 years, 25.3% of participants died. Body mass index was higher in men who died (P = .002), but there was no significant difference in smoking status. Both groups had similar levels of total testosterone, but free testosterone was lower in the deceased population (270 pmol/L vs. 312 pmol/L; P < .001), whereas luteinizing hormone levels were higher (7.8 units/L vs. 5.7 units/L; P < .001).

The lowest quartile of free testosterone level was associated with higher mortality risk (hazard ratio, 1.43; P = .021), whereas the highest quartile of follicle-stimulating hormone was associated with greater mortality risk (HR, 1.38; P = .036). There was no association between mortality risk and total testosterone or estradiol.

Men reporting three sexual symptoms at baseline had a higher mortality risk than those reporting no symptoms (HR, 1.77; P < .001). There was an association between mortality risk and ED (HR, 1.40; P = .001) and poor morning erections (HR, 1.30; P = .012), but not low libido.

The associations were not affected after adjustment for total testosterone or free testosterone. Among men with normal total testosterone (>12 nmol/L), sexual symptoms were associated with heightened mortality risk (HR, 1.51; P = .003), and the same was true in men with total testosterone levels of less than 8 nmol, compared with men with normal total testosterone who reported no sexual symptoms (HR, 1.92; P = .035).

The European Male Ageing Study received support from the European Union. Dr. Antonio has no relevant financial disclosures. Dr. Blaha has received grants from Amgen and is on advisory boards for Amgen and other pharmaceutical firms.

Dr. Antonio and her team’s research will be published in a special supplemental issue of the Journal of the Endocrine Society. In addition to a series of news conferences on March 30-31, the society will host ENDO Online 2020 during June 8-22, which will present programming for clinicians and researchers.

SOURCE: Antonio L et al. ENDO 2020, Abstract OR02-06.

This article was upadted on 4/17/2020.

Erectile dysfunction may be an early warning sign of broader health problems. That’s the suggestion from a new retrospective analysis of European men, which found that erectile dysfunction and other sexual symptoms were associated with a greater risk of death, independent of testosterone levels.

Similar studies have shown links between mortality and sexual dysfunction, or between mortality and testosterone level, but the current study is unique, Leen Antonio, MD, PhD, assistant professor of endocrinology at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium), said during a virtual news conference held by the Endocrine Society. The study had been slated for presentation during ENDO 2020, the society's annual meeting, which was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s the first time we have put both together in the same group of people, and we can say that it’s mostly the sexual symptoms that are predicting the mortality risk, independent of the testosterone levels of these men,” Dr. Antonio said in an interview.

“We can regard sexual symptoms as a marker for adverse health status in general. It’s like a warning signal that you’re at risk for more severe problems,” Dr. Antonio added.

Dr. Antonio advised clinicians to test blood pressure and cholesterol levels in men presenting with sexual dysfunction and to counsel lifestyle changes, such as physical activity and weight management. “These can be beneficial for sexual symptoms and for general health and the risk for cardiovascular disease in the future.”

Although the study could not identify a reason for the relationship between sexual dysfunction and mortality, Dr. Antonio hypothesized that the narrow penile artery may be more likely to suffer noticeable effects in the early stages of atherosclerosis, before clinical effects occur in the coronary artery.

Michael Blaha, MD, professor of medicine and director of clinical research at the Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, who has studied erectile dysfunction (ED) and its association with cardiovascular disease, said that the study is further evidence that ED is an important and independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease and other health risks. He would like to see a move toward establishing men’s health clinics, where risk factors can be identified and mitigated through lifestyle changes and therapies.

“There needs to be a complete rethink of the way we approach the whole group of patients who present with erectile dysfunction to various specialists,” he said in an interview, noting that middle-aged men often present to ED specialists after years of not having any contact with the health system. In that group, ED can be an early warning sign that could trigger broader interventions.

“This points to the need for more men’s health clinics that are focused on the early detection of risk factors, and treating erectile dysfunction and other risk factors in a more comprehensive way,” said Dr. Blaha, who was not associated with the study.

Dr. Antonio and colleagues studied 1,913 community-dwelling men, who participated in the European Male Ageing Study. Baseline information on sexual function and testosterone levels was collected between 2003 and 2005. The men were aged 40-79 years at study entry, and “because of the wide age range at study entry, age was used as time scale, instead of years since inclusion adjusting for age,” the researchers explained.

Over a mean follow-up of 12.4 years, 25.3% of participants died. Body mass index was higher in men who died (P = .002), but there was no significant difference in smoking status. Both groups had similar levels of total testosterone, but free testosterone was lower in the deceased population (270 pmol/L vs. 312 pmol/L; P < .001), whereas luteinizing hormone levels were higher (7.8 units/L vs. 5.7 units/L; P < .001).

The lowest quartile of free testosterone level was associated with higher mortality risk (hazard ratio, 1.43; P = .021), whereas the highest quartile of follicle-stimulating hormone was associated with greater mortality risk (HR, 1.38; P = .036). There was no association between mortality risk and total testosterone or estradiol.

Men reporting three sexual symptoms at baseline had a higher mortality risk than those reporting no symptoms (HR, 1.77; P < .001). There was an association between mortality risk and ED (HR, 1.40; P = .001) and poor morning erections (HR, 1.30; P = .012), but not low libido.

The associations were not affected after adjustment for total testosterone or free testosterone. Among men with normal total testosterone (>12 nmol/L), sexual symptoms were associated with heightened mortality risk (HR, 1.51; P = .003), and the same was true in men with total testosterone levels of less than 8 nmol, compared with men with normal total testosterone who reported no sexual symptoms (HR, 1.92; P = .035).

The European Male Ageing Study received support from the European Union. Dr. Antonio has no relevant financial disclosures. Dr. Blaha has received grants from Amgen and is on advisory boards for Amgen and other pharmaceutical firms.

Dr. Antonio and her team’s research will be published in a special supplemental issue of the Journal of the Endocrine Society. In addition to a series of news conferences on March 30-31, the society will host ENDO Online 2020 during June 8-22, which will present programming for clinicians and researchers.

SOURCE: Antonio L et al. ENDO 2020, Abstract OR02-06.

This article was upadted on 4/17/2020.

Erectile dysfunction may be an early warning sign of broader health problems. That’s the suggestion from a new retrospective analysis of European men, which found that erectile dysfunction and other sexual symptoms were associated with a greater risk of death, independent of testosterone levels.

Similar studies have shown links between mortality and sexual dysfunction, or between mortality and testosterone level, but the current study is unique, Leen Antonio, MD, PhD, assistant professor of endocrinology at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium), said during a virtual news conference held by the Endocrine Society. The study had been slated for presentation during ENDO 2020, the society's annual meeting, which was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s the first time we have put both together in the same group of people, and we can say that it’s mostly the sexual symptoms that are predicting the mortality risk, independent of the testosterone levels of these men,” Dr. Antonio said in an interview.

“We can regard sexual symptoms as a marker for adverse health status in general. It’s like a warning signal that you’re at risk for more severe problems,” Dr. Antonio added.

Dr. Antonio advised clinicians to test blood pressure and cholesterol levels in men presenting with sexual dysfunction and to counsel lifestyle changes, such as physical activity and weight management. “These can be beneficial for sexual symptoms and for general health and the risk for cardiovascular disease in the future.”

Although the study could not identify a reason for the relationship between sexual dysfunction and mortality, Dr. Antonio hypothesized that the narrow penile artery may be more likely to suffer noticeable effects in the early stages of atherosclerosis, before clinical effects occur in the coronary artery.

Michael Blaha, MD, professor of medicine and director of clinical research at the Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, who has studied erectile dysfunction (ED) and its association with cardiovascular disease, said that the study is further evidence that ED is an important and independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease and other health risks. He would like to see a move toward establishing men’s health clinics, where risk factors can be identified and mitigated through lifestyle changes and therapies.

“There needs to be a complete rethink of the way we approach the whole group of patients who present with erectile dysfunction to various specialists,” he said in an interview, noting that middle-aged men often present to ED specialists after years of not having any contact with the health system. In that group, ED can be an early warning sign that could trigger broader interventions.

“This points to the need for more men’s health clinics that are focused on the early detection of risk factors, and treating erectile dysfunction and other risk factors in a more comprehensive way,” said Dr. Blaha, who was not associated with the study.

Dr. Antonio and colleagues studied 1,913 community-dwelling men, who participated in the European Male Ageing Study. Baseline information on sexual function and testosterone levels was collected between 2003 and 2005. The men were aged 40-79 years at study entry, and “because of the wide age range at study entry, age was used as time scale, instead of years since inclusion adjusting for age,” the researchers explained.

Over a mean follow-up of 12.4 years, 25.3% of participants died. Body mass index was higher in men who died (P = .002), but there was no significant difference in smoking status. Both groups had similar levels of total testosterone, but free testosterone was lower in the deceased population (270 pmol/L vs. 312 pmol/L; P < .001), whereas luteinizing hormone levels were higher (7.8 units/L vs. 5.7 units/L; P < .001).

The lowest quartile of free testosterone level was associated with higher mortality risk (hazard ratio, 1.43; P = .021), whereas the highest quartile of follicle-stimulating hormone was associated with greater mortality risk (HR, 1.38; P = .036). There was no association between mortality risk and total testosterone or estradiol.

Men reporting three sexual symptoms at baseline had a higher mortality risk than those reporting no symptoms (HR, 1.77; P < .001). There was an association between mortality risk and ED (HR, 1.40; P = .001) and poor morning erections (HR, 1.30; P = .012), but not low libido.

The associations were not affected after adjustment for total testosterone or free testosterone. Among men with normal total testosterone (>12 nmol/L), sexual symptoms were associated with heightened mortality risk (HR, 1.51; P = .003), and the same was true in men with total testosterone levels of less than 8 nmol, compared with men with normal total testosterone who reported no sexual symptoms (HR, 1.92; P = .035).

The European Male Ageing Study received support from the European Union. Dr. Antonio has no relevant financial disclosures. Dr. Blaha has received grants from Amgen and is on advisory boards for Amgen and other pharmaceutical firms.

Dr. Antonio and her team’s research will be published in a special supplemental issue of the Journal of the Endocrine Society. In addition to a series of news conferences on March 30-31, the society will host ENDO Online 2020 during June 8-22, which will present programming for clinicians and researchers.

SOURCE: Antonio L et al. ENDO 2020, Abstract OR02-06.

This article was upadted on 4/17/2020.

A natural language processing algorithm, designed to scour emergency department records for fracture cases, has the potential to improve treatment of osteoporosis and prevent future, more severe fractures.

The approach led to a notable increase in referrals to the osteoporosis refracture prevention service at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney, where the work was done.

The strongest predictor of a future fracture is a recent previous fracture, said Christopher White, MBBS, the hospital’s director of research, who presented results of an analysis at a virtual news conference held by the Endocrine Society. The study was slated for presentation during ENDO 2020, the society’s annual meeting, which was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have really effective therapies that can reduce the risk of [future] fractures by 50%, and yet 80% of osteoporotic patients leave the hospital untreated after fracture,” said Dr. White.

That, he explained, is because of a fundamental disconnect in fracture care – emergency department physicians tackle the immediate aftermath of a broken bone, but they are not tasked with treating the underlying condition. As a result, many patients who would be candidates for follow-up care are not referred.

The current work grew out of Dr. White’s frustration with not being able to recruit patients for osteoporosis clinical trials. In fact, he got so annoyed trying to recruit and not getting patients referred to him – even though he’d find they were actually in the hospital – that he decided “to start an AI [artificial intelligence] program that would read the radiology report and bypass the referrer,” he said.

To that end, with the help of an industry partner, he developed a software program called XRAIT (X-Ray Artificial Intelligence Tool), which analyzed the reports and, with Dr. White’s iterated guidance, learned to identify fractures.

The system performed a little too well. “You have to be careful what you wish for, because suddenly I went from 70 referrals to 339,” he said.

That influx is a potential downside, however, according to Angela Cheung, MD, PhD, director of the Centre of Excellence in Skeletal Health Assessment and Osteoporosis Program at the University of Toronto’s University Health Network. Natural language processing can help identify patients that a human reviewer would miss, because reviewers tend to focus on cases in which the fracture was the reason for the hospital visit, rather than on incidental findings. But not all incidental findings are clinically important. “A pneumonia patient might have had the fracture 30 years ago, falling off a tree as a college student. It may not pick up the highest-risk group in terms of fractures, because we know that recency of fractures matters,” Dr. Cheung, who was not associated with the research, said in an interview.

“It means the fracture liaison coordinator would need to review [more] numbers in trying to figure out whether the patient should get attention and whether they should be treated as well,” said Dr. Cheung, adding that more studies would need to be done to determine if the approach would be cost effective.

The researchers performed a technical evaluation of 2,445 nonfracture and 433 fracture reports, in which the tool performed with more than 99% sensitivity and specificity.

In a clinical validation, a fracture clinician and XRAIT reviewed 5,089 x-ray and computed tomography reports from ED patients who were older than 50 years. The ED referred 70 cases, leading to identification of 65 fractures. The combination of ED referral and a fracture clinician’s review of 224 cases revealed 98 fracture cases. By contrast, XRAIT nearly instantaneously analyzed 5,089 reports from 3,217 patients, and identified fractures in 349 patients – a nearly fivefold higher number than the manual case finding of 70. Of those 349 patients, results for 10 were false positives, leading to a total find of 339 patients.

In all, 57 cases were found both by XRAIT and the ED referral/fracture clinician, resulting in 282 unique cases identified by XRAIT alone. That translated to a 3.5-fold increase in cases that were identifiable using XRAIT.

In an external validation, the researchers tested the system on 327 reports from a subset of the Dubbo Osteoporosis Epidemiology Study, based in the city of Dubbo in New South Wales, Australia. In that cohort, XRAIT identified 97 positive cases, of which 87 were true fractures (10 false positives). Of 230 cases that it considered not to be fractures, there were 38 false negatives. Those numbers translated to a sensitivity of 69.6% and a specificity of 95.0%.

All of those hits have the potential to overwhelm osteoporosis services. “I now have to adjust to that, and further development will be to link the AI with clinical risk factors and treatment data to assist my fracture coordinators to target the right patients. We’ll increase the number of patients with osteoporosis on treatment, improve productivity and safety, and reduce the burden of care,” said Dr. White.

The study was funded by The Sydney Partnership for Health, Education, Research and Enterprise and the Musculoskeletal Consumer Advisory Group. The researchers reported no financial conflicts of interest, as did Dr. Cheung.

The research will be published in a special supplemental issue of the Journal of the Endocrine Society. In addition to a series of news conferences on March 30-31, the society will host ENDO Online 2020 during June 8-22, which will present programming for clinicians and researchers.
 

A natural language processing algorithm, designed to scour emergency department records for fracture cases, has the potential to improve treatment of osteoporosis and prevent future, more severe fractures.

The approach led to a notable increase in referrals to the osteoporosis refracture prevention service at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney, where the work was done.

The strongest predictor of a future fracture is a recent previous fracture, said Christopher White, MBBS, the hospital’s director of research, who presented results of an analysis at a virtual news conference held by the Endocrine Society. The study was slated for presentation during ENDO 2020, the society’s annual meeting, which was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have really effective therapies that can reduce the risk of [future] fractures by 50%, and yet 80% of osteoporotic patients leave the hospital untreated after fracture,” said Dr. White.

That, he explained, is because of a fundamental disconnect in fracture care – emergency department physicians tackle the immediate aftermath of a broken bone, but they are not tasked with treating the underlying condition. As a result, many patients who would be candidates for follow-up care are not referred.

The current work grew out of Dr. White’s frustration with not being able to recruit patients for osteoporosis clinical trials. In fact, he got so annoyed trying to recruit and not getting patients referred to him – even though he’d find they were actually in the hospital – that he decided “to start an AI [artificial intelligence] program that would read the radiology report and bypass the referrer,” he said.

To that end, with the help of an industry partner, he developed a software program called XRAIT (X-Ray Artificial Intelligence Tool), which analyzed the reports and, with Dr. White’s iterated guidance, learned to identify fractures.

The system performed a little too well. “You have to be careful what you wish for, because suddenly I went from 70 referrals to 339,” he said.

That influx is a potential downside, however, according to Angela Cheung, MD, PhD, director of the Centre of Excellence in Skeletal Health Assessment and Osteoporosis Program at the University of Toronto’s University Health Network. Natural language processing can help identify patients that a human reviewer would miss, because reviewers tend to focus on cases in which the fracture was the reason for the hospital visit, rather than on incidental findings. But not all incidental findings are clinically important. “A pneumonia patient might have had the fracture 30 years ago, falling off a tree as a college student. It may not pick up the highest-risk group in terms of fractures, because we know that recency of fractures matters,” Dr. Cheung, who was not associated with the research, said in an interview.

“It means the fracture liaison coordinator would need to review [more] numbers in trying to figure out whether the patient should get attention and whether they should be treated as well,” said Dr. Cheung, adding that more studies would need to be done to determine if the approach would be cost effective.

The researchers performed a technical evaluation of 2,445 nonfracture and 433 fracture reports, in which the tool performed with more than 99% sensitivity and specificity.

In a clinical validation, a fracture clinician and XRAIT reviewed 5,089 x-ray and computed tomography reports from ED patients who were older than 50 years. The ED referred 70 cases, leading to identification of 65 fractures. The combination of ED referral and a fracture clinician’s review of 224 cases revealed 98 fracture cases. By contrast, XRAIT nearly instantaneously analyzed 5,089 reports from 3,217 patients, and identified fractures in 349 patients – a nearly fivefold higher number than the manual case finding of 70. Of those 349 patients, results for 10 were false positives, leading to a total find of 339 patients.

In all, 57 cases were found both by XRAIT and the ED referral/fracture clinician, resulting in 282 unique cases identified by XRAIT alone. That translated to a 3.5-fold increase in cases that were identifiable using XRAIT.

In an external validation, the researchers tested the system on 327 reports from a subset of the Dubbo Osteoporosis Epidemiology Study, based in the city of Dubbo in New South Wales, Australia. In that cohort, XRAIT identified 97 positive cases, of which 87 were true fractures (10 false positives). Of 230 cases that it considered not to be fractures, there were 38 false negatives. Those numbers translated to a sensitivity of 69.6% and a specificity of 95.0%.

All of those hits have the potential to overwhelm osteoporosis services. “I now have to adjust to that, and further development will be to link the AI with clinical risk factors and treatment data to assist my fracture coordinators to target the right patients. We’ll increase the number of patients with osteoporosis on treatment, improve productivity and safety, and reduce the burden of care,” said Dr. White.

The study was funded by The Sydney Partnership for Health, Education, Research and Enterprise and the Musculoskeletal Consumer Advisory Group. The researchers reported no financial conflicts of interest, as did Dr. Cheung.

The research will be published in a special supplemental issue of the Journal of the Endocrine Society. In addition to a series of news conferences on March 30-31, the society will host ENDO Online 2020 during June 8-22, which will present programming for clinicians and researchers.
 

A natural language processing algorithm, designed to scour emergency department records for fracture cases, has the potential to improve treatment of osteoporosis and prevent future, more severe fractures.

The approach led to a notable increase in referrals to the osteoporosis refracture prevention service at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney, where the work was done.

The strongest predictor of a future fracture is a recent previous fracture, said Christopher White, MBBS, the hospital’s director of research, who presented results of an analysis at a virtual news conference held by the Endocrine Society. The study was slated for presentation during ENDO 2020, the society’s annual meeting, which was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have really effective therapies that can reduce the risk of [future] fractures by 50%, and yet 80% of osteoporotic patients leave the hospital untreated after fracture,” said Dr. White.

That, he explained, is because of a fundamental disconnect in fracture care – emergency department physicians tackle the immediate aftermath of a broken bone, but they are not tasked with treating the underlying condition. As a result, many patients who would be candidates for follow-up care are not referred.

The current work grew out of Dr. White’s frustration with not being able to recruit patients for osteoporosis clinical trials. In fact, he got so annoyed trying to recruit and not getting patients referred to him – even though he’d find they were actually in the hospital – that he decided “to start an AI [artificial intelligence] program that would read the radiology report and bypass the referrer,” he said.

To that end, with the help of an industry partner, he developed a software program called XRAIT (X-Ray Artificial Intelligence Tool), which analyzed the reports and, with Dr. White’s iterated guidance, learned to identify fractures.

The system performed a little too well. “You have to be careful what you wish for, because suddenly I went from 70 referrals to 339,” he said.

That influx is a potential downside, however, according to Angela Cheung, MD, PhD, director of the Centre of Excellence in Skeletal Health Assessment and Osteoporosis Program at the University of Toronto’s University Health Network. Natural language processing can help identify patients that a human reviewer would miss, because reviewers tend to focus on cases in which the fracture was the reason for the hospital visit, rather than on incidental findings. But not all incidental findings are clinically important. “A pneumonia patient might have had the fracture 30 years ago, falling off a tree as a college student. It may not pick up the highest-risk group in terms of fractures, because we know that recency of fractures matters,” Dr. Cheung, who was not associated with the research, said in an interview.

“It means the fracture liaison coordinator would need to review [more] numbers in trying to figure out whether the patient should get attention and whether they should be treated as well,” said Dr. Cheung, adding that more studies would need to be done to determine if the approach would be cost effective.

The researchers performed a technical evaluation of 2,445 nonfracture and 433 fracture reports, in which the tool performed with more than 99% sensitivity and specificity.

In a clinical validation, a fracture clinician and XRAIT reviewed 5,089 x-ray and computed tomography reports from ED patients who were older than 50 years. The ED referred 70 cases, leading to identification of 65 fractures. The combination of ED referral and a fracture clinician’s review of 224 cases revealed 98 fracture cases. By contrast, XRAIT nearly instantaneously analyzed 5,089 reports from 3,217 patients, and identified fractures in 349 patients – a nearly fivefold higher number than the manual case finding of 70. Of those 349 patients, results for 10 were false positives, leading to a total find of 339 patients.

In all, 57 cases were found both by XRAIT and the ED referral/fracture clinician, resulting in 282 unique cases identified by XRAIT alone. That translated to a 3.5-fold increase in cases that were identifiable using XRAIT.

In an external validation, the researchers tested the system on 327 reports from a subset of the Dubbo Osteoporosis Epidemiology Study, based in the city of Dubbo in New South Wales, Australia. In that cohort, XRAIT identified 97 positive cases, of which 87 were true fractures (10 false positives). Of 230 cases that it considered not to be fractures, there were 38 false negatives. Those numbers translated to a sensitivity of 69.6% and a specificity of 95.0%.

All of those hits have the potential to overwhelm osteoporosis services. “I now have to adjust to that, and further development will be to link the AI with clinical risk factors and treatment data to assist my fracture coordinators to target the right patients. We’ll increase the number of patients with osteoporosis on treatment, improve productivity and safety, and reduce the burden of care,” said Dr. White.

The study was funded by The Sydney Partnership for Health, Education, Research and Enterprise and the Musculoskeletal Consumer Advisory Group. The researchers reported no financial conflicts of interest, as did Dr. Cheung.

The research will be published in a special supplemental issue of the Journal of the Endocrine Society. In addition to a series of news conferences on March 30-31, the society will host ENDO Online 2020 during June 8-22, which will present programming for clinicians and researchers.
 

A retrospective study of patients at a minority-serving, safety-net hospital showed low uptake of diabetes technology among black patients with type 1 diabetes, compared with their white counterparts.

The researchers also found lower usage of the technology among Hispanic patients, but the difference, compared with their white counterparts, was not statistically significant after adjustments for language, insurance, age, and income. Patients who identified as “other” also were less likely than white patients to use the technology, which included continuous glucose monitors and continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion devices.

The data differes from other, similar studies of technology use in patients with type 1 diabetes, because the study population, drawn from the Boston University Medical Center, was more diverse than other studies, according to Kamonkiat Wirunsawanya, who is an endocrinology fellow at the medical center. The abstract had been slated for presentation at ENDO 2020, the Endocrine Society's annual meeting, which was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Wirunsawanya and his colleagues are now using questionnaires to try to identify specific patient and physician factors that might explain the differences in technology use.

“Once we know which factors could be a barrier to using the technology, we’ll be able to implement a strategy to increase use in those patients,” Dr. Wirunsawanya said in an interview. The issue could be a two-way street, he noted, because some providers may be uncomfortable using the technology, or may perceive minorities as less adept at using technology.

The study included 227 adult patients who were seen at the medical center between October 2016 and September 2017. The mean age was 39 years, and 59% were men. The mean duration of type 1 diabetes was 21 years, and 30% of the patients were overweight, 22% were obese, 80% spoke English, and 50% were on government insurance. In all, 43% of the patients were white, 25% were black, 15% were Hispanic, 2% were Asian, and 15% identified as other.

Patients who used technology had lower mean levels of hemoglobin A_1c, compared with nonusers (8.27% vs. 9.49%, respectively). Those with government health insurance were less likely than those with private insurance to use technology (odds ratio, 0.43; 95% confidential interval, 0.25-0.74).

Overall, 26% of the patients used continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion devices. Of those, 43% were white, 10% black, 14% Hispanic, none were Asian, and 18% identified as other.

In addition, 30% of the patients used continuous glucose monitors; of those, 47% were white, 14% black, 23% Hispanic, 25% Asian, and none identified as other.

After adjustments for insurance and language, the researchers found that black patients were less likely to use technology than were the white patients (OR, 0.25; 95% CI, 0.11-0.53). The same was found for those who identified as other (OR, 0.33; 95% CI, 0.12-0.89). There was no significant differences in technology use between white and Asian patients. After adjustments, the researchers showed that fewer Hispanic patients used technology, compared with their white counterparts, but the difference was not statistically significant.

In a multivariable logistic regression model that adjusted for insurance and language, black patients had lower odds of using technology, compared with white patients (OR, 0.25; 95% CI, 0.11-0.53), as did those identifying as other (OR, 0.33; 95% CI, 0.12-0.89).

In an interview, Anne Peters, MD, director of clinical diabetes programs at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, said that the study highlights a common problem with introducing technology to underserved populations. “These study [findings are] not at all surprising. It’s something that is a puzzle for those of us who work in the field of diabetes management in patients from underserved communities. Even if you can get access to the technology, even when I get them tools and native Spanish-speaking educators and people who should be able to teach them how to use the technology, the adoption of the technology has been really much less than would be expected,” said Dr. Peters, who is also a professor of medicine at USC and was not involved in the research.

Part of the problem may be lack of contact with health care services, she said. White children with type 1 diabetes are treated from an early age and learn how to manage daily blood sugar levels. They often grow up to embrace technology, even enthusiastically. But in some minority communities, diabetes is viewed as something to be hidden away. That cultural difference is also a frustrating barrier.

“What happens in more affluent groups is that people learn from their peers, and they see that [managing their blood sugar] is possible. One of my big beliefs is that the answer has to come from [the community]. ... We need to get champions, people from the community who use these tools, to encourage others, and that’s hard to do because type 1 diabetes is such a small subset of the people with diabetes who are [black] or Latino,” said Dr. Peters.

Ultimately, the solution will require a shift in messaging by finding a way to help communities look differently at diabetes and its treatment. “There’s something that must come educationally and culturally that I’ve not figured out [yet]. I can get resources and fight for them, but we have to figure out how to make [technology] part of that culture, and I don’t know that we’ve done that,” she said.

Dr. Wirunsawanya reported no financial conflicts of interest. Dr. Peters has been on an advisory panel for Abbott Diabetes Care and has received research funding from Dexcom.

Dr. Wirunsawanya and colleagues’ research will be published in a special supplemental issue of the Journal of the Endocrine Society. In addition to a series of news conferences on March 30-31, the society will host ENDO Online 2020 during June 8-22, which will present programming for clinicians and researchers.

SOURCE: Wirunsawanya K et al. ENDO 2020, Abstract OR30-03.

This article was updated on 4/17/2020.

A retrospective study of patients at a minority-serving, safety-net hospital showed low uptake of diabetes technology among black patients with type 1 diabetes, compared with their white counterparts.

The researchers also found lower usage of the technology among Hispanic patients, but the difference, compared with their white counterparts, was not statistically significant after adjustments for language, insurance, age, and income. Patients who identified as “other” also were less likely than white patients to use the technology, which included continuous glucose monitors and continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion devices.

The data differes from other, similar studies of technology use in patients with type 1 diabetes, because the study population, drawn from the Boston University Medical Center, was more diverse than other studies, according to Kamonkiat Wirunsawanya, who is an endocrinology fellow at the medical center. The abstract had been slated for presentation at ENDO 2020, the Endocrine Society's annual meeting, which was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Wirunsawanya and his colleagues are now using questionnaires to try to identify specific patient and physician factors that might explain the differences in technology use.

“Once we know which factors could be a barrier to using the technology, we’ll be able to implement a strategy to increase use in those patients,” Dr. Wirunsawanya said in an interview. The issue could be a two-way street, he noted, because some providers may be uncomfortable using the technology, or may perceive minorities as less adept at using technology.

The study included 227 adult patients who were seen at the medical center between October 2016 and September 2017. The mean age was 39 years, and 59% were men. The mean duration of type 1 diabetes was 21 years, and 30% of the patients were overweight, 22% were obese, 80% spoke English, and 50% were on government insurance. In all, 43% of the patients were white, 25% were black, 15% were Hispanic, 2% were Asian, and 15% identified as other.

Patients who used technology had lower mean levels of hemoglobin A_1c, compared with nonusers (8.27% vs. 9.49%, respectively). Those with government health insurance were less likely than those with private insurance to use technology (odds ratio, 0.43; 95% confidential interval, 0.25-0.74).

Overall, 26% of the patients used continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion devices. Of those, 43% were white, 10% black, 14% Hispanic, none were Asian, and 18% identified as other.

In addition, 30% of the patients used continuous glucose monitors; of those, 47% were white, 14% black, 23% Hispanic, 25% Asian, and none identified as other.

After adjustments for insurance and language, the researchers found that black patients were less likely to use technology than were the white patients (OR, 0.25; 95% CI, 0.11-0.53). The same was found for those who identified as other (OR, 0.33; 95% CI, 0.12-0.89). There was no significant differences in technology use between white and Asian patients. After adjustments, the researchers showed that fewer Hispanic patients used technology, compared with their white counterparts, but the difference was not statistically significant.

In a multivariable logistic regression model that adjusted for insurance and language, black patients had lower odds of using technology, compared with white patients (OR, 0.25; 95% CI, 0.11-0.53), as did those identifying as other (OR, 0.33; 95% CI, 0.12-0.89).

In an interview, Anne Peters, MD, director of clinical diabetes programs at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, said that the study highlights a common problem with introducing technology to underserved populations. “These study [findings are] not at all surprising. It’s something that is a puzzle for those of us who work in the field of diabetes management in patients from underserved communities. Even if you can get access to the technology, even when I get them tools and native Spanish-speaking educators and people who should be able to teach them how to use the technology, the adoption of the technology has been really much less than would be expected,” said Dr. Peters, who is also a professor of medicine at USC and was not involved in the research.

Part of the problem may be lack of contact with health care services, she said. White children with type 1 diabetes are treated from an early age and learn how to manage daily blood sugar levels. They often grow up to embrace technology, even enthusiastically. But in some minority communities, diabetes is viewed as something to be hidden away. That cultural difference is also a frustrating barrier.

“What happens in more affluent groups is that people learn from their peers, and they see that [managing their blood sugar] is possible. One of my big beliefs is that the answer has to come from [the community]. ... We need to get champions, people from the community who use these tools, to encourage others, and that’s hard to do because type 1 diabetes is such a small subset of the people with diabetes who are [black] or Latino,” said Dr. Peters.

Ultimately, the solution will require a shift in messaging by finding a way to help communities look differently at diabetes and its treatment. “There’s something that must come educationally and culturally that I’ve not figured out [yet]. I can get resources and fight for them, but we have to figure out how to make [technology] part of that culture, and I don’t know that we’ve done that,” she said.

Dr. Wirunsawanya reported no financial conflicts of interest. Dr. Peters has been on an advisory panel for Abbott Diabetes Care and has received research funding from Dexcom.

Dr. Wirunsawanya and colleagues’ research will be published in a special supplemental issue of the Journal of the Endocrine Society. In addition to a series of news conferences on March 30-31, the society will host ENDO Online 2020 during June 8-22, which will present programming for clinicians and researchers.

SOURCE: Wirunsawanya K et al. ENDO 2020, Abstract OR30-03.

This article was updated on 4/17/2020.

A retrospective study of patients at a minority-serving, safety-net hospital showed low uptake of diabetes technology among black patients with type 1 diabetes, compared with their white counterparts.

The researchers also found lower usage of the technology among Hispanic patients, but the difference, compared with their white counterparts, was not statistically significant after adjustments for language, insurance, age, and income. Patients who identified as “other” also were less likely than white patients to use the technology, which included continuous glucose monitors and continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion devices.

The data differes from other, similar studies of technology use in patients with type 1 diabetes, because the study population, drawn from the Boston University Medical Center, was more diverse than other studies, according to Kamonkiat Wirunsawanya, who is an endocrinology fellow at the medical center. The abstract had been slated for presentation at ENDO 2020, the Endocrine Society's annual meeting, which was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Wirunsawanya and his colleagues are now using questionnaires to try to identify specific patient and physician factors that might explain the differences in technology use.

“Once we know which factors could be a barrier to using the technology, we’ll be able to implement a strategy to increase use in those patients,” Dr. Wirunsawanya said in an interview. The issue could be a two-way street, he noted, because some providers may be uncomfortable using the technology, or may perceive minorities as less adept at using technology.

The study included 227 adult patients who were seen at the medical center between October 2016 and September 2017. The mean age was 39 years, and 59% were men. The mean duration of type 1 diabetes was 21 years, and 30% of the patients were overweight, 22% were obese, 80% spoke English, and 50% were on government insurance. In all, 43% of the patients were white, 25% were black, 15% were Hispanic, 2% were Asian, and 15% identified as other.

Patients who used technology had lower mean levels of hemoglobin A_1c, compared with nonusers (8.27% vs. 9.49%, respectively). Those with government health insurance were less likely than those with private insurance to use technology (odds ratio, 0.43; 95% confidential interval, 0.25-0.74).

Overall, 26% of the patients used continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion devices. Of those, 43% were white, 10% black, 14% Hispanic, none were Asian, and 18% identified as other.

In addition, 30% of the patients used continuous glucose monitors; of those, 47% were white, 14% black, 23% Hispanic, 25% Asian, and none identified as other.

After adjustments for insurance and language, the researchers found that black patients were less likely to use technology than were the white patients (OR, 0.25; 95% CI, 0.11-0.53). The same was found for those who identified as other (OR, 0.33; 95% CI, 0.12-0.89). There was no significant differences in technology use between white and Asian patients. After adjustments, the researchers showed that fewer Hispanic patients used technology, compared with their white counterparts, but the difference was not statistically significant.

In a multivariable logistic regression model that adjusted for insurance and language, black patients had lower odds of using technology, compared with white patients (OR, 0.25; 95% CI, 0.11-0.53), as did those identifying as other (OR, 0.33; 95% CI, 0.12-0.89).

In an interview, Anne Peters, MD, director of clinical diabetes programs at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, said that the study highlights a common problem with introducing technology to underserved populations. “These study [findings are] not at all surprising. It’s something that is a puzzle for those of us who work in the field of diabetes management in patients from underserved communities. Even if you can get access to the technology, even when I get them tools and native Spanish-speaking educators and people who should be able to teach them how to use the technology, the adoption of the technology has been really much less than would be expected,” said Dr. Peters, who is also a professor of medicine at USC and was not involved in the research.

Part of the problem may be lack of contact with health care services, she said. White children with type 1 diabetes are treated from an early age and learn how to manage daily blood sugar levels. They often grow up to embrace technology, even enthusiastically. But in some minority communities, diabetes is viewed as something to be hidden away. That cultural difference is also a frustrating barrier.

“What happens in more affluent groups is that people learn from their peers, and they see that [managing their blood sugar] is possible. One of my big beliefs is that the answer has to come from [the community]. ... We need to get champions, people from the community who use these tools, to encourage others, and that’s hard to do because type 1 diabetes is such a small subset of the people with diabetes who are [black] or Latino,” said Dr. Peters.

Ultimately, the solution will require a shift in messaging by finding a way to help communities look differently at diabetes and its treatment. “There’s something that must come educationally and culturally that I’ve not figured out [yet]. I can get resources and fight for them, but we have to figure out how to make [technology] part of that culture, and I don’t know that we’ve done that,” she said.

Dr. Wirunsawanya reported no financial conflicts of interest. Dr. Peters has been on an advisory panel for Abbott Diabetes Care and has received research funding from Dexcom.

Dr. Wirunsawanya and colleagues’ research will be published in a special supplemental issue of the Journal of the Endocrine Society. In addition to a series of news conferences on March 30-31, the society will host ENDO Online 2020 during June 8-22, which will present programming for clinicians and researchers.

SOURCE: Wirunsawanya K et al. ENDO 2020, Abstract OR30-03.

This article was updated on 4/17/2020.

In utero exposure to bisphenol-A (BPA) analogs led to hypertension in female rats, findings in a new study have shown.

Researchers tested exposures to BPA, as well as bisphenol-S (BPS) and bisphenol-F (BPF), which have been introduced in recent years as BPA alternatives and are now increasingly detectable in human and animal tissues. BPS and BPF are often found in products labeled as “BPA free.”

BPS and BPF have similar physiochemical properties to BPA, and there is concern over their effects.

But their physiological impact is not yet clear, according to Puliyur MohanKumar, DVM, PhD, of the University of Georgia Regenerative Bioscience Center, Athens. “We are exposed to BPA and related compounds on a regular basis, and the important thing is that BPA and related compounds easily cross the placental barrier,” Dr. MohanKumar said during a virtual news conference held by the Endocrine Society. The study had been slated for presentation during ENDO 2020, the society's annual meeting, which was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. MohanKumar and colleagues exposed pregnant rats to BPA, BPS, or BPF. When the offspring reached adulthood, the researchers implanted them with radiotelemetry devices to track systolic and diastolic blood pressure, which they measured every 10 minutes over a 24-hour period. This was repeated once a week for 11 weeks.

“The female offspring had elevated systolic as well as diastolic blood pressure, and this was an increase of about 8 mm [Hg] higher than the control animals. That was pretty significant. Keeping these animals at such a prehypertensive state for such a long period of time is going to [lead to] lots of cardiovascular issues later on,” said Dr. MohanKumar.

Robert Sargis, MD, PhD, professor of endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism at the University of Illinois at Chicago, noted that, although animal studies don’t necessarily translate to similar outcomes in humans, the results are cause for concern.

“What’s particularly interesting, is that there is whole area of essential hypertension, where people develop hypertension and we don’t really know why. We just treat it,” he said in an interview. “But thinking about biological origins [of hypertension] is potentially interesting for a couple of reasons. These bisphenol compounds are really common. Most Americans are exposed to bisphenol A, and it’s been associated with other adverse metabolic effects, including alterations to body weight and glucose homeostasis.

“[These findings] feed into a whole series of studies that have begun to look at the BPA replacements and the fact that they may be, at best, as bad as BPA, and at worst, possibly slightly worse, depending on which outcomes you’re looking at,” Dr. Sargis added.

In the study, seven pregnant rats were orally exposed to saline, four pregnant rats to 5 mcg/kg BPA, four to 5 mcg/kg BPS, and five to 1 mcg/kg BPF during days 6-21 of pregnancy. The lower dose of BPF was used because a dose of 5 mcg/kg proved too toxic. When the offspring reached adulthood, the researchers implanted radiotelemetry devices in the offspring’s femoral artery.

Mean daytime systolic BP was highest in the BPA group (133.3 mg Hg; P < .05), followed by BPS (132.5 mm Hg; P < .05) and BPF (129.2 mm Hg; nonsignificant), compared with 125.2 mm Hg in controls. Nighttime systolic BP was again highest in the BPA group (134.2 mm Hg; P < .01), followed by BPS (133.2 mm Hg; P < .05) and BPF (129.6 mm Hg; nonsignificant), compared with 125.1 mm Hg in controls.

During the day, diastolic BP was highest in the BPS group (91.3 mm Hg; P < .01), followed by BPA (88.8 mm Hg; nonsignificant) and BPF (88.6 mm Hg; nonsignificant), compared with 84.1 mm Hg in controls. At night, diastolic BP was highest in the BPS group (89.7 mm Hg; P < .01), followed by BPA (89.6 mm Hg; P < .01) and BPF (88.6 mm Hg; P < .01), compared with 83.3 mm Hg in controls.

During the day, mean arterial pressure was highest in the BPA group (110.5 mm Hg; P < .01), followed by BPS (108.9 mm Hg; P < .01) and BPF (105.2 mm Hg; nonsignificant), compared with 102.6 mm Hg in controls. At night, mean arterial pressure was highest in BPS (108.6 mm Hg; P < .05), followed by BPA (107.5 mm Hg; nonsignificant) and BPF (105.7 mm Hg; nonsignificant), compared with 101.8 mm Hg in controls.

“These results indicate that prenatal exposure to low levels of BPA analogs has a profound effect on hypertension” in the offspring of pregnant rats exposed to bisphenols, Dr. MohanKumar and colleagues wrote in the abstract.

He noted during his presentation that he and his colleagues plan to repeat the study in male offspring to determine if there are sex differences.

Dr. MohanKumar and colleagues reported having no relevant financial disclosures. Dr. Sargis also reported no conflicts of interest.

The research will be published in a special supplemental issue of the Journal of the Endocrine Society. In addition to a series of news conferences on March 30-31, the society will host ENDO Online 2020 during June 8-22, which will present programming for clinicians and researchers.

SOURCE: MohanKumar P et al. ENDO 2020, Abstract 719.

This article was updated on 4/17/2020.

In utero exposure to bisphenol-A (BPA) analogs led to hypertension in female rats, findings in a new study have shown.

Researchers tested exposures to BPA, as well as bisphenol-S (BPS) and bisphenol-F (BPF), which have been introduced in recent years as BPA alternatives and are now increasingly detectable in human and animal tissues. BPS and BPF are often found in products labeled as “BPA free.”

BPS and BPF have similar physiochemical properties to BPA, and there is concern over their effects.

But their physiological impact is not yet clear, according to Puliyur MohanKumar, DVM, PhD, of the University of Georgia Regenerative Bioscience Center, Athens. “We are exposed to BPA and related compounds on a regular basis, and the important thing is that BPA and related compounds easily cross the placental barrier,” Dr. MohanKumar said during a virtual news conference held by the Endocrine Society. The study had been slated for presentation during ENDO 2020, the society's annual meeting, which was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. MohanKumar and colleagues exposed pregnant rats to BPA, BPS, or BPF. When the offspring reached adulthood, the researchers implanted them with radiotelemetry devices to track systolic and diastolic blood pressure, which they measured every 10 minutes over a 24-hour period. This was repeated once a week for 11 weeks.

“The female offspring had elevated systolic as well as diastolic blood pressure, and this was an increase of about 8 mm [Hg] higher than the control animals. That was pretty significant. Keeping these animals at such a prehypertensive state for such a long period of time is going to [lead to] lots of cardiovascular issues later on,” said Dr. MohanKumar.

Robert Sargis, MD, PhD, professor of endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism at the University of Illinois at Chicago, noted that, although animal studies don’t necessarily translate to similar outcomes in humans, the results are cause for concern.

“What’s particularly interesting, is that there is whole area of essential hypertension, where people develop hypertension and we don’t really know why. We just treat it,” he said in an interview. “But thinking about biological origins [of hypertension] is potentially interesting for a couple of reasons. These bisphenol compounds are really common. Most Americans are exposed to bisphenol A, and it’s been associated with other adverse metabolic effects, including alterations to body weight and glucose homeostasis.

“[These findings] feed into a whole series of studies that have begun to look at the BPA replacements and the fact that they may be, at best, as bad as BPA, and at worst, possibly slightly worse, depending on which outcomes you’re looking at,” Dr. Sargis added.

In the study, seven pregnant rats were orally exposed to saline, four pregnant rats to 5 mcg/kg BPA, four to 5 mcg/kg BPS, and five to 1 mcg/kg BPF during days 6-21 of pregnancy. The lower dose of BPF was used because a dose of 5 mcg/kg proved too toxic. When the offspring reached adulthood, the researchers implanted radiotelemetry devices in the offspring’s femoral artery.

Mean daytime systolic BP was highest in the BPA group (133.3 mg Hg; P < .05), followed by BPS (132.5 mm Hg; P < .05) and BPF (129.2 mm Hg; nonsignificant), compared with 125.2 mm Hg in controls. Nighttime systolic BP was again highest in the BPA group (134.2 mm Hg; P < .01), followed by BPS (133.2 mm Hg; P < .05) and BPF (129.6 mm Hg; nonsignificant), compared with 125.1 mm Hg in controls.

During the day, diastolic BP was highest in the BPS group (91.3 mm Hg; P < .01), followed by BPA (88.8 mm Hg; nonsignificant) and BPF (88.6 mm Hg; nonsignificant), compared with 84.1 mm Hg in controls. At night, diastolic BP was highest in the BPS group (89.7 mm Hg; P < .01), followed by BPA (89.6 mm Hg; P < .01) and BPF (88.6 mm Hg; P < .01), compared with 83.3 mm Hg in controls.

During the day, mean arterial pressure was highest in the BPA group (110.5 mm Hg; P < .01), followed by BPS (108.9 mm Hg; P < .01) and BPF (105.2 mm Hg; nonsignificant), compared with 102.6 mm Hg in controls. At night, mean arterial pressure was highest in BPS (108.6 mm Hg; P < .05), followed by BPA (107.5 mm Hg; nonsignificant) and BPF (105.7 mm Hg; nonsignificant), compared with 101.8 mm Hg in controls.

“These results indicate that prenatal exposure to low levels of BPA analogs has a profound effect on hypertension” in the offspring of pregnant rats exposed to bisphenols, Dr. MohanKumar and colleagues wrote in the abstract.

He noted during his presentation that he and his colleagues plan to repeat the study in male offspring to determine if there are sex differences.

Dr. MohanKumar and colleagues reported having no relevant financial disclosures. Dr. Sargis also reported no conflicts of interest.

The research will be published in a special supplemental issue of the Journal of the Endocrine Society. In addition to a series of news conferences on March 30-31, the society will host ENDO Online 2020 during June 8-22, which will present programming for clinicians and researchers.

SOURCE: MohanKumar P et al. ENDO 2020, Abstract 719.

This article was updated on 4/17/2020.

In utero exposure to bisphenol-A (BPA) analogs led to hypertension in female rats, findings in a new study have shown.

Researchers tested exposures to BPA, as well as bisphenol-S (BPS) and bisphenol-F (BPF), which have been introduced in recent years as BPA alternatives and are now increasingly detectable in human and animal tissues. BPS and BPF are often found in products labeled as “BPA free.”

BPS and BPF have similar physiochemical properties to BPA, and there is concern over their effects.

But their physiological impact is not yet clear, according to Puliyur MohanKumar, DVM, PhD, of the University of Georgia Regenerative Bioscience Center, Athens. “We are exposed to BPA and related compounds on a regular basis, and the important thing is that BPA and related compounds easily cross the placental barrier,” Dr. MohanKumar said during a virtual news conference held by the Endocrine Society. The study had been slated for presentation during ENDO 2020, the society's annual meeting, which was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. MohanKumar and colleagues exposed pregnant rats to BPA, BPS, or BPF. When the offspring reached adulthood, the researchers implanted them with radiotelemetry devices to track systolic and diastolic blood pressure, which they measured every 10 minutes over a 24-hour period. This was repeated once a week for 11 weeks.

“The female offspring had elevated systolic as well as diastolic blood pressure, and this was an increase of about 8 mm [Hg] higher than the control animals. That was pretty significant. Keeping these animals at such a prehypertensive state for such a long period of time is going to [lead to] lots of cardiovascular issues later on,” said Dr. MohanKumar.

Robert Sargis, MD, PhD, professor of endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism at the University of Illinois at Chicago, noted that, although animal studies don’t necessarily translate to similar outcomes in humans, the results are cause for concern.

“What’s particularly interesting, is that there is whole area of essential hypertension, where people develop hypertension and we don’t really know why. We just treat it,” he said in an interview. “But thinking about biological origins [of hypertension] is potentially interesting for a couple of reasons. These bisphenol compounds are really common. Most Americans are exposed to bisphenol A, and it’s been associated with other adverse metabolic effects, including alterations to body weight and glucose homeostasis.

“[These findings] feed into a whole series of studies that have begun to look at the BPA replacements and the fact that they may be, at best, as bad as BPA, and at worst, possibly slightly worse, depending on which outcomes you’re looking at,” Dr. Sargis added.

In the study, seven pregnant rats were orally exposed to saline, four pregnant rats to 5 mcg/kg BPA, four to 5 mcg/kg BPS, and five to 1 mcg/kg BPF during days 6-21 of pregnancy. The lower dose of BPF was used because a dose of 5 mcg/kg proved too toxic. When the offspring reached adulthood, the researchers implanted radiotelemetry devices in the offspring’s femoral artery.

Mean daytime systolic BP was highest in the BPA group (133.3 mg Hg; P < .05), followed by BPS (132.5 mm Hg; P < .05) and BPF (129.2 mm Hg; nonsignificant), compared with 125.2 mm Hg in controls. Nighttime systolic BP was again highest in the BPA group (134.2 mm Hg; P < .01), followed by BPS (133.2 mm Hg; P < .05) and BPF (129.6 mm Hg; nonsignificant), compared with 125.1 mm Hg in controls.

During the day, diastolic BP was highest in the BPS group (91.3 mm Hg; P < .01), followed by BPA (88.8 mm Hg; nonsignificant) and BPF (88.6 mm Hg; nonsignificant), compared with 84.1 mm Hg in controls. At night, diastolic BP was highest in the BPS group (89.7 mm Hg; P < .01), followed by BPA (89.6 mm Hg; P < .01) and BPF (88.6 mm Hg; P < .01), compared with 83.3 mm Hg in controls.

During the day, mean arterial pressure was highest in the BPA group (110.5 mm Hg; P < .01), followed by BPS (108.9 mm Hg; P < .01) and BPF (105.2 mm Hg; nonsignificant), compared with 102.6 mm Hg in controls. At night, mean arterial pressure was highest in BPS (108.6 mm Hg; P < .05), followed by BPA (107.5 mm Hg; nonsignificant) and BPF (105.7 mm Hg; nonsignificant), compared with 101.8 mm Hg in controls.

“These results indicate that prenatal exposure to low levels of BPA analogs has a profound effect on hypertension” in the offspring of pregnant rats exposed to bisphenols, Dr. MohanKumar and colleagues wrote in the abstract.

He noted during his presentation that he and his colleagues plan to repeat the study in male offspring to determine if there are sex differences.

Dr. MohanKumar and colleagues reported having no relevant financial disclosures. Dr. Sargis also reported no conflicts of interest.

The research will be published in a special supplemental issue of the Journal of the Endocrine Society. In addition to a series of news conferences on March 30-31, the society will host ENDO Online 2020 during June 8-22, which will present programming for clinicians and researchers.

SOURCE: MohanKumar P et al. ENDO 2020, Abstract 719.

This article was updated on 4/17/2020.