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Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a particularly aggressive subtype of breast cancer (BC) for which limited therapeutic options are available. Recently, ß-blockers (BBs) have been suggested to have favorable effects in the treatment of BC. The aim of this systematic review was to collect evidence from preclinical and clinical studies concerning the scientific evidence for the repurposing of BBs in TNBC treatment. PubMed database was searched to retrieve studies of interest published up to 30/01/2018. All preclinical studies using TNBC in vitro and in vivo models and assessing the effect of any molecule with sympatholytic or sympathomimetic activity on adrenergic receptors were included. Clinical studies concerning BBs were considered eligible. The Newcastle-Ottawa scale was used for the quality assessment of clinical studies. A total of 614 study references were retrieved. Forty-six preclinical studies were included. In in vitro studies, propranolol, a non-selective BB, significantly decreased proliferation, migration and invasion of TNBC cells. Consistently, in in vivo studies, propranolol inhibited metastasis, angiogenesis and tumor growth. Clinical studies, reporting evidence from a total of four distinct retrospective observational cohort studies, showed a beneficial effect of BBs in TNBC treatment. The overall quality of the clinical evidence collected was low. Preclinical evidence collected in this systematic review are in line with the results reported in the clinical studies retrieved, pointing towards a beneficial effect of BB in the treatment of TNBC. However, given the overall low quality of available evidence, no definite conclusion may be drawn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: A Regional Registry for Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias is being tested in Tuscany (Italy) to provide a basis for epidemiological studies. Current results are presented and critically evaluated. METHODS: The Registry extracts data on cases of dementia from Hospital Discharge Records, Outpatient Service Records, Regional Mortality Registry and Disease-Specific Co-payment Exemption Records, based on ICD-9 codes of dementias, and from Prescription Records based on registered anti-dementia drug codes. A list of cases of dementia prevalent at the end of 2005 was produced by cross-checking captured cases with the Regional Mortality Registry. RESULTS: The Registry captured 47,889 cases, of which 27,796 were still alive at the end of 2005. Captured cases represent slightly less than half of all the cases of dementia estimated to be present in Tuscany among older residents (65+) according to recent prevalence studies. Conversely, of 87 subjects 65 years of age or older selected from the Registry and directly evaluated, 80 (92%) were truly cognitively impaired subjects. CONCLUSIONS: The Registry has low sensitivity, probably because not all demented individuals are diagnosed as such in current practice and/or use health services. Conversely, the Registry has high specificity, and the produced lists of prevalent dementia cases are the key to estimating health and quality-of-care indicators for the demented population, and may constitute a basis for epidemiological studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a study of sociopolitical variation in the legal retention of capital punishment in 185 nations. It examines the effects of religiosity, economic development, citizens' voice and extrajudicial violence on the likelihood of a nation's retention of legal executions for ordinary crimes. It offers a look at the global trends in capital punishment laws. It analyzes the theoretical relevance of sociopolitical factors in explaining variation in the legality of capital punishment.

Using police narratives on dispute-related assaults, this study examines the extent to which the notion of character contests underlies these assaults and the individual and situational factors associated with them. Previous research emphasizes youth, masculinity, and public location as major contributing factors in escalating character contests to violence. Accordingly, we expected particular combination of variables to correlate with character contests. The analysis of 185 incidents of dispute-related assaults revealed that character contests are significantly more likely among men than women and occur more frequently in public than private settings. Contrary to previous theoretical speculation and empirical research, however, character contests are observed among female offenders, among older persons, and in violent acts that occur in private settings and outside the presence of third parties. These findings are then discussed in terms of their implications for future research on the utility of character contests as an explanation for violent acts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Lockdown measures implementation (LMI) to prevent COVID19 disease diffusion was associated to increased depression and anxiety cases. The main aim was to evaluate whether LMI affected prevalence and incidence of antidepressants (ADs) use, and ADs treatment interruption (TI) in the general population. Methods: Adults (18 years) with at least 1 dispensing of ADs between 01/01/2019-26/09/2020 were selected from a regional Italian healthcare administrative database. Patients presenting an AD dispensing in the year preceding the first observation were considered as prevalent otherwise as incident users. We divided the studied period into 3 parts: pre-lockdown (01/ 01/2019-08/03/2020), lockdown (09/03/2020-14/06/2020) and post-lockdown (15/06/2020-27/09/2020). The weekly prevalence (WP) and incidence (WI) per 10,000 inhabitants were compared among periods. Incidence of TI (no dispensing refill within 30 days of the end of its validity) was computed among prevalent AD users. Results: The WP (mean of 552.3 per 10,000 pre-lockdown vs 505.5 lockdown phase; relative change: -9%) and WI (5.2 vs 3.7; - 29%) of ADs use decreased after LMI. During the postlockdown phase WP (505.5 vs 495.9; -2%) decreased whereas the WI (3.7 vs 4.3; 16%) slightly increased in relation to the lockdown period, although differences were not statistically significant. Conversely, the incidence of TI increased during lockdown (344.7 vs 384.3; 12%) and post-lockdown (384.3 vs 394.2; 3%) periods, even not always statistically significant. Conclusions: Our analysis showed a reduction of ADs use during the early phase of lockdown. Several factors might have impacted on the observed phenomenon (i.e, patient reluctance to start new AD treatment). Considering the mutation of the virus and the potential waves that might occur in the next months, a continuous monitoring of the impact of COVID19 on mental diseases onset and treatment adherence are suggested. Key messages: In Italy, the implementation of lockdown measures was followed by a reduction in antidepressants use, even though evidences are that diagnoses of psychiatric disorders increased. Future studies should monitor if these phenomena led to an increase in adverse events potentially correlated with inappropriate treatment of depression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We generated background incidence rates for 41 AESIs across a network of 10 European healthcare databases, which included a population of 63 million individuals. • We highlighted the importance of the nature of the event and the setting in which it is diagnosed, which should be captured by the data banks that are used to calculate rates, otherwise underestimation is likely. • The background incidence rates are used to monitor the safety of COVID-19 vaccines by the EMA, national health authorities and vaccine manufacturers. In May 2020, the ACCESS (The vACCine covid-19 monitoring readinESS) project was launched to prepare real-world monitoring of COVID-19 vaccines. Within this project, this study aimed to generate background incidence rates of 41 adverse events of special interest (AESI) to contextualize potential safety signals detected following administration of COVID-19 vaccines. A dynamic cohort study was conducted using a distributed data network of 10 healthcare databases from 7 European countries (Italy, Spain, Denmark, The Netherlands, Germany, France and United Kingdom) over the period 2017 to 2020. A common protocol (EUPAS37273), common data model, and common analytics programs were applied for syntactic, semantic and analytical harmonization. Incidence rates (IR) for each AESI and each database were calculated by age and sex by dividing the number of incident cases by the total person-time at risk. Age-standardized rates were pooled using random effect models according to the provenance of the events. A total number of 63,456,074 individuals were included in the study, contributing to 211.7 million person-years. A clear age pattern was observed for most AESIs, rates also varied by provenance of disease diagnosis (primary care, specialist care). Thrombosis with thrombocytopenia rates were extremely low ranging from 0.06 to 4.53/100,000 person-years for cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) with thrombocytopenia (TP) and mixed venous and arterial thrombosis with TP, respectively. Given the nature of the AESIs and the setting (general practitioners or hospital-based databases or both), background rates from databases that show the highest level of completeness (primary care and specialist care) should be preferred, others can be used for sensitivity. The study was designed to ensure representativeness to the European population and generalizability of the background incidence rates. The project has received support from the European Medicines Agency under the Framework service contract nr EMA/2018/28/PE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ESA-related annual mean cost/patient represented 17% (€1,551; 95% Confidence Interval €1,471-€1,631) of total cost/year in stage I-III, decreasing to 13% (€1,493; €1,413-€1,573) in stage IV-V and 6% (€2,045; €1,946-€2,144) in dialysis patients. Among ESA-originator users, assuming 25% biosimilar uptake, the annual cost-saving on ESA treatment would represent 10.5% of total ESA costs in CKD stage I-V and 7.7% in dialyzed patients. [Extracted from the article]

To understand economic implications following the recommendation set in 2015 by Tuscan Health Authority to use infliximab-biosimilar (IFX-BI) using data from regional administrative databases. For each group, resources utilization related to IFX, other biologic disease modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs), hospital admissions, emergency department (ED) and specialist visits were retrospectively collected over 2 years. [Extracted from the article]