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Background: Worse renal function, even in the normal or mildly impaired range, is associated with incident cardiovascular disease (CVD). Whether this association exists in both sexes across all ages is not known., Methods: A population based cohort of individuals >22 years with no prior CVD and with an eGFR 60-130 ml/min/1.73 m 2 . eGFR was calculated using the CKD-EPI formula. Incident CVD was defined as either myocardial infarction, unstable angina pectoris, coronary revascularization, or cerebrovascular event. Incident CVD was examined separately in men and women in 3 age-groups (young, 22-40 years; middle-aged, 41-60 years; and elderly, ≥61 years), during a median follow-up of 96.0 months., Results: Among 1,341,400 individuals (57% women, mean age 49.2 ± 16.6 years), men had more incident CVD as compared to women (34,968 vs. 23,515 total incident CVD) in all age-groups (0.6% vs. 0.2% in young; 6.2% vs. 2.0% in middle-aged; 13.4% vs. 8.4% in elderly, respectively). After adjustment for CVD risk factors, an increment of 10 units in eGFR was independently associated with a decrease of 5.4%, 3.4% and 5.4% in incident CVD in young, middle-aged and elderly men (p < 0.001 for each) and a decrease of 6.3%, 3.4% and 6.8% in the same age-groups in women (p < 0.001 for each). There was no significant age-sex interaction in the association between eGFR and incident CVD., Conclusion: Although incident CVD differs in men and women, as well as in different age-groups, a higher eGFR even in the normal or mildly impaired range is associated with lesser incident CVD in men and women of all ages., (Copyright © 2018 European Federation of Internal Medicine. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between adherence to antidepressants (AD) and all-cause mortality in a population-based cohort of patients with Parkinson's Disease (PD)., Methods: From a database of more than 4 million people, 8553 patients with PD who purchased an AD at least once between the years 2008-2011 were retrospectively followed for all-cause mortality over 4-years. Adherence was measured as a ratio between dispensed and prescribed durations and was modeled as: non-adherence (<20%, n = 1566), poor (20%-50%, n = 1184), moderate (50%-80%, n = 1584), and good (>80%, n = 4219) adherence. Multivariable survival analyses adjusted for demographic and clinical variables including physical comorbidities known to influence mortality were conducted, however there was no adjustment for other psychiatric disorders and medications., Results: Unadjusted mortality rates were 20.4%, 25.1%, 23.4% and 25.6% in those classified as non-adherent, poor, moderate and good adherence respectively (χ2 = 18.45, p < 0.0001). The non-adherent and poor adherence groups had significantly increased adjusted mortality hazard ratios (HR) of 1.43 (CI: 1.26-1.62) and 1.26 (CI: 1.1-1.44) respectively compared to the good adherence group. Using the same model, the adjusted HR for death among males was 1.49 [95% CI: 1.36-1.62] compared to females. People with PD and Charslon's Comorbidity Index score of 3-4 (HR 1.3, P < 0.001) and 5+ (HR 1.78, P < 0.001) were more likely to die than those with 0-2 comorbidities., Conclusions: Our findings suggest that poor adherence to AD is associated with increased all-cause mortality in people with PD. Given the high prevalence of depression and AD effectiveness, efforts to promote adherence should be prioritized in clinical practice., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: It was previously demonstrated that MMRV vaccine causes a higher rate of febrile convulsions (FC) compared to the MMR vaccine. Additional risk factors for FC include age, familial tendency, day care attendance, viral diseases, complications at birth and developmental delay., Objective: We evaluated the relative and attributable risk of FC for vaccinees' age, ethnicity, low birth weight, preterm birth and MMRV vaccination in 10-24 months old children., Methods: Data on medical history and vaccination were extracted from data warehouses of Clalit Health Services and Israel's Ministry of Health and linked on an individual record level for 90,294 MMR- and 8344 MMRV-vaccinees. A retrospective study design was used to reveal the risk factors associated with FC in study participants., Results: During the second week after immunization, an elevated relative risk of FC was demonstrated in MMRV-recipients (adjusted RR=2.16 (95%CI: 1.01; 4.64)). However, the cumulative incidence of FC during the entire 40-day observation period did not differ between the MMR and MMRV vaccinees. The MMRV-specific attributable risk of FC was not statistically significant at any point of observation period and was exceedingly low compared to other risk factors, equaling 5.3 FC cases per 10,000 vaccinees (95%CI: -1.4; 12.2)., Discussion: Our findings demonstrate that MMRV-associated FC in 10-24 months old contributes very marginally to the overall rate of FC in this population., Conclusion: Given the low number of MMRV-specific FC cases, their transient nature and the benefit of vaccination, the overall benefit-risk of the vaccine can be considered favourable. Nonetheless, the option of separate immunization with MMR+V should be offered to parents, in order to maintain sufficient vaccine uptake in the population., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: Current pneumococcal vaccine campaigns take a broad, primarily age-based approach to immunization targeting, overlooking many clinical and administrative considerations necessary in disease prevention and resource planning for specific patient populations. We aim to demonstrate the utility of a population-specific predictive model for hospital-treated pneumonia to direct effective vaccine targeting., Methods: Data was extracted for 1,053,435 members of an Israeli HMO, age 50 and older, during the study period 2008-2010. We developed and validated a logistic regression model to predict hospital-treated pneumonia using training and test samples, including a set of standard and population-specific risk factors. The model's predictive value was tested for prospectively identifying cases of pneumonia and invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD), and was compared to the existing international paradigm for patient immunization targeting., Results: In a multivariate regression, age, co-morbidity burden and previous pneumonia events were most strongly positively associated with hospital-treated pneumonia. The model predicting hospital-treated pneumonia yielded a c-statistic of 0.80. Utilizing the predictive model, the top 17% highest-risk within the study validation population were targeted to detect 54% of those members who were subsequently treated for hospitalized pneumonia in the follow up period. The high-risk population identified through this model included 46% of the follow-up year's IPD cases, and 27% of community-treated pneumonia cases. These outcomes were compared with international guidelines for risk for pneumococcal diseases that accurately identified only 35% of hospitalized pneumonia, 41% of IPD cases and 21% of community-treated pneumonia., Conclusions: We demonstrate that a customized model for vaccine targeting performs better than international guidelines, and therefore, risk modeling may allow for more precise vaccine targeting and resource allocation than current national and international guidelines. Health care managers and policy-makers may consider the strategic potential of utilizing clinical and administrative databases for creating population-specific risk prediction models to inform vaccination campaigns., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)