JAMA network open
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The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted medical care, impacting prescribing of opioid analgesics and buprenorphine for opioid use disorder. Understanding these patterns can help address barriers to care. ⋯ In this cross-sectional study, existing patients receiving opioid analgesics and buprenorphine for opioid use disorder generally maintained access to these medications during the COVID-19 pandemic. Opioid prescriptions for opioid-naive patients decreased briefly and then rebounded, while initiation of buprenorphine remained at a low rate through August 2020. Reductions in treatment entry may be associated with increased overdose deaths.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an unprecedented shift in ambulatory cardiovascular care from in-person to remote visits. ⋯ Patients who were Asian, Black, or Hispanic, had private insurance, and had at least one of several cardiovascular comorbidities used remote cardiovascular care more frequently in the COVID-era period. Clinician ordering of diagnostic testing and medications consistently decreased when comparing pre-COVID vs COVID-era and in-person vs remote visits. Further studies are needed to clarify whether these decreases represent a reduction in the overuse of tests and medications vs an underuse of indicated testing and prescribing.
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A significant proportion of COVID-19 transmission occurs silently during the presymptomatic and asymptomatic stages of infection. Children, although important drivers of silent transmission, are not included in the current COVID-19 vaccination campaigns. ⋯ In this simulation modeling study of a synthetic US population, in the absence of vaccine availability for children, a targeted approach to rapidly identify silent COVID-19 infections in this age group was estimated to significantly mitigate disease burden. These findings suggest that without measures to interrupt transmission chains from silent infections, vaccination of adults is unlikely to contain the outbreaks in the near term.
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Informed consent is a fundamental element of research ethics. The COVID-19 vaccine trials are high profile trials that have enrolled more than 100 000 participants. Consent documents must be succinct and understandable to ensure informed voluntary participation. ⋯ These findings suggest that existing COVID-19 vaccine informed consent documents were too long, difficult to read, and exceeded grade 9 in language complexity. It was possible to create a shorter, more readable informed consent document for these trials.
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Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the oral cavity is one of the most common tumor entities worldwide. Precise initial staging is necessary to determine a diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis. ⋯ In this study, FDG PET/CT imaging had a high negative predictive value in detecting cervical lymph node metastasis in patients with newly diagnosed, treatment-naive SCC of the oral cavity. Routine clinical use of FDG PET/CT might lead to a substantial reduction of treatment-related morbidity in most patients.