Clinical Neurology News

Lisa Iezzoni, MD, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a disability researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital, both in Boston, has used a wheelchair for more than 30 years because of multiple sclerosis. When she visits her primary care doctor, she doesn’t get weighed because the scales are not wheelchair accessible.

This failure to weigh her and other patients in wheelchairs could lead to serious medical problems. Weight is used to monitor a person’s overall health and prenatal health and to determine accurate doses for medications such as some chemotherapies, said Dr. Iezzoni.

In another situation, a man who used a wheelchair said that his primary care doctor never got him out of it for a complete physical exam. The patient later developed lymphoma, which first appeared in his groin. The doctor should have accommodated his disability and used a height-adjustable exam table or a portable lift to transfer him onto the table.

When physicians don’t provide access to medical care that patients with disabilities need, they put themselves at greater risk of lawsuits, fines, and settlements.

Yet, a new study in Health Affairs suggests that a large percentage of doctors are not fully aware of what they are legally required to do.

Under federal nondiscrimination laws (Americans With Disabilities Act, American Rehabilitation Act, and ADA Amendments Act), medical practices must provide equal access to people with disabilities, accommodate their disability-related needs, and not refuse them medical services because of their disabilities, say disability experts.
 

Where doctors go wrong with disability laws

What doctors don’t know about providing reasonable accommodations makes them vulnerable to lawsuits, which worries more than two-thirds of the 714 outpatient doctors surveyed.

Not only are they required to provide reasonable accommodations, but they also have to pay for them, the researchers said. One-fifth of the surveyed doctors said they didn’t know that practice owners have to pay.

More than one practice has made patients pay for services needed for their disability, such as sign language interpreters – the patients later complained this violated the ADA to enforcement agencies.

Doctors also don’t know that they have to collaborate with patients to determine what reasonable accommodations they need – over two-thirds of those surveyed said they didn’t know it was a joint responsibility, the study found.

When doctors fail to accommodate patients’ disability needs, they engage in discrimination and violate the ADA, says Elizabeth Pendo, JD, a coauthor of the study and the Joseph J. Simeone Professor of Law at Saint Louis University.

The Department of Justice has investigated several patient complaints of alleged disability discrimination recently and resolved the disputes with agreements and small fines in some cases. “The goal is not to get large financial settlements but to work with practices to get the correct procedures in place to be compliant,” said Ms. Pendo.

Physicians would be wise to check out whether their practices are as accessible as they think. Even if there’s a ramp to the office building, the parking lot may not have a van-accessible space or enough handicapped parking signs, or the exam room may be too narrow for a wheelchair to navigate.

These practices violated the ADA and agreed to make changes:

• Hamden, Conn., has two buildings that patients with physical disabilities couldn’t easily enter. The physician owners agreed to change the buildings’ entrances and access routes and add features to make it easier to use examination rooms and restrooms and the check-in and check-out areas.
• Seven medical offices in Riverside, Calif., failed to communicate effectively with deaf and hard-of-hearing patients. They should have had a qualified sign language interpreter, an assistive listening device, or another appropriate aid or service available to a deaf patient and her family. Instead, the office relied on a video remote interpretation system that often failed to work. The agreement requires the clinic to provide those aids and services to patients and their companions who are deaf or hard of hearing, advertise their availability, assess each patient who is deaf or hard of hearing to determine the best aids and services for their needs, and pay $5,000 in compensation to the complainant and a $1,000 civil penalty to the United States.
• Springfield, Mass., refused to provide full joint replacements to two patients being treated with buprenorphine, a medication used to treat opioid use disorder. Rather than accommodate the patients, the surgeons referred them elsewhere because they were uncomfortable with the postoperative pain management protocol for patients prescribed buprenorphine. “The Americans With Disabilities Act protects health care access for people under medical treatment for opioid use disorder,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Nathaniel R. Mendell. “Health care providers must comply with the ADA, even when doing so is inconvenient or makes them uncomfortable.” The agreement requires the practice to adopt a nondiscrimination policy, provide training on the ADA and opioid use disorder, and pay two complainants $15,000 each for pain and suffering.

The DOJ has filed civil lawsuits against medical practices when they failed to resolve the allegations. Recent cases include an ophthalmology practice with 24 facilities in Arizona that refused to help transfer patients in wheelchairs to surgery tables for eye surgery and required them to pay for transfer support services and two obstetricians-gynecologists in Bakersfield, Calif., who refused to provide routine medical care to a patient because of her HIV status.
 

What doctors should know

Many people tend to think of a person with a disability as being in a wheelchair. But the ADA has a very broad definition of disability, which includes any physical or mental impairment that substantially limits any major life activity, said Ms. Pendo.

“It was amended in 2008 to clarify that the definition includes people with chronic diseases such as diabetes and cancer, cognitive and neurological disorders, substance abuse disorders, vision and hearing loss, and learning and other disabilities,” she said.

That means that doctors have to accommodate many types of disabilities, which can be challenging. The ADA only specifies that fixed structures need to be accessible, such as parking lots, driveways, and buildings, said Dr. Iezzoni.

When it comes to “reasonable accommodations,” doctors should decide that on a case-by-case basis, she said.

“We can say based on our study that 71% of doctors don’t know the right way to think about the accommodations – they don’t know they need to talk to patients so they can explain to them exactly what they need to accommodate their disability,” said Dr. Iezzoni.

Doctors are also required to provide effective communication for patients with sensory or cognitive disabilities, which can depend on the severity, said Ms. Pendo. Is the person deaf or hard of hearing, blind or partially sighted – is the dementia mild or severe?

“The requirement is there, but what that looks like will vary by patient. That’s what’s challenging,” said Ms. Pendo.

Dr. Iezzoni recommends that doctor’s offices ask patients whether they need special help or individual assistance when they make appointments and enter their responses in their records. She also suggests that patients be asked at follow-up appointments whether they still need the same help or not.

“Disabilities can change over time – a person with bad arthritis may need help getting onto an exam table, but later get a knee or hip replacement that is effective and no longer need that help,” said Dr. Iezzoni.

Benefits outweigh costs

Physicians have made progress in meeting the ADA’s physical accessibility requirements, said Dr. Iezzoni. “The literature suggests that doctors have done a good job at fixing the structural barriers people with mobility issues face, such as ramps and bathrooms.”

However, there are exceptions in rural older buildings which can be harder to retrofit for wheelchair accessibility, she said. “I recall interviewing a rural doctor several years ago who said that he knew his patients well and when a patient visits with mobility problems, he goes down and carries the patient up the steps to his office. My response was that is not respectful of the patient or safe for the patient or you. That doctor has since changed the location of his practice,” said Dr. Iezzoni.

Some doctors may resist paying for accessible medical equipment because of cost, but she said the benefits are worth it. These include preventing staff injuries when they transfer patients and being used by patients with temporary disabilities and aging people with bad knees, backs, hearing and sight. In addition, businesses may be eligible for federal and state tax credits.

Dr. Iezzoni recently visited her doctor where they finally got height-adjustable exam tables. “I asked the assistant, who really likes these tables? She said it’s the elderly ladies of short stature – the table is lowered and they sit down and get on it.”

But, Dr. Iezonni’s main message to doctors is that patients with disabilities deserve equal quality of care. “Just because we have a disability doesn’t mean we should get worse care than other people. It’s a matter of professionalism that doctors should want to give the same quality care to all their patients.”

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Lisa Iezzoni, MD, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a disability researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital, both in Boston, has used a wheelchair for more than 30 years because of multiple sclerosis. When she visits her primary care doctor, she doesn’t get weighed because the scales are not wheelchair accessible.

This failure to weigh her and other patients in wheelchairs could lead to serious medical problems. Weight is used to monitor a person’s overall health and prenatal health and to determine accurate doses for medications such as some chemotherapies, said Dr. Iezzoni.

In another situation, a man who used a wheelchair said that his primary care doctor never got him out of it for a complete physical exam. The patient later developed lymphoma, which first appeared in his groin. The doctor should have accommodated his disability and used a height-adjustable exam table or a portable lift to transfer him onto the table.

When physicians don’t provide access to medical care that patients with disabilities need, they put themselves at greater risk of lawsuits, fines, and settlements.

Yet, a new study in Health Affairs suggests that a large percentage of doctors are not fully aware of what they are legally required to do.

Under federal nondiscrimination laws (Americans With Disabilities Act, American Rehabilitation Act, and ADA Amendments Act), medical practices must provide equal access to people with disabilities, accommodate their disability-related needs, and not refuse them medical services because of their disabilities, say disability experts.
 

Where doctors go wrong with disability laws

What doctors don’t know about providing reasonable accommodations makes them vulnerable to lawsuits, which worries more than two-thirds of the 714 outpatient doctors surveyed.

Not only are they required to provide reasonable accommodations, but they also have to pay for them, the researchers said. One-fifth of the surveyed doctors said they didn’t know that practice owners have to pay.

More than one practice has made patients pay for services needed for their disability, such as sign language interpreters – the patients later complained this violated the ADA to enforcement agencies.

Doctors also don’t know that they have to collaborate with patients to determine what reasonable accommodations they need – over two-thirds of those surveyed said they didn’t know it was a joint responsibility, the study found.

When doctors fail to accommodate patients’ disability needs, they engage in discrimination and violate the ADA, says Elizabeth Pendo, JD, a coauthor of the study and the Joseph J. Simeone Professor of Law at Saint Louis University.

The Department of Justice has investigated several patient complaints of alleged disability discrimination recently and resolved the disputes with agreements and small fines in some cases. “The goal is not to get large financial settlements but to work with practices to get the correct procedures in place to be compliant,” said Ms. Pendo.

Physicians would be wise to check out whether their practices are as accessible as they think. Even if there’s a ramp to the office building, the parking lot may not have a van-accessible space or enough handicapped parking signs, or the exam room may be too narrow for a wheelchair to navigate.

These practices violated the ADA and agreed to make changes:

• Hamden, Conn., has two buildings that patients with physical disabilities couldn’t easily enter. The physician owners agreed to change the buildings’ entrances and access routes and add features to make it easier to use examination rooms and restrooms and the check-in and check-out areas.
• Seven medical offices in Riverside, Calif., failed to communicate effectively with deaf and hard-of-hearing patients. They should have had a qualified sign language interpreter, an assistive listening device, or another appropriate aid or service available to a deaf patient and her family. Instead, the office relied on a video remote interpretation system that often failed to work. The agreement requires the clinic to provide those aids and services to patients and their companions who are deaf or hard of hearing, advertise their availability, assess each patient who is deaf or hard of hearing to determine the best aids and services for their needs, and pay $5,000 in compensation to the complainant and a $1,000 civil penalty to the United States.
• Springfield, Mass., refused to provide full joint replacements to two patients being treated with buprenorphine, a medication used to treat opioid use disorder. Rather than accommodate the patients, the surgeons referred them elsewhere because they were uncomfortable with the postoperative pain management protocol for patients prescribed buprenorphine. “The Americans With Disabilities Act protects health care access for people under medical treatment for opioid use disorder,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Nathaniel R. Mendell. “Health care providers must comply with the ADA, even when doing so is inconvenient or makes them uncomfortable.” The agreement requires the practice to adopt a nondiscrimination policy, provide training on the ADA and opioid use disorder, and pay two complainants $15,000 each for pain and suffering.

The DOJ has filed civil lawsuits against medical practices when they failed to resolve the allegations. Recent cases include an ophthalmology practice with 24 facilities in Arizona that refused to help transfer patients in wheelchairs to surgery tables for eye surgery and required them to pay for transfer support services and two obstetricians-gynecologists in Bakersfield, Calif., who refused to provide routine medical care to a patient because of her HIV status.
 

What doctors should know

Many people tend to think of a person with a disability as being in a wheelchair. But the ADA has a very broad definition of disability, which includes any physical or mental impairment that substantially limits any major life activity, said Ms. Pendo.

“It was amended in 2008 to clarify that the definition includes people with chronic diseases such as diabetes and cancer, cognitive and neurological disorders, substance abuse disorders, vision and hearing loss, and learning and other disabilities,” she said.

That means that doctors have to accommodate many types of disabilities, which can be challenging. The ADA only specifies that fixed structures need to be accessible, such as parking lots, driveways, and buildings, said Dr. Iezzoni.

When it comes to “reasonable accommodations,” doctors should decide that on a case-by-case basis, she said.

“We can say based on our study that 71% of doctors don’t know the right way to think about the accommodations – they don’t know they need to talk to patients so they can explain to them exactly what they need to accommodate their disability,” said Dr. Iezzoni.

Doctors are also required to provide effective communication for patients with sensory or cognitive disabilities, which can depend on the severity, said Ms. Pendo. Is the person deaf or hard of hearing, blind or partially sighted – is the dementia mild or severe?

“The requirement is there, but what that looks like will vary by patient. That’s what’s challenging,” said Ms. Pendo.

Dr. Iezzoni recommends that doctor’s offices ask patients whether they need special help or individual assistance when they make appointments and enter their responses in their records. She also suggests that patients be asked at follow-up appointments whether they still need the same help or not.

“Disabilities can change over time – a person with bad arthritis may need help getting onto an exam table, but later get a knee or hip replacement that is effective and no longer need that help,” said Dr. Iezzoni.

Benefits outweigh costs

Physicians have made progress in meeting the ADA’s physical accessibility requirements, said Dr. Iezzoni. “The literature suggests that doctors have done a good job at fixing the structural barriers people with mobility issues face, such as ramps and bathrooms.”

However, there are exceptions in rural older buildings which can be harder to retrofit for wheelchair accessibility, she said. “I recall interviewing a rural doctor several years ago who said that he knew his patients well and when a patient visits with mobility problems, he goes down and carries the patient up the steps to his office. My response was that is not respectful of the patient or safe for the patient or you. That doctor has since changed the location of his practice,” said Dr. Iezzoni.

Some doctors may resist paying for accessible medical equipment because of cost, but she said the benefits are worth it. These include preventing staff injuries when they transfer patients and being used by patients with temporary disabilities and aging people with bad knees, backs, hearing and sight. In addition, businesses may be eligible for federal and state tax credits.

Dr. Iezzoni recently visited her doctor where they finally got height-adjustable exam tables. “I asked the assistant, who really likes these tables? She said it’s the elderly ladies of short stature – the table is lowered and they sit down and get on it.”

But, Dr. Iezonni’s main message to doctors is that patients with disabilities deserve equal quality of care. “Just because we have a disability doesn’t mean we should get worse care than other people. It’s a matter of professionalism that doctors should want to give the same quality care to all their patients.”

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Lisa Iezzoni, MD, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a disability researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital, both in Boston, has used a wheelchair for more than 30 years because of multiple sclerosis. When she visits her primary care doctor, she doesn’t get weighed because the scales are not wheelchair accessible.

This failure to weigh her and other patients in wheelchairs could lead to serious medical problems. Weight is used to monitor a person’s overall health and prenatal health and to determine accurate doses for medications such as some chemotherapies, said Dr. Iezzoni.

In another situation, a man who used a wheelchair said that his primary care doctor never got him out of it for a complete physical exam. The patient later developed lymphoma, which first appeared in his groin. The doctor should have accommodated his disability and used a height-adjustable exam table or a portable lift to transfer him onto the table.

When physicians don’t provide access to medical care that patients with disabilities need, they put themselves at greater risk of lawsuits, fines, and settlements.

Yet, a new study in Health Affairs suggests that a large percentage of doctors are not fully aware of what they are legally required to do.

Under federal nondiscrimination laws (Americans With Disabilities Act, American Rehabilitation Act, and ADA Amendments Act), medical practices must provide equal access to people with disabilities, accommodate their disability-related needs, and not refuse them medical services because of their disabilities, say disability experts.
 

Where doctors go wrong with disability laws

What doctors don’t know about providing reasonable accommodations makes them vulnerable to lawsuits, which worries more than two-thirds of the 714 outpatient doctors surveyed.

Not only are they required to provide reasonable accommodations, but they also have to pay for them, the researchers said. One-fifth of the surveyed doctors said they didn’t know that practice owners have to pay.

More than one practice has made patients pay for services needed for their disability, such as sign language interpreters – the patients later complained this violated the ADA to enforcement agencies.

Doctors also don’t know that they have to collaborate with patients to determine what reasonable accommodations they need – over two-thirds of those surveyed said they didn’t know it was a joint responsibility, the study found.

When doctors fail to accommodate patients’ disability needs, they engage in discrimination and violate the ADA, says Elizabeth Pendo, JD, a coauthor of the study and the Joseph J. Simeone Professor of Law at Saint Louis University.

The Department of Justice has investigated several patient complaints of alleged disability discrimination recently and resolved the disputes with agreements and small fines in some cases. “The goal is not to get large financial settlements but to work with practices to get the correct procedures in place to be compliant,” said Ms. Pendo.

Physicians would be wise to check out whether their practices are as accessible as they think. Even if there’s a ramp to the office building, the parking lot may not have a van-accessible space or enough handicapped parking signs, or the exam room may be too narrow for a wheelchair to navigate.

These practices violated the ADA and agreed to make changes:

• Hamden, Conn., has two buildings that patients with physical disabilities couldn’t easily enter. The physician owners agreed to change the buildings’ entrances and access routes and add features to make it easier to use examination rooms and restrooms and the check-in and check-out areas.
• Seven medical offices in Riverside, Calif., failed to communicate effectively with deaf and hard-of-hearing patients. They should have had a qualified sign language interpreter, an assistive listening device, or another appropriate aid or service available to a deaf patient and her family. Instead, the office relied on a video remote interpretation system that often failed to work. The agreement requires the clinic to provide those aids and services to patients and their companions who are deaf or hard of hearing, advertise their availability, assess each patient who is deaf or hard of hearing to determine the best aids and services for their needs, and pay $5,000 in compensation to the complainant and a $1,000 civil penalty to the United States.
• Springfield, Mass., refused to provide full joint replacements to two patients being treated with buprenorphine, a medication used to treat opioid use disorder. Rather than accommodate the patients, the surgeons referred them elsewhere because they were uncomfortable with the postoperative pain management protocol for patients prescribed buprenorphine. “The Americans With Disabilities Act protects health care access for people under medical treatment for opioid use disorder,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Nathaniel R. Mendell. “Health care providers must comply with the ADA, even when doing so is inconvenient or makes them uncomfortable.” The agreement requires the practice to adopt a nondiscrimination policy, provide training on the ADA and opioid use disorder, and pay two complainants $15,000 each for pain and suffering.

The DOJ has filed civil lawsuits against medical practices when they failed to resolve the allegations. Recent cases include an ophthalmology practice with 24 facilities in Arizona that refused to help transfer patients in wheelchairs to surgery tables for eye surgery and required them to pay for transfer support services and two obstetricians-gynecologists in Bakersfield, Calif., who refused to provide routine medical care to a patient because of her HIV status.
 

What doctors should know

Many people tend to think of a person with a disability as being in a wheelchair. But the ADA has a very broad definition of disability, which includes any physical or mental impairment that substantially limits any major life activity, said Ms. Pendo.

“It was amended in 2008 to clarify that the definition includes people with chronic diseases such as diabetes and cancer, cognitive and neurological disorders, substance abuse disorders, vision and hearing loss, and learning and other disabilities,” she said.

That means that doctors have to accommodate many types of disabilities, which can be challenging. The ADA only specifies that fixed structures need to be accessible, such as parking lots, driveways, and buildings, said Dr. Iezzoni.

When it comes to “reasonable accommodations,” doctors should decide that on a case-by-case basis, she said.

“We can say based on our study that 71% of doctors don’t know the right way to think about the accommodations – they don’t know they need to talk to patients so they can explain to them exactly what they need to accommodate their disability,” said Dr. Iezzoni.

Doctors are also required to provide effective communication for patients with sensory or cognitive disabilities, which can depend on the severity, said Ms. Pendo. Is the person deaf or hard of hearing, blind or partially sighted – is the dementia mild or severe?

“The requirement is there, but what that looks like will vary by patient. That’s what’s challenging,” said Ms. Pendo.

Dr. Iezzoni recommends that doctor’s offices ask patients whether they need special help or individual assistance when they make appointments and enter their responses in their records. She also suggests that patients be asked at follow-up appointments whether they still need the same help or not.

“Disabilities can change over time – a person with bad arthritis may need help getting onto an exam table, but later get a knee or hip replacement that is effective and no longer need that help,” said Dr. Iezzoni.

Benefits outweigh costs

Physicians have made progress in meeting the ADA’s physical accessibility requirements, said Dr. Iezzoni. “The literature suggests that doctors have done a good job at fixing the structural barriers people with mobility issues face, such as ramps and bathrooms.”

However, there are exceptions in rural older buildings which can be harder to retrofit for wheelchair accessibility, she said. “I recall interviewing a rural doctor several years ago who said that he knew his patients well and when a patient visits with mobility problems, he goes down and carries the patient up the steps to his office. My response was that is not respectful of the patient or safe for the patient or you. That doctor has since changed the location of his practice,” said Dr. Iezzoni.

Some doctors may resist paying for accessible medical equipment because of cost, but she said the benefits are worth it. These include preventing staff injuries when they transfer patients and being used by patients with temporary disabilities and aging people with bad knees, backs, hearing and sight. In addition, businesses may be eligible for federal and state tax credits.

Dr. Iezzoni recently visited her doctor where they finally got height-adjustable exam tables. “I asked the assistant, who really likes these tables? She said it’s the elderly ladies of short stature – the table is lowered and they sit down and get on it.”

But, Dr. Iezonni’s main message to doctors is that patients with disabilities deserve equal quality of care. “Just because we have a disability doesn’t mean we should get worse care than other people. It’s a matter of professionalism that doctors should want to give the same quality care to all their patients.”

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

A patient swore at me the other day. Not as in “she used a curse word.” As in she spewed fury, spitting out a vulgar, adverbial word before “... terrible doctor” while jabbing her finger toward me. In my 15 years of practice, I’d never had that happen before. Equally surprising, I was not surprised by her outburst. The level of incivility from patients is at an all-time high.

Her anger was misdirected. She wanted me to write a letter to her employer excusing her from getting a vaccine. It was neither indicated nor ethical for me to do so. I did my best to redirect her, but without success. As our chief of service, I often help with service concerns and am happy to see patients who want another opinion or want to speak with the department head (aka, “the manager”). Usually I can help. Lately, it’s become harder.

Not only are such rude incidents more frequent, but they are also more dramatic and inappropriate. For example, I cannot imagine writing a complaint against a doctor stating that she must be a foreign medical grad (as it happens, she’s Ivy League-trained) or demanding money back when a biopsy result turned out to be benign, or threatening to report a doctor to the medical board because he failed to schedule a follow-up appointment (that doctor had been retired for months). Patients have hung up on our staff mid-sentence and slammed a clinic door when they left in a huff. Why are so many previously sensible people throwing childlike tantrums?

It’s the same phenomenon happening to our fellow service agents across all industries. The Federal Aviation Administration’s graph of unruly passenger incidents is a flat line from 1995 to 2019, then it goes straight vertical. A recent survey showed that Americans’ sense of civility is low and worse, that people’s expectations that civility will improve is going down. It’s palpable. Last month, I witnessed a man and woman screaming at each other over Christmas lights in a busy store. An army of aproned walkie-talkie staff surrounded them and escorted them out – their coordination and efficiency clearly indicated they’d done this before. Customers everywhere are mad, frustrated, disenfranchised. Lately, a lot of things just are not working out for them. Supplies are out. Kids are sent home from school. No elective surgery appointments are available. The insta-gratification they’ve grown accustomed to from Amazon and DoorDash is colliding with the reality that not everything works that way.

The word “patient’’ you’ll recall comes from the Latin “patior,” meaning to suffer or bear. With virus variants raging, inflation growing, and call center wait times approaching infinity, many of our patients, it seems, cannot bear any more. I’m confident this situation will improve and our patients will be more reasonable in their expectations, but I am afraid that, in the end, we’ll have lost some decorum and dignity that we may never find again in medicine.

For my potty-mouthed patient, I made an excuse to leave the room to get my dermatoscope and walked out. It gave her time to calm down. I returned in a few minutes to do a skin exam. As I was wrapping up, I advised her that she cannot raise her voice or use offensive language and that she should know that I and everyone in our office cares about her and wants to help. She did apologize for her behavior, but then had to add that, if I really cared, I’d write the letter for her.

I guess the customer is not always right.

Dr. Benabio is director of Healthcare Transformation and chief of dermatology at Kaiser Permanente San Diego. The opinions expressed in this column are his own and do not represent those of Kaiser Permanente. Dr. Benabio is @Dermdoc on Twitter. Write to him at [email protected]

A patient swore at me the other day. Not as in “she used a curse word.” As in she spewed fury, spitting out a vulgar, adverbial word before “... terrible doctor” while jabbing her finger toward me. In my 15 years of practice, I’d never had that happen before. Equally surprising, I was not surprised by her outburst. The level of incivility from patients is at an all-time high.

Her anger was misdirected. She wanted me to write a letter to her employer excusing her from getting a vaccine. It was neither indicated nor ethical for me to do so. I did my best to redirect her, but without success. As our chief of service, I often help with service concerns and am happy to see patients who want another opinion or want to speak with the department head (aka, “the manager”). Usually I can help. Lately, it’s become harder.

Not only are such rude incidents more frequent, but they are also more dramatic and inappropriate. For example, I cannot imagine writing a complaint against a doctor stating that she must be a foreign medical grad (as it happens, she’s Ivy League-trained) or demanding money back when a biopsy result turned out to be benign, or threatening to report a doctor to the medical board because he failed to schedule a follow-up appointment (that doctor had been retired for months). Patients have hung up on our staff mid-sentence and slammed a clinic door when they left in a huff. Why are so many previously sensible people throwing childlike tantrums?

It’s the same phenomenon happening to our fellow service agents across all industries. The Federal Aviation Administration’s graph of unruly passenger incidents is a flat line from 1995 to 2019, then it goes straight vertical. A recent survey showed that Americans’ sense of civility is low and worse, that people’s expectations that civility will improve is going down. It’s palpable. Last month, I witnessed a man and woman screaming at each other over Christmas lights in a busy store. An army of aproned walkie-talkie staff surrounded them and escorted them out – their coordination and efficiency clearly indicated they’d done this before. Customers everywhere are mad, frustrated, disenfranchised. Lately, a lot of things just are not working out for them. Supplies are out. Kids are sent home from school. No elective surgery appointments are available. The insta-gratification they’ve grown accustomed to from Amazon and DoorDash is colliding with the reality that not everything works that way.

The word “patient’’ you’ll recall comes from the Latin “patior,” meaning to suffer or bear. With virus variants raging, inflation growing, and call center wait times approaching infinity, many of our patients, it seems, cannot bear any more. I’m confident this situation will improve and our patients will be more reasonable in their expectations, but I am afraid that, in the end, we’ll have lost some decorum and dignity that we may never find again in medicine.

For my potty-mouthed patient, I made an excuse to leave the room to get my dermatoscope and walked out. It gave her time to calm down. I returned in a few minutes to do a skin exam. As I was wrapping up, I advised her that she cannot raise her voice or use offensive language and that she should know that I and everyone in our office cares about her and wants to help. She did apologize for her behavior, but then had to add that, if I really cared, I’d write the letter for her.

I guess the customer is not always right.

Dr. Benabio is director of Healthcare Transformation and chief of dermatology at Kaiser Permanente San Diego. The opinions expressed in this column are his own and do not represent those of Kaiser Permanente. Dr. Benabio is @Dermdoc on Twitter. Write to him at [email protected]

A patient swore at me the other day. Not as in “she used a curse word.” As in she spewed fury, spitting out a vulgar, adverbial word before “... terrible doctor” while jabbing her finger toward me. In my 15 years of practice, I’d never had that happen before. Equally surprising, I was not surprised by her outburst. The level of incivility from patients is at an all-time high.

Her anger was misdirected. She wanted me to write a letter to her employer excusing her from getting a vaccine. It was neither indicated nor ethical for me to do so. I did my best to redirect her, but without success. As our chief of service, I often help with service concerns and am happy to see patients who want another opinion or want to speak with the department head (aka, “the manager”). Usually I can help. Lately, it’s become harder.

Not only are such rude incidents more frequent, but they are also more dramatic and inappropriate. For example, I cannot imagine writing a complaint against a doctor stating that she must be a foreign medical grad (as it happens, she’s Ivy League-trained) or demanding money back when a biopsy result turned out to be benign, or threatening to report a doctor to the medical board because he failed to schedule a follow-up appointment (that doctor had been retired for months). Patients have hung up on our staff mid-sentence and slammed a clinic door when they left in a huff. Why are so many previously sensible people throwing childlike tantrums?

It’s the same phenomenon happening to our fellow service agents across all industries. The Federal Aviation Administration’s graph of unruly passenger incidents is a flat line from 1995 to 2019, then it goes straight vertical. A recent survey showed that Americans’ sense of civility is low and worse, that people’s expectations that civility will improve is going down. It’s palpable. Last month, I witnessed a man and woman screaming at each other over Christmas lights in a busy store. An army of aproned walkie-talkie staff surrounded them and escorted them out – their coordination and efficiency clearly indicated they’d done this before. Customers everywhere are mad, frustrated, disenfranchised. Lately, a lot of things just are not working out for them. Supplies are out. Kids are sent home from school. No elective surgery appointments are available. The insta-gratification they’ve grown accustomed to from Amazon and DoorDash is colliding with the reality that not everything works that way.

The word “patient’’ you’ll recall comes from the Latin “patior,” meaning to suffer or bear. With virus variants raging, inflation growing, and call center wait times approaching infinity, many of our patients, it seems, cannot bear any more. I’m confident this situation will improve and our patients will be more reasonable in their expectations, but I am afraid that, in the end, we’ll have lost some decorum and dignity that we may never find again in medicine.

For my potty-mouthed patient, I made an excuse to leave the room to get my dermatoscope and walked out. It gave her time to calm down. I returned in a few minutes to do a skin exam. As I was wrapping up, I advised her that she cannot raise her voice or use offensive language and that she should know that I and everyone in our office cares about her and wants to help. She did apologize for her behavior, but then had to add that, if I really cared, I’d write the letter for her.

I guess the customer is not always right.

Dr. Benabio is director of Healthcare Transformation and chief of dermatology at Kaiser Permanente San Diego. The opinions expressed in this column are his own and do not represent those of Kaiser Permanente. Dr. Benabio is @Dermdoc on Twitter. Write to him at [email protected]

A new, augmented autism-screening strategy boosted the number of boys diagnosed with the condition, especially Spanish speakers, a new study finds. The research was published in JAMA Pediatrics

The number of diagnoses in girls didn’t budge significantly, however, surprising researchers. Still, the findings suggest that “multistage screening and appropriate access to diagnostic services can really move the needle on the early detection of autism and reducing disparities in autism diagnosis and detection,” said lead author R. Christopher Sheldrick, PhD, a Boston University research associate professor of health law, policy, and management, in an interview.

While early intervention is considered crucial, U.S. research suggests that several groups of children – the poor, racial and ethnic minorities, and non-English speakers – are more likely to be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) later in life. “They have much lower access to appropriate services, both to get kids diagnosed and to get the kinds of interventions that can be helpful for families,” Dr. Sheldrick said. “Our study is about trying to close the gap around diagnosis, the first step.”

For the new study, the researchers implemented an intervention strategy in Massachusetts at three Early Intervention (EI) programs, which provide autism screening to children who are referred by pediatricians or parents. The researchers then tracked the programs, all in Boston, and nine comparison programs from the greater Boston area from 2012 to 2018.

Overall, 33,326 children were assessed, all aged 14-36 months. Those at the intervention programs were chosen because they had high levels of poverty. Children at those programs were more likely to be Black than those at the comparison programs (30.7% vs. 12.2%), to be Spanish speakers (28.9% vs. 12.5%), and to be in the lowest household income bracket (66.9% vs. 54.2%). In both groups, about 64% of the children were male.

The intervention strategy aimed to reduce the reliance on screening tests. Instead, the study authors write, “our protocol emphasizes ASD screening as a process that includes clinician and parent decision-making.”

As Dr. Sheldrick explained, parents and specialists observe children together “and then decide whether it’s worth taking the next step, which is a full diagnostic assessment with a licensed professional.” According to the study, either the parent(s) or the specialists could make the referral for a full, university-based assessment.

The goal was to help specialists use their professional judgment more, he said, and refer children who don’t show signs of ASD via a screening instrument but still spark concern, he said. “We’re really trying to create a system in which the screening tools support professional judgment, but don’t really replace it.”

After weighting, the researchers found that diagnoses of ASD were more common in the intervention sites vs. comparison sites (incidence rate ratio, 1.6; 95% confidence interval, 1.3-2.1, P < .001), accounting for an extra 8.1 diagnoses per 1,000 per quarter. Among Spanish-speaking families only, diagnoses grew even more in the intervention sites vs. comparison sites (IRR, 2.6; 95% CI, 1.6-4.3; P < .001), representing 15.4 additional diagnoses per 1,000 children per quarter.

There was also an increase in diagnoses among boys in the intervention sites vs. comparison sites (IRR, 1.8; 95% CI, 1.4-2.3; P < .001), accounting for 14.8 additional diagnoses per 1,000 children per quarter. However, there was no statistically significant increase in diagnosis among girls (IRR, 1.1; 95% CI, 0.6-1.7; P = .84).

The finding about girls surprised the researchers. “The program was highly effective for boys, but really didn’t have any effect for girls,” Dr. Sheldrick said. “Even though autism is considered to be more common in boys, there are questions about whether it’s underidentified in girls. These data would be consistent with that view. So there’s work to do to be able to recognize how a young girl with autism might present and how you might note that in a sensitive way and then respond appropriately.”

The overall message of the study is “that screening with appropriate supports can make a difference,” he said. However, he acknowledged that the extra cost of the program is unclear. “We did not systematically collect data on cost,” he said, noting that the funding for the study paid for both the intervention and the analysis.

For now, he said, researchers are following the children in the study to see if they were able to access treatment services. Some of the investigators are also taking part in a randomized study to evaluate an intervention in children with social communication disorders, he said.

In an accompanying commentary, three pediatric specialists noted that the study is the first to analyze ASD screening in EI. “This study supports the notion of ASD screening as an iterative, multistep process that optimally involves multiple community stakeholders with varying levels of developmental expertise who have done the work to build trust with families,” write pediatrician Kate E. Wallis, MD, MPH, of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, graduate student Monica M. Abdul-Chani, MA, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and pediatrician Katharine E. Zuckerman, MD, MPH, of Oregon Health & Science University, Portland.

In regard to disparities in diagnosis in Spanish-speaking families, the commentary authors write that “locating a greater proportion of the ASD identification process in EI, which families are already familiar with, has no to low cost for families, and is likely geographically closer for families, can reduce structural barriers to identification.”

They add that the emphasis within Latino families on the “building of warm and caring relationships with others based on mutual trust and respect” can allow EI specialists to “develop relationships with families who may be afraid or skeptical of sharing what could be considered personal details of their family life.”

The commentary authors also note that “it remains all too common for language delays to be attributed to child exposure to two languages, even though data do not support this attribution. Bilingual EI staff can help to demystify this perpetual myth and better estimate a child’s communication and social skills in both languages as they communicate and play.”

The study was funded by grants from the Health Resources Services Administration and the National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. Sheldrick is cocreator of the Parent’s Observations of Social Interaction (POSI), which is one of the two first-stage screeners used in this study. He conducts research related to this instrument but receives no royalties. He reports grants from the National Institutes of Health. Coauthor Alice S. Carter, PhD, is cocreator of the POSI but receives no royalties. She is also cocreator of the Brief Infant Toddler Social Emotional Assessment, which is one of the two first-stage screeners used in this study, and receives royalties on the sale of the instrument. She reports grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Health Resources and Services Administration. Study coauthor Thomas I. Mackie, PhD, MPH, reports grants from the National Institute of Mental Health. Study coauthor Noah Hoch reports grants from the Health Resources Services Administration and the National Institute of Mental Health. No other disclosures from study authors are reported. Dr. Zuckerman reported grants from the National Institutes of Health and National Institute of Mental Health and consulting fees from H2N related to autism. The other commentary authors report no disclosures.

A new, augmented autism-screening strategy boosted the number of boys diagnosed with the condition, especially Spanish speakers, a new study finds. The research was published in JAMA Pediatrics

The number of diagnoses in girls didn’t budge significantly, however, surprising researchers. Still, the findings suggest that “multistage screening and appropriate access to diagnostic services can really move the needle on the early detection of autism and reducing disparities in autism diagnosis and detection,” said lead author R. Christopher Sheldrick, PhD, a Boston University research associate professor of health law, policy, and management, in an interview.

While early intervention is considered crucial, U.S. research suggests that several groups of children – the poor, racial and ethnic minorities, and non-English speakers – are more likely to be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) later in life. “They have much lower access to appropriate services, both to get kids diagnosed and to get the kinds of interventions that can be helpful for families,” Dr. Sheldrick said. “Our study is about trying to close the gap around diagnosis, the first step.”

For the new study, the researchers implemented an intervention strategy in Massachusetts at three Early Intervention (EI) programs, which provide autism screening to children who are referred by pediatricians or parents. The researchers then tracked the programs, all in Boston, and nine comparison programs from the greater Boston area from 2012 to 2018.

Overall, 33,326 children were assessed, all aged 14-36 months. Those at the intervention programs were chosen because they had high levels of poverty. Children at those programs were more likely to be Black than those at the comparison programs (30.7% vs. 12.2%), to be Spanish speakers (28.9% vs. 12.5%), and to be in the lowest household income bracket (66.9% vs. 54.2%). In both groups, about 64% of the children were male.

The intervention strategy aimed to reduce the reliance on screening tests. Instead, the study authors write, “our protocol emphasizes ASD screening as a process that includes clinician and parent decision-making.”

As Dr. Sheldrick explained, parents and specialists observe children together “and then decide whether it’s worth taking the next step, which is a full diagnostic assessment with a licensed professional.” According to the study, either the parent(s) or the specialists could make the referral for a full, university-based assessment.

The goal was to help specialists use their professional judgment more, he said, and refer children who don’t show signs of ASD via a screening instrument but still spark concern, he said. “We’re really trying to create a system in which the screening tools support professional judgment, but don’t really replace it.”

After weighting, the researchers found that diagnoses of ASD were more common in the intervention sites vs. comparison sites (incidence rate ratio, 1.6; 95% confidence interval, 1.3-2.1, P < .001), accounting for an extra 8.1 diagnoses per 1,000 per quarter. Among Spanish-speaking families only, diagnoses grew even more in the intervention sites vs. comparison sites (IRR, 2.6; 95% CI, 1.6-4.3; P < .001), representing 15.4 additional diagnoses per 1,000 children per quarter.

There was also an increase in diagnoses among boys in the intervention sites vs. comparison sites (IRR, 1.8; 95% CI, 1.4-2.3; P < .001), accounting for 14.8 additional diagnoses per 1,000 children per quarter. However, there was no statistically significant increase in diagnosis among girls (IRR, 1.1; 95% CI, 0.6-1.7; P = .84).

The finding about girls surprised the researchers. “The program was highly effective for boys, but really didn’t have any effect for girls,” Dr. Sheldrick said. “Even though autism is considered to be more common in boys, there are questions about whether it’s underidentified in girls. These data would be consistent with that view. So there’s work to do to be able to recognize how a young girl with autism might present and how you might note that in a sensitive way and then respond appropriately.”

The overall message of the study is “that screening with appropriate supports can make a difference,” he said. However, he acknowledged that the extra cost of the program is unclear. “We did not systematically collect data on cost,” he said, noting that the funding for the study paid for both the intervention and the analysis.

For now, he said, researchers are following the children in the study to see if they were able to access treatment services. Some of the investigators are also taking part in a randomized study to evaluate an intervention in children with social communication disorders, he said.

In an accompanying commentary, three pediatric specialists noted that the study is the first to analyze ASD screening in EI. “This study supports the notion of ASD screening as an iterative, multistep process that optimally involves multiple community stakeholders with varying levels of developmental expertise who have done the work to build trust with families,” write pediatrician Kate E. Wallis, MD, MPH, of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, graduate student Monica M. Abdul-Chani, MA, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and pediatrician Katharine E. Zuckerman, MD, MPH, of Oregon Health & Science University, Portland.

In regard to disparities in diagnosis in Spanish-speaking families, the commentary authors write that “locating a greater proportion of the ASD identification process in EI, which families are already familiar with, has no to low cost for families, and is likely geographically closer for families, can reduce structural barriers to identification.”

They add that the emphasis within Latino families on the “building of warm and caring relationships with others based on mutual trust and respect” can allow EI specialists to “develop relationships with families who may be afraid or skeptical of sharing what could be considered personal details of their family life.”

The commentary authors also note that “it remains all too common for language delays to be attributed to child exposure to two languages, even though data do not support this attribution. Bilingual EI staff can help to demystify this perpetual myth and better estimate a child’s communication and social skills in both languages as they communicate and play.”

The study was funded by grants from the Health Resources Services Administration and the National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. Sheldrick is cocreator of the Parent’s Observations of Social Interaction (POSI), which is one of the two first-stage screeners used in this study. He conducts research related to this instrument but receives no royalties. He reports grants from the National Institutes of Health. Coauthor Alice S. Carter, PhD, is cocreator of the POSI but receives no royalties. She is also cocreator of the Brief Infant Toddler Social Emotional Assessment, which is one of the two first-stage screeners used in this study, and receives royalties on the sale of the instrument. She reports grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Health Resources and Services Administration. Study coauthor Thomas I. Mackie, PhD, MPH, reports grants from the National Institute of Mental Health. Study coauthor Noah Hoch reports grants from the Health Resources Services Administration and the National Institute of Mental Health. No other disclosures from study authors are reported. Dr. Zuckerman reported grants from the National Institutes of Health and National Institute of Mental Health and consulting fees from H2N related to autism. The other commentary authors report no disclosures.

A new, augmented autism-screening strategy boosted the number of boys diagnosed with the condition, especially Spanish speakers, a new study finds. The research was published in JAMA Pediatrics

The number of diagnoses in girls didn’t budge significantly, however, surprising researchers. Still, the findings suggest that “multistage screening and appropriate access to diagnostic services can really move the needle on the early detection of autism and reducing disparities in autism diagnosis and detection,” said lead author R. Christopher Sheldrick, PhD, a Boston University research associate professor of health law, policy, and management, in an interview.

While early intervention is considered crucial, U.S. research suggests that several groups of children – the poor, racial and ethnic minorities, and non-English speakers – are more likely to be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) later in life. “They have much lower access to appropriate services, both to get kids diagnosed and to get the kinds of interventions that can be helpful for families,” Dr. Sheldrick said. “Our study is about trying to close the gap around diagnosis, the first step.”

For the new study, the researchers implemented an intervention strategy in Massachusetts at three Early Intervention (EI) programs, which provide autism screening to children who are referred by pediatricians or parents. The researchers then tracked the programs, all in Boston, and nine comparison programs from the greater Boston area from 2012 to 2018.

Overall, 33,326 children were assessed, all aged 14-36 months. Those at the intervention programs were chosen because they had high levels of poverty. Children at those programs were more likely to be Black than those at the comparison programs (30.7% vs. 12.2%), to be Spanish speakers (28.9% vs. 12.5%), and to be in the lowest household income bracket (66.9% vs. 54.2%). In both groups, about 64% of the children were male.

The intervention strategy aimed to reduce the reliance on screening tests. Instead, the study authors write, “our protocol emphasizes ASD screening as a process that includes clinician and parent decision-making.”

As Dr. Sheldrick explained, parents and specialists observe children together “and then decide whether it’s worth taking the next step, which is a full diagnostic assessment with a licensed professional.” According to the study, either the parent(s) or the specialists could make the referral for a full, university-based assessment.

The goal was to help specialists use their professional judgment more, he said, and refer children who don’t show signs of ASD via a screening instrument but still spark concern, he said. “We’re really trying to create a system in which the screening tools support professional judgment, but don’t really replace it.”

After weighting, the researchers found that diagnoses of ASD were more common in the intervention sites vs. comparison sites (incidence rate ratio, 1.6; 95% confidence interval, 1.3-2.1, P < .001), accounting for an extra 8.1 diagnoses per 1,000 per quarter. Among Spanish-speaking families only, diagnoses grew even more in the intervention sites vs. comparison sites (IRR, 2.6; 95% CI, 1.6-4.3; P < .001), representing 15.4 additional diagnoses per 1,000 children per quarter.

There was also an increase in diagnoses among boys in the intervention sites vs. comparison sites (IRR, 1.8; 95% CI, 1.4-2.3; P < .001), accounting for 14.8 additional diagnoses per 1,000 children per quarter. However, there was no statistically significant increase in diagnosis among girls (IRR, 1.1; 95% CI, 0.6-1.7; P = .84).

The finding about girls surprised the researchers. “The program was highly effective for boys, but really didn’t have any effect for girls,” Dr. Sheldrick said. “Even though autism is considered to be more common in boys, there are questions about whether it’s underidentified in girls. These data would be consistent with that view. So there’s work to do to be able to recognize how a young girl with autism might present and how you might note that in a sensitive way and then respond appropriately.”

The overall message of the study is “that screening with appropriate supports can make a difference,” he said. However, he acknowledged that the extra cost of the program is unclear. “We did not systematically collect data on cost,” he said, noting that the funding for the study paid for both the intervention and the analysis.

For now, he said, researchers are following the children in the study to see if they were able to access treatment services. Some of the investigators are also taking part in a randomized study to evaluate an intervention in children with social communication disorders, he said.

In an accompanying commentary, three pediatric specialists noted that the study is the first to analyze ASD screening in EI. “This study supports the notion of ASD screening as an iterative, multistep process that optimally involves multiple community stakeholders with varying levels of developmental expertise who have done the work to build trust with families,” write pediatrician Kate E. Wallis, MD, MPH, of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, graduate student Monica M. Abdul-Chani, MA, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and pediatrician Katharine E. Zuckerman, MD, MPH, of Oregon Health & Science University, Portland.

In regard to disparities in diagnosis in Spanish-speaking families, the commentary authors write that “locating a greater proportion of the ASD identification process in EI, which families are already familiar with, has no to low cost for families, and is likely geographically closer for families, can reduce structural barriers to identification.”

They add that the emphasis within Latino families on the “building of warm and caring relationships with others based on mutual trust and respect” can allow EI specialists to “develop relationships with families who may be afraid or skeptical of sharing what could be considered personal details of their family life.”

The commentary authors also note that “it remains all too common for language delays to be attributed to child exposure to two languages, even though data do not support this attribution. Bilingual EI staff can help to demystify this perpetual myth and better estimate a child’s communication and social skills in both languages as they communicate and play.”

The study was funded by grants from the Health Resources Services Administration and the National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. Sheldrick is cocreator of the Parent’s Observations of Social Interaction (POSI), which is one of the two first-stage screeners used in this study. He conducts research related to this instrument but receives no royalties. He reports grants from the National Institutes of Health. Coauthor Alice S. Carter, PhD, is cocreator of the POSI but receives no royalties. She is also cocreator of the Brief Infant Toddler Social Emotional Assessment, which is one of the two first-stage screeners used in this study, and receives royalties on the sale of the instrument. She reports grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Health Resources and Services Administration. Study coauthor Thomas I. Mackie, PhD, MPH, reports grants from the National Institute of Mental Health. Study coauthor Noah Hoch reports grants from the Health Resources Services Administration and the National Institute of Mental Health. No other disclosures from study authors are reported. Dr. Zuckerman reported grants from the National Institutes of Health and National Institute of Mental Health and consulting fees from H2N related to autism. The other commentary authors report no disclosures.

Even though men in midlife have more cardiovascular (CV) conditions and risk factors than women of the same age, women are more affected by these conditions in terms of cognitive decline, new research suggests.

Analyses of almost 1,400 participants in the population-based Mayo Clinic Study of Aging showed that diabetes, dyslipidemia, and coronary heart disease (CHD) all had stronger associations with global cognitive decline in women than in men.

“All men and women should be treated for cardiovascular risk factors and conditions, but this study really highlights the importance of very early and perhaps more aggressive treatment in women with these conditions,” co-investigator Michelle M. Mielke, PhD, professor of epidemiology and neurology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn., told this news organization.

The findings were published online Jan. 5 in Neurology.
 

Assessing sex differences

Most previous studies in this area have focused on CV risk factors in midlife in relation to late-life dementia (after age 75) or on late-life vascular risk factors and late-life dementia, Dr. Mielke noted.

However, a few recent studies have suggested vascular risk factors can affect cognition even in midlife. The current investigators sought to determine whether there are sex differences in these associations.

They assessed 1,857 nondemented participants aged 50 to 69 years from the Mayo Clinic Study on Aging. The mean education level was 14.9 years, and the mean body mass index (BMI) was 29.7.

Among the participants, 78.9% had at least one CV condition or risk factor, and the proportion was higher in men than women (83.4% vs. 74.5%; P < .0001).

Frequency of each individual CV condition or risk factor was also higher in men than women, and they had more years of education and higher BMI but took fewer medications.

Every 15 months, participants had an in-person interview and physical examination that included a neurologic assessment and short test of memory.

The neuropsychological battery included nine tests across four domains: memory, language, executive function, and visuospatial skills. Researchers calculated z-scores for these domains and for global cognition.
 

Multiple cognitive domains

Whereas this study evaluated multiple cognitive domains, most previous research has focused on global cognitive decline and/or decline in only one or two cognitive domains, the investigators note.

They collected information from medical records on CV conditions such as CHD, arrhythmias, congestive heart failure, peripheral vascular disease (PVD), and stroke; and CV risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia, smoking status, and BMI.

Because of the small number of patients with stroke and PVD, these were classified as “other cardiovascular conditions” in the statistical analysis.

Researchers adjusted for sex, age, years of education, depressive symptoms, comorbidities, medications, and apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotyping. The mean follow-up was 3 years and did not differ by sex.

As some participants didn’t have a follow-up visit, the current analysis included 1,394 individuals. Those without follow-up visits were younger, had less education and more comorbidities, and took more medications compared with those with a follow-up.

Results showed most CV conditions were more strongly associated with cognitive function among women than men. For example, CHD was associated with global decline only in women (P < .05).

CHD, diabetes, and dyslipidemia were associated with language decline in women only (all, P < .05), but congestive heart failure was significantly associated with language decline in men only.

Dr. Mielke cautioned about reading too much into the language results for women.

“It’s an intriguing finding and definitely we need to follow up on it,” she said. However, “more studies are needed to examine sex differences before we start saying it only has an effect on language.”
 

‘Treat aggressively and right away’

The researchers were somewhat surprised by the study findings. Because there is a higher prevalence of CV conditions and risk factors in men, they presumed men would be more affected by these conditions, said Dr. Mielke.

“But that’s not what we saw; we saw the reverse. It was actually the women who were affected more by these cardiovascular risk factors and conditions,” she said.

As midlife is when women enter menopause, fluctuating estrogen levels may help explain the differential impact on cognition among women. But Dr. Mielke said she wants to “move beyond” just looking at hormones.

She pointed out there are a variety of psychosocial factors that may also contribute to an imbalance in the cognitive impact of CV conditions on women.

“Midlife is when many women are still taking care of their children at home, are also taking care of their adult parents, and may be undergoing more stress while continuing to do a job,” Dr. Miekle said.

Structural brain development and genetics may also contribute to the greater effect on cognition in women, the investigators note.

Dr. Mielke stressed that the current study only identifies associations. “The next steps are to understand what some of the underlying mechanisms for this are,” she said.

In the meantime, these new results suggest middle-aged women with high blood pressure, cholesterol, or glucose measures “should be treated aggressively and right away” said Dr. Mielke.

“For example, for women who are just starting to become hypertensive, clinicians should treat them right away and not watch and wait.”

Study limitations cited include that its sample was limited to Olmsted County, Minnesota – so results may not be generalized to other populations. Also, as researchers combined PVD and stroke into one group, larger sample sizes are needed, especially for stroke. Another limitation was the study did not have information on duration of all CV conditions or risk factors.
 

Helpful for tailoring interventions?

Commenting on the study, Glen R. Finney, MD, director, Memory and Cognition Program, Geisinger Health Clinic, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, said the results are important.

“The more we understand about risk factors for the development of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, the better we understand how we can reduce the risks,” said Dr. Finney, who was not involved with the research.

Awareness that CV conditions are major risk factors in midlife has been “definitely rising,” said Dr. Finney. “Many studies originally were looking at late life and are now looking more at earlier in the disease process, and I think that’s important.”

Understanding how sex, ethnicity, and other demographic variables affect risks can help to “tailor interventions” for individual patients, he said.

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the GHR Foundation, and the Rochester Epidemiology Project. Dr. Mielke is a consultant for Biogen and Brain Protection Company and is on the editorial boards of Neurology and Alzheimer’s and Dementia. Dr. Finney has reported no relevant financial relationships.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Even though men in midlife have more cardiovascular (CV) conditions and risk factors than women of the same age, women are more affected by these conditions in terms of cognitive decline, new research suggests.

Analyses of almost 1,400 participants in the population-based Mayo Clinic Study of Aging showed that diabetes, dyslipidemia, and coronary heart disease (CHD) all had stronger associations with global cognitive decline in women than in men.

“All men and women should be treated for cardiovascular risk factors and conditions, but this study really highlights the importance of very early and perhaps more aggressive treatment in women with these conditions,” co-investigator Michelle M. Mielke, PhD, professor of epidemiology and neurology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn., told this news organization.

The findings were published online Jan. 5 in Neurology.
 

Assessing sex differences

Most previous studies in this area have focused on CV risk factors in midlife in relation to late-life dementia (after age 75) or on late-life vascular risk factors and late-life dementia, Dr. Mielke noted.

However, a few recent studies have suggested vascular risk factors can affect cognition even in midlife. The current investigators sought to determine whether there are sex differences in these associations.

They assessed 1,857 nondemented participants aged 50 to 69 years from the Mayo Clinic Study on Aging. The mean education level was 14.9 years, and the mean body mass index (BMI) was 29.7.

Among the participants, 78.9% had at least one CV condition or risk factor, and the proportion was higher in men than women (83.4% vs. 74.5%; P < .0001).

Frequency of each individual CV condition or risk factor was also higher in men than women, and they had more years of education and higher BMI but took fewer medications.

Every 15 months, participants had an in-person interview and physical examination that included a neurologic assessment and short test of memory.

The neuropsychological battery included nine tests across four domains: memory, language, executive function, and visuospatial skills. Researchers calculated z-scores for these domains and for global cognition.
 

Multiple cognitive domains

Whereas this study evaluated multiple cognitive domains, most previous research has focused on global cognitive decline and/or decline in only one or two cognitive domains, the investigators note.

They collected information from medical records on CV conditions such as CHD, arrhythmias, congestive heart failure, peripheral vascular disease (PVD), and stroke; and CV risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia, smoking status, and BMI.

Because of the small number of patients with stroke and PVD, these were classified as “other cardiovascular conditions” in the statistical analysis.

Researchers adjusted for sex, age, years of education, depressive symptoms, comorbidities, medications, and apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotyping. The mean follow-up was 3 years and did not differ by sex.

As some participants didn’t have a follow-up visit, the current analysis included 1,394 individuals. Those without follow-up visits were younger, had less education and more comorbidities, and took more medications compared with those with a follow-up.

Results showed most CV conditions were more strongly associated with cognitive function among women than men. For example, CHD was associated with global decline only in women (P < .05).

CHD, diabetes, and dyslipidemia were associated with language decline in women only (all, P < .05), but congestive heart failure was significantly associated with language decline in men only.

Dr. Mielke cautioned about reading too much into the language results for women.

“It’s an intriguing finding and definitely we need to follow up on it,” she said. However, “more studies are needed to examine sex differences before we start saying it only has an effect on language.”
 

‘Treat aggressively and right away’

The researchers were somewhat surprised by the study findings. Because there is a higher prevalence of CV conditions and risk factors in men, they presumed men would be more affected by these conditions, said Dr. Mielke.

“But that’s not what we saw; we saw the reverse. It was actually the women who were affected more by these cardiovascular risk factors and conditions,” she said.

As midlife is when women enter menopause, fluctuating estrogen levels may help explain the differential impact on cognition among women. But Dr. Mielke said she wants to “move beyond” just looking at hormones.

She pointed out there are a variety of psychosocial factors that may also contribute to an imbalance in the cognitive impact of CV conditions on women.

“Midlife is when many women are still taking care of their children at home, are also taking care of their adult parents, and may be undergoing more stress while continuing to do a job,” Dr. Miekle said.

Structural brain development and genetics may also contribute to the greater effect on cognition in women, the investigators note.

Dr. Mielke stressed that the current study only identifies associations. “The next steps are to understand what some of the underlying mechanisms for this are,” she said.

In the meantime, these new results suggest middle-aged women with high blood pressure, cholesterol, or glucose measures “should be treated aggressively and right away” said Dr. Mielke.

“For example, for women who are just starting to become hypertensive, clinicians should treat them right away and not watch and wait.”

Study limitations cited include that its sample was limited to Olmsted County, Minnesota – so results may not be generalized to other populations. Also, as researchers combined PVD and stroke into one group, larger sample sizes are needed, especially for stroke. Another limitation was the study did not have information on duration of all CV conditions or risk factors.
 

Helpful for tailoring interventions?

Commenting on the study, Glen R. Finney, MD, director, Memory and Cognition Program, Geisinger Health Clinic, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, said the results are important.

“The more we understand about risk factors for the development of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, the better we understand how we can reduce the risks,” said Dr. Finney, who was not involved with the research.

Awareness that CV conditions are major risk factors in midlife has been “definitely rising,” said Dr. Finney. “Many studies originally were looking at late life and are now looking more at earlier in the disease process, and I think that’s important.”

Understanding how sex, ethnicity, and other demographic variables affect risks can help to “tailor interventions” for individual patients, he said.

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the GHR Foundation, and the Rochester Epidemiology Project. Dr. Mielke is a consultant for Biogen and Brain Protection Company and is on the editorial boards of Neurology and Alzheimer’s and Dementia. Dr. Finney has reported no relevant financial relationships.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Even though men in midlife have more cardiovascular (CV) conditions and risk factors than women of the same age, women are more affected by these conditions in terms of cognitive decline, new research suggests.

Analyses of almost 1,400 participants in the population-based Mayo Clinic Study of Aging showed that diabetes, dyslipidemia, and coronary heart disease (CHD) all had stronger associations with global cognitive decline in women than in men.

“All men and women should be treated for cardiovascular risk factors and conditions, but this study really highlights the importance of very early and perhaps more aggressive treatment in women with these conditions,” co-investigator Michelle M. Mielke, PhD, professor of epidemiology and neurology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn., told this news organization.

The findings were published online Jan. 5 in Neurology.
 

Assessing sex differences

Most previous studies in this area have focused on CV risk factors in midlife in relation to late-life dementia (after age 75) or on late-life vascular risk factors and late-life dementia, Dr. Mielke noted.

However, a few recent studies have suggested vascular risk factors can affect cognition even in midlife. The current investigators sought to determine whether there are sex differences in these associations.

They assessed 1,857 nondemented participants aged 50 to 69 years from the Mayo Clinic Study on Aging. The mean education level was 14.9 years, and the mean body mass index (BMI) was 29.7.

Among the participants, 78.9% had at least one CV condition or risk factor, and the proportion was higher in men than women (83.4% vs. 74.5%; P < .0001).

Frequency of each individual CV condition or risk factor was also higher in men than women, and they had more years of education and higher BMI but took fewer medications.

Every 15 months, participants had an in-person interview and physical examination that included a neurologic assessment and short test of memory.

The neuropsychological battery included nine tests across four domains: memory, language, executive function, and visuospatial skills. Researchers calculated z-scores for these domains and for global cognition.
 

Multiple cognitive domains

Whereas this study evaluated multiple cognitive domains, most previous research has focused on global cognitive decline and/or decline in only one or two cognitive domains, the investigators note.

They collected information from medical records on CV conditions such as CHD, arrhythmias, congestive heart failure, peripheral vascular disease (PVD), and stroke; and CV risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia, smoking status, and BMI.

Because of the small number of patients with stroke and PVD, these were classified as “other cardiovascular conditions” in the statistical analysis.

Researchers adjusted for sex, age, years of education, depressive symptoms, comorbidities, medications, and apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotyping. The mean follow-up was 3 years and did not differ by sex.

As some participants didn’t have a follow-up visit, the current analysis included 1,394 individuals. Those without follow-up visits were younger, had less education and more comorbidities, and took more medications compared with those with a follow-up.

Results showed most CV conditions were more strongly associated with cognitive function among women than men. For example, CHD was associated with global decline only in women (P < .05).

CHD, diabetes, and dyslipidemia were associated with language decline in women only (all, P < .05), but congestive heart failure was significantly associated with language decline in men only.

Dr. Mielke cautioned about reading too much into the language results for women.

“It’s an intriguing finding and definitely we need to follow up on it,” she said. However, “more studies are needed to examine sex differences before we start saying it only has an effect on language.”
 

‘Treat aggressively and right away’

The researchers were somewhat surprised by the study findings. Because there is a higher prevalence of CV conditions and risk factors in men, they presumed men would be more affected by these conditions, said Dr. Mielke.

“But that’s not what we saw; we saw the reverse. It was actually the women who were affected more by these cardiovascular risk factors and conditions,” she said.

As midlife is when women enter menopause, fluctuating estrogen levels may help explain the differential impact on cognition among women. But Dr. Mielke said she wants to “move beyond” just looking at hormones.

She pointed out there are a variety of psychosocial factors that may also contribute to an imbalance in the cognitive impact of CV conditions on women.

“Midlife is when many women are still taking care of their children at home, are also taking care of their adult parents, and may be undergoing more stress while continuing to do a job,” Dr. Miekle said.

Structural brain development and genetics may also contribute to the greater effect on cognition in women, the investigators note.

Dr. Mielke stressed that the current study only identifies associations. “The next steps are to understand what some of the underlying mechanisms for this are,” she said.

In the meantime, these new results suggest middle-aged women with high blood pressure, cholesterol, or glucose measures “should be treated aggressively and right away” said Dr. Mielke.

“For example, for women who are just starting to become hypertensive, clinicians should treat them right away and not watch and wait.”

Study limitations cited include that its sample was limited to Olmsted County, Minnesota – so results may not be generalized to other populations. Also, as researchers combined PVD and stroke into one group, larger sample sizes are needed, especially for stroke. Another limitation was the study did not have information on duration of all CV conditions or risk factors.
 

Helpful for tailoring interventions?

Commenting on the study, Glen R. Finney, MD, director, Memory and Cognition Program, Geisinger Health Clinic, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, said the results are important.

“The more we understand about risk factors for the development of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, the better we understand how we can reduce the risks,” said Dr. Finney, who was not involved with the research.

Awareness that CV conditions are major risk factors in midlife has been “definitely rising,” said Dr. Finney. “Many studies originally were looking at late life and are now looking more at earlier in the disease process, and I think that’s important.”

Understanding how sex, ethnicity, and other demographic variables affect risks can help to “tailor interventions” for individual patients, he said.

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the GHR Foundation, and the Rochester Epidemiology Project. Dr. Mielke is a consultant for Biogen and Brain Protection Company and is on the editorial boards of Neurology and Alzheimer’s and Dementia. Dr. Finney has reported no relevant financial relationships.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

A recent study examined projected career earnings between the genders in a largely community-based physician population, finding a difference of about $2 million in career earnings. That a gender pay gap exists in medicine is not news – but the manner in which this study was done, the investigators’ ability to control for a number of confounding variables, and the size of the study group (over 80,000) are newsworthy.

Some of the key findings include that gender pay gaps start with your first job, and you never close the gap, even as you gain experience and efficiency. Also, the more highly remunerated your specialty, the larger the gap. The gender pay gap joins a growing list of inequities within health care. Although physician compensation is not the most important, given that nearly all physicians are well-paid, and we have much more significant inequities that lead to direct patient harm, the reasons for this discrepancy warrant further consideration.

When I was first being educated about social inequity as part of work in social determinants of health, I made the error of using “inequality” and “inequity” interchangeably. The subtle yet important difference between the two terms was quickly described to me. Inequality is a gastroenterologist getting paid more money to do a colonoscopy than a family physician. Inequity is a female gastroenterologist getting paid less than a male gastroenterologist. Global Health Europe boldly identifies that “inequity is the result of failure.” In looking at the inequity inherent in the gender pay gap, I consider what failed and why.

I’m currently making a major career change, leaving an executive leadership position to return to full-time clinical practice. There is a significant pay decrease that will accompany this change because I am in a primary care specialty. Beyond that, I am considering two employment contracts from different systems to do a similar clinical role.

One of the questions my husband asked was which will pay more over the long run. This is difficult to discern because the compensation formula each health system uses is different, even though they are based on standard national benchmarking data. It is possible that women, in general, are like I am and look for factors other than compensation to make a job decision – assuming, like I do, that it will be close enough to not matter or is generally fair. In fact, while compensation is most certainly a consideration for me, once I determined that it was likely to be in the same ballpark, I stopped comparing. Even as the sole breadwinner in our family, I take this (probably faulty) approach.
 

It’s time to reconsider how we pay physicians

Women may be more likely to gloss over compensation details that men evaluate and negotiate carefully. To change this, women must first take responsibility for being an active, informed, and engaged part of compensation negotiations. In addition, employers who value gender pay equity must negotiate in good faith, keeping in mind the well-described vulnerabilities in discussions about pay. Finally, male and female mentors and leaders should actively coach female physicians on how to approach these conversations with confidence and skill.

In primary care, female physicians spend, on average, about 15% more time with their patients during a visit. Despite spending as much time in clinic seeing patients per week, they see fewer patients, thereby generating less revenue. For compensation plans that are based on productivity, the extra time spent costs money. In this case, it costs the female physicians lost compensation.

The way in which women are more likely to practice medicine, which includes the amount of time they spend with patients, may affect clinical outcomes without directly increasing productivity. A 2017 study demonstrated that elderly patients had lower rates of mortality and readmission when cared for by a female rather than a male physician. These findings require health systems to critically evaluate what compensation plans value and to promote an appropriate balance between quality of care, quantity of care, and style of care.

Although I’ve seen gender pay inequity as blatant as two different salaries for physicians doing the same work – one male and one female – I think this is uncommon. Like many forms of inequity, the outputs are often related to a failed system rather than solely a series of individual failures. Making compensation formulas gender-blind is an important step – but it is only the first step, not the last. Recognizing that the structure of a compensation formula may be biased toward a style of medical practice more likely to be espoused by one gender is necessary as well.

The data, including the findings of this recent study, clearly identify the gender pay gap that exists in medicine, as it does in many other fields, and that it is not explainable solely by differences in specialties, work hours, family status, or title.

To address the inequity, it is imperative that women engage with employers and leaders to both understand and develop skills around effective and appropriate compensation negotiation. Recognizing that compensation plans, especially those built on productivity models, may fail to place adequate value on gender-specific practice styles.

Jennifer Frank is a family physician, physician leader, wife, and mother in Northeast Wisconsin.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

A recent study examined projected career earnings between the genders in a largely community-based physician population, finding a difference of about $2 million in career earnings. That a gender pay gap exists in medicine is not news – but the manner in which this study was done, the investigators’ ability to control for a number of confounding variables, and the size of the study group (over 80,000) are newsworthy.

Some of the key findings include that gender pay gaps start with your first job, and you never close the gap, even as you gain experience and efficiency. Also, the more highly remunerated your specialty, the larger the gap. The gender pay gap joins a growing list of inequities within health care. Although physician compensation is not the most important, given that nearly all physicians are well-paid, and we have much more significant inequities that lead to direct patient harm, the reasons for this discrepancy warrant further consideration.

When I was first being educated about social inequity as part of work in social determinants of health, I made the error of using “inequality” and “inequity” interchangeably. The subtle yet important difference between the two terms was quickly described to me. Inequality is a gastroenterologist getting paid more money to do a colonoscopy than a family physician. Inequity is a female gastroenterologist getting paid less than a male gastroenterologist. Global Health Europe boldly identifies that “inequity is the result of failure.” In looking at the inequity inherent in the gender pay gap, I consider what failed and why.

I’m currently making a major career change, leaving an executive leadership position to return to full-time clinical practice. There is a significant pay decrease that will accompany this change because I am in a primary care specialty. Beyond that, I am considering two employment contracts from different systems to do a similar clinical role.

One of the questions my husband asked was which will pay more over the long run. This is difficult to discern because the compensation formula each health system uses is different, even though they are based on standard national benchmarking data. It is possible that women, in general, are like I am and look for factors other than compensation to make a job decision – assuming, like I do, that it will be close enough to not matter or is generally fair. In fact, while compensation is most certainly a consideration for me, once I determined that it was likely to be in the same ballpark, I stopped comparing. Even as the sole breadwinner in our family, I take this (probably faulty) approach.
 

It’s time to reconsider how we pay physicians

Women may be more likely to gloss over compensation details that men evaluate and negotiate carefully. To change this, women must first take responsibility for being an active, informed, and engaged part of compensation negotiations. In addition, employers who value gender pay equity must negotiate in good faith, keeping in mind the well-described vulnerabilities in discussions about pay. Finally, male and female mentors and leaders should actively coach female physicians on how to approach these conversations with confidence and skill.

In primary care, female physicians spend, on average, about 15% more time with their patients during a visit. Despite spending as much time in clinic seeing patients per week, they see fewer patients, thereby generating less revenue. For compensation plans that are based on productivity, the extra time spent costs money. In this case, it costs the female physicians lost compensation.

The way in which women are more likely to practice medicine, which includes the amount of time they spend with patients, may affect clinical outcomes without directly increasing productivity. A 2017 study demonstrated that elderly patients had lower rates of mortality and readmission when cared for by a female rather than a male physician. These findings require health systems to critically evaluate what compensation plans value and to promote an appropriate balance between quality of care, quantity of care, and style of care.

Although I’ve seen gender pay inequity as blatant as two different salaries for physicians doing the same work – one male and one female – I think this is uncommon. Like many forms of inequity, the outputs are often related to a failed system rather than solely a series of individual failures. Making compensation formulas gender-blind is an important step – but it is only the first step, not the last. Recognizing that the structure of a compensation formula may be biased toward a style of medical practice more likely to be espoused by one gender is necessary as well.

The data, including the findings of this recent study, clearly identify the gender pay gap that exists in medicine, as it does in many other fields, and that it is not explainable solely by differences in specialties, work hours, family status, or title.

To address the inequity, it is imperative that women engage with employers and leaders to both understand and develop skills around effective and appropriate compensation negotiation. Recognizing that compensation plans, especially those built on productivity models, may fail to place adequate value on gender-specific practice styles.

Jennifer Frank is a family physician, physician leader, wife, and mother in Northeast Wisconsin.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

A recent study examined projected career earnings between the genders in a largely community-based physician population, finding a difference of about $2 million in career earnings. That a gender pay gap exists in medicine is not news – but the manner in which this study was done, the investigators’ ability to control for a number of confounding variables, and the size of the study group (over 80,000) are newsworthy.

Some of the key findings include that gender pay gaps start with your first job, and you never close the gap, even as you gain experience and efficiency. Also, the more highly remunerated your specialty, the larger the gap. The gender pay gap joins a growing list of inequities within health care. Although physician compensation is not the most important, given that nearly all physicians are well-paid, and we have much more significant inequities that lead to direct patient harm, the reasons for this discrepancy warrant further consideration.

When I was first being educated about social inequity as part of work in social determinants of health, I made the error of using “inequality” and “inequity” interchangeably. The subtle yet important difference between the two terms was quickly described to me. Inequality is a gastroenterologist getting paid more money to do a colonoscopy than a family physician. Inequity is a female gastroenterologist getting paid less than a male gastroenterologist. Global Health Europe boldly identifies that “inequity is the result of failure.” In looking at the inequity inherent in the gender pay gap, I consider what failed and why.

I’m currently making a major career change, leaving an executive leadership position to return to full-time clinical practice. There is a significant pay decrease that will accompany this change because I am in a primary care specialty. Beyond that, I am considering two employment contracts from different systems to do a similar clinical role.

One of the questions my husband asked was which will pay more over the long run. This is difficult to discern because the compensation formula each health system uses is different, even though they are based on standard national benchmarking data. It is possible that women, in general, are like I am and look for factors other than compensation to make a job decision – assuming, like I do, that it will be close enough to not matter or is generally fair. In fact, while compensation is most certainly a consideration for me, once I determined that it was likely to be in the same ballpark, I stopped comparing. Even as the sole breadwinner in our family, I take this (probably faulty) approach.
 

It’s time to reconsider how we pay physicians

Women may be more likely to gloss over compensation details that men evaluate and negotiate carefully. To change this, women must first take responsibility for being an active, informed, and engaged part of compensation negotiations. In addition, employers who value gender pay equity must negotiate in good faith, keeping in mind the well-described vulnerabilities in discussions about pay. Finally, male and female mentors and leaders should actively coach female physicians on how to approach these conversations with confidence and skill.

In primary care, female physicians spend, on average, about 15% more time with their patients during a visit. Despite spending as much time in clinic seeing patients per week, they see fewer patients, thereby generating less revenue. For compensation plans that are based on productivity, the extra time spent costs money. In this case, it costs the female physicians lost compensation.

The way in which women are more likely to practice medicine, which includes the amount of time they spend with patients, may affect clinical outcomes without directly increasing productivity. A 2017 study demonstrated that elderly patients had lower rates of mortality and readmission when cared for by a female rather than a male physician. These findings require health systems to critically evaluate what compensation plans value and to promote an appropriate balance between quality of care, quantity of care, and style of care.

Although I’ve seen gender pay inequity as blatant as two different salaries for physicians doing the same work – one male and one female – I think this is uncommon. Like many forms of inequity, the outputs are often related to a failed system rather than solely a series of individual failures. Making compensation formulas gender-blind is an important step – but it is only the first step, not the last. Recognizing that the structure of a compensation formula may be biased toward a style of medical practice more likely to be espoused by one gender is necessary as well.

The data, including the findings of this recent study, clearly identify the gender pay gap that exists in medicine, as it does in many other fields, and that it is not explainable solely by differences in specialties, work hours, family status, or title.

To address the inequity, it is imperative that women engage with employers and leaders to both understand and develop skills around effective and appropriate compensation negotiation. Recognizing that compensation plans, especially those built on productivity models, may fail to place adequate value on gender-specific practice styles.

Jennifer Frank is a family physician, physician leader, wife, and mother in Northeast Wisconsin.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

“I might have to close my office,” a colleague wrote me recently. “I can’t find reliable medical assistants; no one good applies. Sad, but oh, well.”

A paucity of good employees is just one of many reasons given by physicians who have decided to close up shop. (See my recent column, “Finding Employees During a Pandemic”).

At this point, you should also begin thinking about disposition of your patients’ records. You can’t just shred them, much as you might be tempted. Your attorney and malpractice carrier will guide you in how long they must be retained; 7-10 years is typical in many states, but it could be longer in yours. Unless you are selling part or all of your practice to another physician, you will have to designate someone else to be the legal custodian of the records and obtain a written custodial agreement from that person or organization.

Once that is arranged, you can notify your patients. Send them a letter or e-mail (or both) informing them of the date that you intend to close the practice. Let them know where their records will be kept, who to contact for a copy, and that their written consent will be required to obtain it. Some states also require that a notice be placed in the local newspaper or online, including the date of closure and how to request records.

This is also the time to inform all your third-party payers, including Medicare and Medicaid if applicable, any hospitals where you have privileges, and referring physicians. Notify any business concerns not notified already, such as utilities and other ancillary services. Your state medical board and the Drug Enforcement Agency will need to know as well. Contact a liquidator or used equipment dealer to arrange for disposal of any office equipment that has resale value. It is also a good time to decide how you will handle patient collections that trickle in after closing, and where mail should be forwarded.

As the closing date approaches, determine how to properly dispose of any medications you have on-hand. Your state may have requirements for disposal of controlled substances, and possibly for noncontrolled pharmaceuticals as well. Check your state’s controlled substances reporting system and other applicable regulators. Once the office is closed, don’t forget to shred any blank prescription pads and dissolve your corporation, if you have one.

Dr. Eastern practices dermatology and dermatologic surgery in Belleville, N.J. He is the author of numerous articles and textbook chapters, and is a longtime monthly columnist for Dermatology News. Write to him at [email protected].

“I might have to close my office,” a colleague wrote me recently. “I can’t find reliable medical assistants; no one good applies. Sad, but oh, well.”

A paucity of good employees is just one of many reasons given by physicians who have decided to close up shop. (See my recent column, “Finding Employees During a Pandemic”).

At this point, you should also begin thinking about disposition of your patients’ records. You can’t just shred them, much as you might be tempted. Your attorney and malpractice carrier will guide you in how long they must be retained; 7-10 years is typical in many states, but it could be longer in yours. Unless you are selling part or all of your practice to another physician, you will have to designate someone else to be the legal custodian of the records and obtain a written custodial agreement from that person or organization.

Once that is arranged, you can notify your patients. Send them a letter or e-mail (or both) informing them of the date that you intend to close the practice. Let them know where their records will be kept, who to contact for a copy, and that their written consent will be required to obtain it. Some states also require that a notice be placed in the local newspaper or online, including the date of closure and how to request records.

This is also the time to inform all your third-party payers, including Medicare and Medicaid if applicable, any hospitals where you have privileges, and referring physicians. Notify any business concerns not notified already, such as utilities and other ancillary services. Your state medical board and the Drug Enforcement Agency will need to know as well. Contact a liquidator or used equipment dealer to arrange for disposal of any office equipment that has resale value. It is also a good time to decide how you will handle patient collections that trickle in after closing, and where mail should be forwarded.

As the closing date approaches, determine how to properly dispose of any medications you have on-hand. Your state may have requirements for disposal of controlled substances, and possibly for noncontrolled pharmaceuticals as well. Check your state’s controlled substances reporting system and other applicable regulators. Once the office is closed, don’t forget to shred any blank prescription pads and dissolve your corporation, if you have one.

Dr. Eastern practices dermatology and dermatologic surgery in Belleville, N.J. He is the author of numerous articles and textbook chapters, and is a longtime monthly columnist for Dermatology News. Write to him at [email protected].

“I might have to close my office,” a colleague wrote me recently. “I can’t find reliable medical assistants; no one good applies. Sad, but oh, well.”

A paucity of good employees is just one of many reasons given by physicians who have decided to close up shop. (See my recent column, “Finding Employees During a Pandemic”).

At this point, you should also begin thinking about disposition of your patients’ records. You can’t just shred them, much as you might be tempted. Your attorney and malpractice carrier will guide you in how long they must be retained; 7-10 years is typical in many states, but it could be longer in yours. Unless you are selling part or all of your practice to another physician, you will have to designate someone else to be the legal custodian of the records and obtain a written custodial agreement from that person or organization.

Once that is arranged, you can notify your patients. Send them a letter or e-mail (or both) informing them of the date that you intend to close the practice. Let them know where their records will be kept, who to contact for a copy, and that their written consent will be required to obtain it. Some states also require that a notice be placed in the local newspaper or online, including the date of closure and how to request records.

This is also the time to inform all your third-party payers, including Medicare and Medicaid if applicable, any hospitals where you have privileges, and referring physicians. Notify any business concerns not notified already, such as utilities and other ancillary services. Your state medical board and the Drug Enforcement Agency will need to know as well. Contact a liquidator or used equipment dealer to arrange for disposal of any office equipment that has resale value. It is also a good time to decide how you will handle patient collections that trickle in after closing, and where mail should be forwarded.

As the closing date approaches, determine how to properly dispose of any medications you have on-hand. Your state may have requirements for disposal of controlled substances, and possibly for noncontrolled pharmaceuticals as well. Check your state’s controlled substances reporting system and other applicable regulators. Once the office is closed, don’t forget to shred any blank prescription pads and dissolve your corporation, if you have one.

Dr. Eastern practices dermatology and dermatologic surgery in Belleville, N.J. He is the author of numerous articles and textbook chapters, and is a longtime monthly columnist for Dermatology News. Write to him at [email protected].

Physician practices around the country took an unprecedented financial hit with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. Recent research from the American Medical Association reveals an estimated pandemic-related shortfall in Medicare physician fee spending of $13.9 billion, or a 14% reduction, across all states and all major specialties in 2020.

While the report pointed to a “strong recovery” in May and June, that recovery stalled in the second half of 2020, and spending never returned to pre–COVID-19 levels.

“Physicians experienced a significant and sustained drop in Medicare revenue during the first 10 months of the pandemic,” said AMA President Gerald Harmon, MD, in a statement. “Medical practices that have not buckled under financial strain continue to be stretched clinically, emotionally, and fiscally as the pandemic persists. Yet physicians face an array of planned cuts that would reduce Medicare physician payments by nearly 10% for 2022.”

The reduction in the Medicare physician fee schedule payments means providers may face payment cuts of more than 9% starting Jan. 1, 2022, when the cuts take effect. That is, unless Congress makes changes.

Medicare physician fee schedule spending on telehealth stood at $4.1 billion, or 5% of the total Medicare spent in 2020. From March 16 to June 30, $1.8 billion of this amount was on telehealth, while $1.1 billion came in during third and fourth quarters of 2020, respectively, per the report.

According to AMA’s research:

• Medicare physician fee schedule spending for 2020, relative to expected 2020 spending, dipped 32% between March 16 and June 30; spending was down during the last 6 months of the year by between 9% and 10%.
• The care settings hit the worst were ambulatory surgical centers, outpatient hospitals, and physician offices; the next worst off were hospital emergency departments, inpatient hospitals, and skilled nursing facilities.
• The specialties that fared worst included physical therapists (-28%), opthamologists (-19%), podiatrists (-18%), and dermatologists (-18%).
• Cumulative spending was down the most in Minnesota (-22%), Maine (-19%), and New York (-19%); less affected states included Idaho (-9%), Oklahoma (-9%), and South Carolina (9%).

AMA: Budget neutrality hurting physicians’ financial stability

Dr. Harmon is calling for financial stability in Medicare spending. In particular, the AMA is “strongly urging Congress to avert the planned payment cuts,” he said in a statement.

The challenge: The Medicare physician fee schedule is currently “budget neutral,” meaning that the budget is fixed, Dr. Harmon, a family medicine specialist in South Carolina, told this news organization.

“If you rob from Peter to pay Paul, Paul is going to be less efficient or less rewarded. It continues to be that there’s always a ‘pay for’ in these things. So budget neutrality is probably one of the first things we need to address,” he said.
 

Lack of routine care expected to affect health outcomes

The result of reduced screening and treatment during the pandemic could be as many as 10,000 excess deaths due to cancers of the breast and colon during the next 10 years, wrote Norman Sharpless, MD, director of the National Cancer Institute, in Science in June. Combined, breast cancer and colon cancer account for one-sixth of all cancers in the U.S., he wrote.

In addition, blood pressure control has gotten worse since the start of the pandemic, said Michael Rakotz, MD, FAHA, FAAFP, vice president of improving health outcomes at the AMA, in an AMA blog post.

Dr. Harmon’s advice for physician practices on getting patients in for routine care:

• Educate the area’s largest employers to encourage their employees.
• Engage with hospital employees, since hospitals are often the largest employers in many communities.
• Partner with health insurers.
• Show up at athletic events, which is a particularly good fit for “small town America,” said Dr. Harmon.

The AMA’s research doesn’t consider reimbursement from other public and private payers. It also doesn’t account for funding sources such as Provider Relief Fund grants, Paycheck Protection Program loans, and the temporary suspension of the Medicare sequester, per the report.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Physician practices around the country took an unprecedented financial hit with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. Recent research from the American Medical Association reveals an estimated pandemic-related shortfall in Medicare physician fee spending of $13.9 billion, or a 14% reduction, across all states and all major specialties in 2020.

While the report pointed to a “strong recovery” in May and June, that recovery stalled in the second half of 2020, and spending never returned to pre–COVID-19 levels.

“Physicians experienced a significant and sustained drop in Medicare revenue during the first 10 months of the pandemic,” said AMA President Gerald Harmon, MD, in a statement. “Medical practices that have not buckled under financial strain continue to be stretched clinically, emotionally, and fiscally as the pandemic persists. Yet physicians face an array of planned cuts that would reduce Medicare physician payments by nearly 10% for 2022.”

The reduction in the Medicare physician fee schedule payments means providers may face payment cuts of more than 9% starting Jan. 1, 2022, when the cuts take effect. That is, unless Congress makes changes.

Medicare physician fee schedule spending on telehealth stood at $4.1 billion, or 5% of the total Medicare spent in 2020. From March 16 to June 30, $1.8 billion of this amount was on telehealth, while $1.1 billion came in during third and fourth quarters of 2020, respectively, per the report.

According to AMA’s research:

• Medicare physician fee schedule spending for 2020, relative to expected 2020 spending, dipped 32% between March 16 and June 30; spending was down during the last 6 months of the year by between 9% and 10%.
• The care settings hit the worst were ambulatory surgical centers, outpatient hospitals, and physician offices; the next worst off were hospital emergency departments, inpatient hospitals, and skilled nursing facilities.
• The specialties that fared worst included physical therapists (-28%), opthamologists (-19%), podiatrists (-18%), and dermatologists (-18%).
• Cumulative spending was down the most in Minnesota (-22%), Maine (-19%), and New York (-19%); less affected states included Idaho (-9%), Oklahoma (-9%), and South Carolina (9%).

AMA: Budget neutrality hurting physicians’ financial stability

Dr. Harmon is calling for financial stability in Medicare spending. In particular, the AMA is “strongly urging Congress to avert the planned payment cuts,” he said in a statement.

The challenge: The Medicare physician fee schedule is currently “budget neutral,” meaning that the budget is fixed, Dr. Harmon, a family medicine specialist in South Carolina, told this news organization.

“If you rob from Peter to pay Paul, Paul is going to be less efficient or less rewarded. It continues to be that there’s always a ‘pay for’ in these things. So budget neutrality is probably one of the first things we need to address,” he said.
 

Lack of routine care expected to affect health outcomes

The result of reduced screening and treatment during the pandemic could be as many as 10,000 excess deaths due to cancers of the breast and colon during the next 10 years, wrote Norman Sharpless, MD, director of the National Cancer Institute, in Science in June. Combined, breast cancer and colon cancer account for one-sixth of all cancers in the U.S., he wrote.

In addition, blood pressure control has gotten worse since the start of the pandemic, said Michael Rakotz, MD, FAHA, FAAFP, vice president of improving health outcomes at the AMA, in an AMA blog post.

Dr. Harmon’s advice for physician practices on getting patients in for routine care:

• Educate the area’s largest employers to encourage their employees.
• Engage with hospital employees, since hospitals are often the largest employers in many communities.
• Partner with health insurers.
• Show up at athletic events, which is a particularly good fit for “small town America,” said Dr. Harmon.

The AMA’s research doesn’t consider reimbursement from other public and private payers. It also doesn’t account for funding sources such as Provider Relief Fund grants, Paycheck Protection Program loans, and the temporary suspension of the Medicare sequester, per the report.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Physician practices around the country took an unprecedented financial hit with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. Recent research from the American Medical Association reveals an estimated pandemic-related shortfall in Medicare physician fee spending of $13.9 billion, or a 14% reduction, across all states and all major specialties in 2020.

While the report pointed to a “strong recovery” in May and June, that recovery stalled in the second half of 2020, and spending never returned to pre–COVID-19 levels.

“Physicians experienced a significant and sustained drop in Medicare revenue during the first 10 months of the pandemic,” said AMA President Gerald Harmon, MD, in a statement. “Medical practices that have not buckled under financial strain continue to be stretched clinically, emotionally, and fiscally as the pandemic persists. Yet physicians face an array of planned cuts that would reduce Medicare physician payments by nearly 10% for 2022.”

The reduction in the Medicare physician fee schedule payments means providers may face payment cuts of more than 9% starting Jan. 1, 2022, when the cuts take effect. That is, unless Congress makes changes.

Medicare physician fee schedule spending on telehealth stood at $4.1 billion, or 5% of the total Medicare spent in 2020. From March 16 to June 30, $1.8 billion of this amount was on telehealth, while $1.1 billion came in during third and fourth quarters of 2020, respectively, per the report.

According to AMA’s research:

• Medicare physician fee schedule spending for 2020, relative to expected 2020 spending, dipped 32% between March 16 and June 30; spending was down during the last 6 months of the year by between 9% and 10%.
• The care settings hit the worst were ambulatory surgical centers, outpatient hospitals, and physician offices; the next worst off were hospital emergency departments, inpatient hospitals, and skilled nursing facilities.
• The specialties that fared worst included physical therapists (-28%), opthamologists (-19%), podiatrists (-18%), and dermatologists (-18%).
• Cumulative spending was down the most in Minnesota (-22%), Maine (-19%), and New York (-19%); less affected states included Idaho (-9%), Oklahoma (-9%), and South Carolina (9%).

AMA: Budget neutrality hurting physicians’ financial stability

Dr. Harmon is calling for financial stability in Medicare spending. In particular, the AMA is “strongly urging Congress to avert the planned payment cuts,” he said in a statement.

The challenge: The Medicare physician fee schedule is currently “budget neutral,” meaning that the budget is fixed, Dr. Harmon, a family medicine specialist in South Carolina, told this news organization.

“If you rob from Peter to pay Paul, Paul is going to be less efficient or less rewarded. It continues to be that there’s always a ‘pay for’ in these things. So budget neutrality is probably one of the first things we need to address,” he said.
 

Lack of routine care expected to affect health outcomes

The result of reduced screening and treatment during the pandemic could be as many as 10,000 excess deaths due to cancers of the breast and colon during the next 10 years, wrote Norman Sharpless, MD, director of the National Cancer Institute, in Science in June. Combined, breast cancer and colon cancer account for one-sixth of all cancers in the U.S., he wrote.

In addition, blood pressure control has gotten worse since the start of the pandemic, said Michael Rakotz, MD, FAHA, FAAFP, vice president of improving health outcomes at the AMA, in an AMA blog post.

Dr. Harmon’s advice for physician practices on getting patients in for routine care:

• Educate the area’s largest employers to encourage their employees.
• Engage with hospital employees, since hospitals are often the largest employers in many communities.
• Partner with health insurers.
• Show up at athletic events, which is a particularly good fit for “small town America,” said Dr. Harmon.

The AMA’s research doesn’t consider reimbursement from other public and private payers. It also doesn’t account for funding sources such as Provider Relief Fund grants, Paycheck Protection Program loans, and the temporary suspension of the Medicare sequester, per the report.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Women whose ovaries were surgically removed before the age of 46 had a higher risk of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) around 30 years later, compared with those who did not undergo bilateral oophorectomy, according to a population-based linkage study published in JAMA Network Open.

The findings suggest that “physicians treating women with premenopausal bilateral oophorectomy need to be aware of their patients’ risk of cognitive impairment or MCI and should consider implementing treatment-monitoring plans,” noted lead author Walter A. Rocca, MD, MPH, from the division of epidemiology, department of quantitative health sciences, at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. and colleagues.

The results may particularly “help women at mean risk levels of ovarian cancer to better evaluate the risk-to-benefit ratio of undergoing bilateral oophorectomy prior to spontaneous menopause for the prevention of ovarian cancer,” they emphasized.

While the link between premenopausal bilateral oophorectomy and higher risk of cognitive impairment has been previously suggested, this new study “contributes valuable new data to a major public health importance issue and addresses a number of important shortcomings of existing literature,” Marios K. Georgakis, MD, PhD, and Eleni T. Petridou, MD, PhD, noted in an accompanying commentary.

“As bilateral oophorectomy is still a common procedure at least in well-resourced countries, the results of these studies should alert clinicians about its potential public health consequences. Given that the abrupt cessation of ovarian hormones might be accompanied by previously underestimated long-term adverse effects, treating physicians proposing the operation should weigh its benefits against potential long-term harmful effects, especially among women without an absolute indication,” noted Dr. Georgakis and Dr. Petridou, respectively from the Center for Genomic Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.

The case-control cross-sectional study used data from the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging (MCSA), a prospective, population-based study examining risk factors for, as well as prevalence and incidence of cognitive decline and MCI among a representative sample of women in Olmsted County, Minn. It included 2,732 women aged 50-89 years who participated in the MCSA study from 2004 to 2019 and underwent a clinical evaluation and comprehensive cognitive testing including nine tests covering four cognitive domains. Almost all of the subjects (98.4%) were White. The mean age of cognitive evaluation was 74 years – at which time 283 women (10.4%) were diagnosed with MCI (197 with amnestic and 86 with nonamnestic MCI). Data from the Rochester Epidemiology Project medical record–linkage system showed a total of 625 women (22.9%) had a history of bilateral oophorectomy. Among this group, 161 women underwent the procedure both before age 46, and before menopause, with 46 (28.6%) receiving oral conjugated equine estrogen (unopposed) and the remaining 95 (59.0%) receiving no estrogen therapy.

The study found that, compared with women who did not undergo bilateral oophorectomy, those who did so before age 46, but not after this age, had statistically significantly increased odds of MCI (adjusted odds ratio, 2.21; P < .001). When type of MCI was examined, the risk was statistically significant for nonamnestic MCI (aOR, 2.96; P < .001), and amnestic (aOR, 1.87; P =.03). The study also found no evidence that estrogen therapy was associated with decreased risk of MCI among women aged less than 46 years, with an aOR of 2.56 in those who received estrogen therapy and 2.05 in those who did not (P = .01 for both).

Finally, in women who had bilateral oophorectomy before menopause and before age 50, surgical indication for the procedure affected the association with MCI. Indications of either cancer or “no ovarian condition” (i.e., performed at the time of hysterectomy) were associated with no increased risk, whereas there was a statistically significantly increased risk associated with benign indications such as an adnexal mass, cyst or endometriosis (aOR, 2.43; P = .003). “This is important,” noted the commentators, “because in many of those cases removal of both ovaries could be avoided.”

The study also found that, compared with women who had not undergone bilateral oophorectomy, those who had also had increased frequency of cardiovascular risk factors, heart disease, and stroke at the time of their cognitive evaluation. “Additional research is needed to clarify the biological explanation of the association,” the investigators said.

The prevailing hypothesis for why premenopausal bilateral oophorectomy is associated with cognitive decline “is that the abrupt endocrine cessation of exposure to ovarian hormones accelerates the aging process,” the commentators noted. “Most important from a clinical perspective is whether these women would benefit from specific hormone replacement therapy schemes. Observational studies cannot reliably answer this question, and possibly it is time to rethink designing trials in specific groups of women who underwent bilateral oophorectomy before 46 years of age starting treatment immediately thereafter.”

In an interview Dr. Georgakis elaborated on this point, saying that, while the Women’s Health Study clearly showed no benefit of hormone replacement therapy for preventing dementia, it recruited women who were aged 65 years or older and had therefore undergone menopause more than 10-15 years earlier. “A hypothesis suggests that a critical vulnerability window exists shortly after menopause during which hormone replacement therapy might be needed to ameliorate any elevated risk,” he said. “Thus, it might make sense to reconsider a trial focused on this group of premenopausal women, who need to undergo oophorectomy at a young age (<46 years). Early initiation would be important. Unfortunately, such a trial would be difficult to conduct, because these women would need to be followed up for very long periods, as cognitive decline usually does not occur before the age of 65.”

Asked to comment on the study, Meadow Good, DO, an ob.gyn., female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgeon, and physician adviser for Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women & Babies in Orlando, said this study adds credibility to previous studies showing the cognitive risk associated with premenopausal bilateral oophorectomy. “The literature is now pointing to a need to refrain from elective bilateral oophorectomy in women less than 60,” she said in an interview. “It should not be common that a women receives a bilateral oophorectomy before 60 for benign reasons.”

She added that cognition is not the only think at stake. “Bilateral oophorectomy before the age of 60 has a higher risk of incident heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and total cancers,” she said, citing a prospective cohort study within the Nurses’ Health Study.

Dr. Rocca reported financial support from the Mayo Clinic Research Committee during the conduct of the study. One coauthor reported unrestricted grants from Biogen and consulting fees from Brain Protection outside the submitted work. No other disclosures were reported from the authors. Dr. Georgakis, Dr. Petridou, and Dr. Good reported no conflicts of interest. The study was funded by the National Institute on Aging. It also used resources of the Rochester Epidemiology Project medical record–linkage system, which is supported by the NIA, the Mayo Clinic Research Committee, and user fees. Dr. Rocca was partly funded by the Ralph S. and Beverley E. Caulkins Professorship of Neurodegenerative Diseases Research of the Mayo Clinic.

Women whose ovaries were surgically removed before the age of 46 had a higher risk of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) around 30 years later, compared with those who did not undergo bilateral oophorectomy, according to a population-based linkage study published in JAMA Network Open.

The findings suggest that “physicians treating women with premenopausal bilateral oophorectomy need to be aware of their patients’ risk of cognitive impairment or MCI and should consider implementing treatment-monitoring plans,” noted lead author Walter A. Rocca, MD, MPH, from the division of epidemiology, department of quantitative health sciences, at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. and colleagues.

The results may particularly “help women at mean risk levels of ovarian cancer to better evaluate the risk-to-benefit ratio of undergoing bilateral oophorectomy prior to spontaneous menopause for the prevention of ovarian cancer,” they emphasized.

While the link between premenopausal bilateral oophorectomy and higher risk of cognitive impairment has been previously suggested, this new study “contributes valuable new data to a major public health importance issue and addresses a number of important shortcomings of existing literature,” Marios K. Georgakis, MD, PhD, and Eleni T. Petridou, MD, PhD, noted in an accompanying commentary.

“As bilateral oophorectomy is still a common procedure at least in well-resourced countries, the results of these studies should alert clinicians about its potential public health consequences. Given that the abrupt cessation of ovarian hormones might be accompanied by previously underestimated long-term adverse effects, treating physicians proposing the operation should weigh its benefits against potential long-term harmful effects, especially among women without an absolute indication,” noted Dr. Georgakis and Dr. Petridou, respectively from the Center for Genomic Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.

The case-control cross-sectional study used data from the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging (MCSA), a prospective, population-based study examining risk factors for, as well as prevalence and incidence of cognitive decline and MCI among a representative sample of women in Olmsted County, Minn. It included 2,732 women aged 50-89 years who participated in the MCSA study from 2004 to 2019 and underwent a clinical evaluation and comprehensive cognitive testing including nine tests covering four cognitive domains. Almost all of the subjects (98.4%) were White. The mean age of cognitive evaluation was 74 years – at which time 283 women (10.4%) were diagnosed with MCI (197 with amnestic and 86 with nonamnestic MCI). Data from the Rochester Epidemiology Project medical record–linkage system showed a total of 625 women (22.9%) had a history of bilateral oophorectomy. Among this group, 161 women underwent the procedure both before age 46, and before menopause, with 46 (28.6%) receiving oral conjugated equine estrogen (unopposed) and the remaining 95 (59.0%) receiving no estrogen therapy.

The study found that, compared with women who did not undergo bilateral oophorectomy, those who did so before age 46, but not after this age, had statistically significantly increased odds of MCI (adjusted odds ratio, 2.21; P < .001). When type of MCI was examined, the risk was statistically significant for nonamnestic MCI (aOR, 2.96; P < .001), and amnestic (aOR, 1.87; P =.03). The study also found no evidence that estrogen therapy was associated with decreased risk of MCI among women aged less than 46 years, with an aOR of 2.56 in those who received estrogen therapy and 2.05 in those who did not (P = .01 for both).

Finally, in women who had bilateral oophorectomy before menopause and before age 50, surgical indication for the procedure affected the association with MCI. Indications of either cancer or “no ovarian condition” (i.e., performed at the time of hysterectomy) were associated with no increased risk, whereas there was a statistically significantly increased risk associated with benign indications such as an adnexal mass, cyst or endometriosis (aOR, 2.43; P = .003). “This is important,” noted the commentators, “because in many of those cases removal of both ovaries could be avoided.”

The study also found that, compared with women who had not undergone bilateral oophorectomy, those who had also had increased frequency of cardiovascular risk factors, heart disease, and stroke at the time of their cognitive evaluation. “Additional research is needed to clarify the biological explanation of the association,” the investigators said.

The prevailing hypothesis for why premenopausal bilateral oophorectomy is associated with cognitive decline “is that the abrupt endocrine cessation of exposure to ovarian hormones accelerates the aging process,” the commentators noted. “Most important from a clinical perspective is whether these women would benefit from specific hormone replacement therapy schemes. Observational studies cannot reliably answer this question, and possibly it is time to rethink designing trials in specific groups of women who underwent bilateral oophorectomy before 46 years of age starting treatment immediately thereafter.”

In an interview Dr. Georgakis elaborated on this point, saying that, while the Women’s Health Study clearly showed no benefit of hormone replacement therapy for preventing dementia, it recruited women who were aged 65 years or older and had therefore undergone menopause more than 10-15 years earlier. “A hypothesis suggests that a critical vulnerability window exists shortly after menopause during which hormone replacement therapy might be needed to ameliorate any elevated risk,” he said. “Thus, it might make sense to reconsider a trial focused on this group of premenopausal women, who need to undergo oophorectomy at a young age (<46 years). Early initiation would be important. Unfortunately, such a trial would be difficult to conduct, because these women would need to be followed up for very long periods, as cognitive decline usually does not occur before the age of 65.”

Asked to comment on the study, Meadow Good, DO, an ob.gyn., female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgeon, and physician adviser for Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women & Babies in Orlando, said this study adds credibility to previous studies showing the cognitive risk associated with premenopausal bilateral oophorectomy. “The literature is now pointing to a need to refrain from elective bilateral oophorectomy in women less than 60,” she said in an interview. “It should not be common that a women receives a bilateral oophorectomy before 60 for benign reasons.”

She added that cognition is not the only think at stake. “Bilateral oophorectomy before the age of 60 has a higher risk of incident heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and total cancers,” she said, citing a prospective cohort study within the Nurses’ Health Study.

Dr. Rocca reported financial support from the Mayo Clinic Research Committee during the conduct of the study. One coauthor reported unrestricted grants from Biogen and consulting fees from Brain Protection outside the submitted work. No other disclosures were reported from the authors. Dr. Georgakis, Dr. Petridou, and Dr. Good reported no conflicts of interest. The study was funded by the National Institute on Aging. It also used resources of the Rochester Epidemiology Project medical record–linkage system, which is supported by the NIA, the Mayo Clinic Research Committee, and user fees. Dr. Rocca was partly funded by the Ralph S. and Beverley E. Caulkins Professorship of Neurodegenerative Diseases Research of the Mayo Clinic.

Women whose ovaries were surgically removed before the age of 46 had a higher risk of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) around 30 years later, compared with those who did not undergo bilateral oophorectomy, according to a population-based linkage study published in JAMA Network Open.

The findings suggest that “physicians treating women with premenopausal bilateral oophorectomy need to be aware of their patients’ risk of cognitive impairment or MCI and should consider implementing treatment-monitoring plans,” noted lead author Walter A. Rocca, MD, MPH, from the division of epidemiology, department of quantitative health sciences, at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. and colleagues.

The results may particularly “help women at mean risk levels of ovarian cancer to better evaluate the risk-to-benefit ratio of undergoing bilateral oophorectomy prior to spontaneous menopause for the prevention of ovarian cancer,” they emphasized.

While the link between premenopausal bilateral oophorectomy and higher risk of cognitive impairment has been previously suggested, this new study “contributes valuable new data to a major public health importance issue and addresses a number of important shortcomings of existing literature,” Marios K. Georgakis, MD, PhD, and Eleni T. Petridou, MD, PhD, noted in an accompanying commentary.

“As bilateral oophorectomy is still a common procedure at least in well-resourced countries, the results of these studies should alert clinicians about its potential public health consequences. Given that the abrupt cessation of ovarian hormones might be accompanied by previously underestimated long-term adverse effects, treating physicians proposing the operation should weigh its benefits against potential long-term harmful effects, especially among women without an absolute indication,” noted Dr. Georgakis and Dr. Petridou, respectively from the Center for Genomic Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.

The case-control cross-sectional study used data from the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging (MCSA), a prospective, population-based study examining risk factors for, as well as prevalence and incidence of cognitive decline and MCI among a representative sample of women in Olmsted County, Minn. It included 2,732 women aged 50-89 years who participated in the MCSA study from 2004 to 2019 and underwent a clinical evaluation and comprehensive cognitive testing including nine tests covering four cognitive domains. Almost all of the subjects (98.4%) were White. The mean age of cognitive evaluation was 74 years – at which time 283 women (10.4%) were diagnosed with MCI (197 with amnestic and 86 with nonamnestic MCI). Data from the Rochester Epidemiology Project medical record–linkage system showed a total of 625 women (22.9%) had a history of bilateral oophorectomy. Among this group, 161 women underwent the procedure both before age 46, and before menopause, with 46 (28.6%) receiving oral conjugated equine estrogen (unopposed) and the remaining 95 (59.0%) receiving no estrogen therapy.

The study found that, compared with women who did not undergo bilateral oophorectomy, those who did so before age 46, but not after this age, had statistically significantly increased odds of MCI (adjusted odds ratio, 2.21; P < .001). When type of MCI was examined, the risk was statistically significant for nonamnestic MCI (aOR, 2.96; P < .001), and amnestic (aOR, 1.87; P =.03). The study also found no evidence that estrogen therapy was associated with decreased risk of MCI among women aged less than 46 years, with an aOR of 2.56 in those who received estrogen therapy and 2.05 in those who did not (P = .01 for both).

Finally, in women who had bilateral oophorectomy before menopause and before age 50, surgical indication for the procedure affected the association with MCI. Indications of either cancer or “no ovarian condition” (i.e., performed at the time of hysterectomy) were associated with no increased risk, whereas there was a statistically significantly increased risk associated with benign indications such as an adnexal mass, cyst or endometriosis (aOR, 2.43; P = .003). “This is important,” noted the commentators, “because in many of those cases removal of both ovaries could be avoided.”

The study also found that, compared with women who had not undergone bilateral oophorectomy, those who had also had increased frequency of cardiovascular risk factors, heart disease, and stroke at the time of their cognitive evaluation. “Additional research is needed to clarify the biological explanation of the association,” the investigators said.

The prevailing hypothesis for why premenopausal bilateral oophorectomy is associated with cognitive decline “is that the abrupt endocrine cessation of exposure to ovarian hormones accelerates the aging process,” the commentators noted. “Most important from a clinical perspective is whether these women would benefit from specific hormone replacement therapy schemes. Observational studies cannot reliably answer this question, and possibly it is time to rethink designing trials in specific groups of women who underwent bilateral oophorectomy before 46 years of age starting treatment immediately thereafter.”

In an interview Dr. Georgakis elaborated on this point, saying that, while the Women’s Health Study clearly showed no benefit of hormone replacement therapy for preventing dementia, it recruited women who were aged 65 years or older and had therefore undergone menopause more than 10-15 years earlier. “A hypothesis suggests that a critical vulnerability window exists shortly after menopause during which hormone replacement therapy might be needed to ameliorate any elevated risk,” he said. “Thus, it might make sense to reconsider a trial focused on this group of premenopausal women, who need to undergo oophorectomy at a young age (<46 years). Early initiation would be important. Unfortunately, such a trial would be difficult to conduct, because these women would need to be followed up for very long periods, as cognitive decline usually does not occur before the age of 65.”

Asked to comment on the study, Meadow Good, DO, an ob.gyn., female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgeon, and physician adviser for Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women & Babies in Orlando, said this study adds credibility to previous studies showing the cognitive risk associated with premenopausal bilateral oophorectomy. “The literature is now pointing to a need to refrain from elective bilateral oophorectomy in women less than 60,” she said in an interview. “It should not be common that a women receives a bilateral oophorectomy before 60 for benign reasons.”

She added that cognition is not the only think at stake. “Bilateral oophorectomy before the age of 60 has a higher risk of incident heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and total cancers,” she said, citing a prospective cohort study within the Nurses’ Health Study.

Dr. Rocca reported financial support from the Mayo Clinic Research Committee during the conduct of the study. One coauthor reported unrestricted grants from Biogen and consulting fees from Brain Protection outside the submitted work. No other disclosures were reported from the authors. Dr. Georgakis, Dr. Petridou, and Dr. Good reported no conflicts of interest. The study was funded by the National Institute on Aging. It also used resources of the Rochester Epidemiology Project medical record–linkage system, which is supported by the NIA, the Mayo Clinic Research Committee, and user fees. Dr. Rocca was partly funded by the Ralph S. and Beverley E. Caulkins Professorship of Neurodegenerative Diseases Research of the Mayo Clinic.

When parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) participating in the largest clinical trial of intranasal oxytocin to date came in for follow-up visits with investigators, they reported marked improvement in the children’s social functioning.

Kids who rarely communicated with their families began to interact more. Those who usually preferred to isolate themselves started joining their parents for meals. It all seemed so promising – until the data came in.

“Those sounded like real improvements to me, and it seemed like they increased over the period of the study,” lead investigator Linmarie Sikich, MD, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry with Duke University School of Medicine and the Duke Center for Autism and Brain Development, Durham, N.C., told this news organization. “Turns out it wasn’t oxytocin that was making that difference.”

Researchers found that after 24 weeks of daily treatment with intranasal oxytocin, there were no significant differences in social functioning between children who received active treatment and those in the placebo group.

The much-anticipated results were published online in The New England Journal of Medicine. To say that they are disappointing, Dr. Sikich said, is an understatement.
 

Increase in off-label use

Most studies in mouse models of ASD and small trials in children produced conflicting results, although there were modest improvements in social functioning associated with the use of intranasal oxytocin. Some clinicians were already prescribing it off label.

On the basis of this research and early feedback from parents of children, Dr. Sikich and colleagues were hopeful.

However, results from a rigorous, 5-year, $11.4 million randomized trial were negative. Yet, parents were convinced their child improved during the study, and there was a significant increase in off-label prescribing of a treatment her research says doesn’t work. What’s next for oxytocin?

Known as the “love hormone,” oxytocin is a neurotransmitter that is primarily synthesized in the hypothalamus. It plays a role in childbirth and lactation and is also involved in the regulation of social functioning and emotions. Research suggests low oxytocin levels are associated with diminished social functioning, regardless of ASD status.

Its potential as an autism therapy for children has been under study for a decade. Some findings link its use to improvements in core deficits associated with ASD, including repetitive behaviors, fixated or restricted interest, and social communication. A study published in 2020 showed that the treatment improved symptoms in high-functioning adults with ASD.

These were mostly small studies and were underpowered to reliably detect an effect of the therapy on social functioning. They often involved only a single dose of oxytocin. Some studies showed improvements, but others did not.

Still, interest in the treatment grew. Physicians began prescribing it for children with ASD, and parents began buying products containing oxytocin on the internet. Researchers feared this off-label use was becoming widespread, despite inconclusive evidence of efficacy.
 

High hopes

With support from a National Institutes of Health grant, Dr. Sikich and her team designed a phase 2, multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study to determine whether the use of oxytocin in children with ASD works and is safe.

The challenges began before they even enrolled a single child. A number of behavioral assessment tools are used to measure social function in ASD, but there is no consensus on which one is best.

A simple blood test could determine how much oxytocin from the nasal spray was absorbed in the blood, but identifying how much made it to the brain would require fMRI, which is expensive and is challenging to use in this study population. Then there was the acquisition of the drug itself.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved intravenous oxytocin for inducing labor. Intranasal oxytocin is not approved for any indication and isn’t available commercially in the United States. Patients or researchers must secure the drug from a manufacturer in a country where it is approved or order it from a U.S. pharmacy that is capable of compounding IV oxytocin into an intranasal formulation.

The pharmacy in Switzerland Dr. Sikich planned to use couldn’t make enough for the study. Contracting with a compounding pharmacy in the United States was significantly more expensive and time consuming, but it was the researchers’ only option.

“If it hadn’t been something we expected to have a major benefit, I think we would have given up the project at multiple points along the line due to all of these challenges,” said Dr. Sikich.

In August 2014, with all the pieces finally in place, researchers began enrolling children aged 3-17 years. The final cohort included 290 participants with ASD, 146 in the oxytocin group and 144 in the placebo group. Of these, 48% had minimal verbal fluency, and 52% had fluent verbal speech.

Participants received daily synthetic oxytocin or placebo via a nasal spray for 24 weeks. The daily oxytocin dose was 48 IU for the first 7 weeks. After that, the dosage could be titrated to a maximum of 80 IU/d. The mean maximal total daily dose of oxytocin throughout the study was 67.6 ± 16.9 IU.
 

‘It just didn’t work’

Both study groups showed improvement in social withdrawal beginning at 4 weeks and continuing throughout the trial, as determined on the basis of caretakers’ responses on the Aberrant Behavior Checklist Modified Social Withdrawal Subscale, the study’s primary outcome measure.

Sociability and social motivation also improved in both groups, as measured by the Pervasive Developmental Disorders Behavior Inventory and the Social Responsiveness Scale.

But by the end of the trial, the difference between the groups in improvement of social function wasn’t significant (difference, -0.2 points; P = .61) after adjusting for age, verbal fluency, and baseline oxytocin level.

“We were so convinced that it would work,” Dr. Sikich said, “but it just didn’t.”

From observation, parents were also convinced the therapy was working. At the trial’s conclusion, fewer than half of caregivers correctly guessed whether their child was in the treatment group or the placebo group.

A lot of development changes can happen in a child over 6 months. It’s possible the improvements would have occurred regardless of the trial, Dr. Sikich said. Parents’ perceptions could also be a placebo effect. Their child was in a clinical trial of a drug they believed could improve social functioning, so in their mind, it did.

Caregivers received training in how to identify certain behavioral changes, which may have helped them spot an existing positive change they had previously overlooked. Or they may have worked with their child more intently as a result of their participation in the trial.

“People may start doing more things or doing them more intensively or purposefully, consciously or subconsciously, to try to help their child improve the skills or behaviors targeted by the active therapy in the study,” Dr. Sikich said. “These are things that might really help the child move forward which are completely separate from the medication being studied.”

The safety analysis offered more hopeful results. Only one serious adverse event from the treatment was reported: A 17-year-old participant taking a daily dose of 48 IU experienced a sedating effect while driving and had an accident.
 

Too soon to walk away?

Perhaps the most important take-away from the study is that even if it’s safe, intranasal oxytocin as it is currently used doesn’t work and clinicians shouldn’t prescribe it, said Daniel Geschwind, MD, PhD, director of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Center for Autism Research, who penned a commentary on the study and discussed the findings with this news organization.

“This study shows that using oxytocin the way it’s used in the community right now is not helping anybody, so why put a child through that?” added Dr. Geschwind, who also is a professor of genetics, neurology, and psychiatry at UCLA.

The trial highlights areas that need to be addressed in order to improve research in the field, he said. Establishing a consensus process to measure social functioning and figuring out a better way to access intranasal oxytocin would lead to studies that are more conclusive, comparable, and less expensive. Dr. Sikich agrees.

Despite the findings, Dr. Geschwind and other autism researchers say it’s too soon to walk away from oxytocin altogether, although it may be time to change the approach to autism research.

“We have to take a page from the playbook of modern medicine in other areas and begin to recognize that these syndromes are incredibly heterogeneous,” Dr. Geschwind says. “We can surmise, although we don’t know, that there might be different biological forms of autism that have different pathways involved that are going to respond differently to different medications.”

Calling the researchers’ efforts “heroic,” Karen Parker, PhD, an associate professor and associate chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford (Calif.) University, says efficacy trials such as this one are critical. However, Dr. Parker said in an interview, there are a number of questions that the study didn’t address.

The majority of medication dispensed in a standard intranasal device is sprayed into the back of the throat. Regular blood tests confirmed that oxytocin was getting into participants’ system, but, given how quickly oxytocin degrades in the blood, Dr. Parker said it’s hard to know just how much reached the brain.

It’s also unclear whether the results would have been different had the treatment been paired with behavioral therapy, an approach Dr. Parker suggests might benefit a subset of children with ASD.

A 2017 study from Dr. Parker’s lab found that children with ASD whose use of oxytocin at baseline was low derived greater benefit from synthetic oxytocin, something the new study failed to find. Still, Dr. Parker said, it’s possible oxytocin might increase social motivation and increase a child’s receptiveness to behavioral therapy.

“When you see a negative trial like this, it decreases enthusiasm for the therapy for autism in this context,” Dr. Parker said. “I hope people who are studying these syndromes will continue to explore oxytocin as a therapy.”

The study was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development through the Autism Centers of Excellence Program and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University. Full disclosures of the authors’ possible conflicts of interest are available online.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

When parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) participating in the largest clinical trial of intranasal oxytocin to date came in for follow-up visits with investigators, they reported marked improvement in the children’s social functioning.

Kids who rarely communicated with their families began to interact more. Those who usually preferred to isolate themselves started joining their parents for meals. It all seemed so promising – until the data came in.

“Those sounded like real improvements to me, and it seemed like they increased over the period of the study,” lead investigator Linmarie Sikich, MD, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry with Duke University School of Medicine and the Duke Center for Autism and Brain Development, Durham, N.C., told this news organization. “Turns out it wasn’t oxytocin that was making that difference.”

Researchers found that after 24 weeks of daily treatment with intranasal oxytocin, there were no significant differences in social functioning between children who received active treatment and those in the placebo group.

The much-anticipated results were published online in The New England Journal of Medicine. To say that they are disappointing, Dr. Sikich said, is an understatement.
 

Increase in off-label use

Most studies in mouse models of ASD and small trials in children produced conflicting results, although there were modest improvements in social functioning associated with the use of intranasal oxytocin. Some clinicians were already prescribing it off label.

On the basis of this research and early feedback from parents of children, Dr. Sikich and colleagues were hopeful.

However, results from a rigorous, 5-year, $11.4 million randomized trial were negative. Yet, parents were convinced their child improved during the study, and there was a significant increase in off-label prescribing of a treatment her research says doesn’t work. What’s next for oxytocin?

Known as the “love hormone,” oxytocin is a neurotransmitter that is primarily synthesized in the hypothalamus. It plays a role in childbirth and lactation and is also involved in the regulation of social functioning and emotions. Research suggests low oxytocin levels are associated with diminished social functioning, regardless of ASD status.

Its potential as an autism therapy for children has been under study for a decade. Some findings link its use to improvements in core deficits associated with ASD, including repetitive behaviors, fixated or restricted interest, and social communication. A study published in 2020 showed that the treatment improved symptoms in high-functioning adults with ASD.

These were mostly small studies and were underpowered to reliably detect an effect of the therapy on social functioning. They often involved only a single dose of oxytocin. Some studies showed improvements, but others did not.

Still, interest in the treatment grew. Physicians began prescribing it for children with ASD, and parents began buying products containing oxytocin on the internet. Researchers feared this off-label use was becoming widespread, despite inconclusive evidence of efficacy.
 

High hopes

With support from a National Institutes of Health grant, Dr. Sikich and her team designed a phase 2, multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study to determine whether the use of oxytocin in children with ASD works and is safe.

The challenges began before they even enrolled a single child. A number of behavioral assessment tools are used to measure social function in ASD, but there is no consensus on which one is best.

A simple blood test could determine how much oxytocin from the nasal spray was absorbed in the blood, but identifying how much made it to the brain would require fMRI, which is expensive and is challenging to use in this study population. Then there was the acquisition of the drug itself.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved intravenous oxytocin for inducing labor. Intranasal oxytocin is not approved for any indication and isn’t available commercially in the United States. Patients or researchers must secure the drug from a manufacturer in a country where it is approved or order it from a U.S. pharmacy that is capable of compounding IV oxytocin into an intranasal formulation.

The pharmacy in Switzerland Dr. Sikich planned to use couldn’t make enough for the study. Contracting with a compounding pharmacy in the United States was significantly more expensive and time consuming, but it was the researchers’ only option.

“If it hadn’t been something we expected to have a major benefit, I think we would have given up the project at multiple points along the line due to all of these challenges,” said Dr. Sikich.

In August 2014, with all the pieces finally in place, researchers began enrolling children aged 3-17 years. The final cohort included 290 participants with ASD, 146 in the oxytocin group and 144 in the placebo group. Of these, 48% had minimal verbal fluency, and 52% had fluent verbal speech.

Participants received daily synthetic oxytocin or placebo via a nasal spray for 24 weeks. The daily oxytocin dose was 48 IU for the first 7 weeks. After that, the dosage could be titrated to a maximum of 80 IU/d. The mean maximal total daily dose of oxytocin throughout the study was 67.6 ± 16.9 IU.
 

‘It just didn’t work’

Both study groups showed improvement in social withdrawal beginning at 4 weeks and continuing throughout the trial, as determined on the basis of caretakers’ responses on the Aberrant Behavior Checklist Modified Social Withdrawal Subscale, the study’s primary outcome measure.

Sociability and social motivation also improved in both groups, as measured by the Pervasive Developmental Disorders Behavior Inventory and the Social Responsiveness Scale.

But by the end of the trial, the difference between the groups in improvement of social function wasn’t significant (difference, -0.2 points; P = .61) after adjusting for age, verbal fluency, and baseline oxytocin level.

“We were so convinced that it would work,” Dr. Sikich said, “but it just didn’t.”

From observation, parents were also convinced the therapy was working. At the trial’s conclusion, fewer than half of caregivers correctly guessed whether their child was in the treatment group or the placebo group.

A lot of development changes can happen in a child over 6 months. It’s possible the improvements would have occurred regardless of the trial, Dr. Sikich said. Parents’ perceptions could also be a placebo effect. Their child was in a clinical trial of a drug they believed could improve social functioning, so in their mind, it did.

Caregivers received training in how to identify certain behavioral changes, which may have helped them spot an existing positive change they had previously overlooked. Or they may have worked with their child more intently as a result of their participation in the trial.

“People may start doing more things or doing them more intensively or purposefully, consciously or subconsciously, to try to help their child improve the skills or behaviors targeted by the active therapy in the study,” Dr. Sikich said. “These are things that might really help the child move forward which are completely separate from the medication being studied.”

The safety analysis offered more hopeful results. Only one serious adverse event from the treatment was reported: A 17-year-old participant taking a daily dose of 48 IU experienced a sedating effect while driving and had an accident.
 

Too soon to walk away?

Perhaps the most important take-away from the study is that even if it’s safe, intranasal oxytocin as it is currently used doesn’t work and clinicians shouldn’t prescribe it, said Daniel Geschwind, MD, PhD, director of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Center for Autism Research, who penned a commentary on the study and discussed the findings with this news organization.

“This study shows that using oxytocin the way it’s used in the community right now is not helping anybody, so why put a child through that?” added Dr. Geschwind, who also is a professor of genetics, neurology, and psychiatry at UCLA.

The trial highlights areas that need to be addressed in order to improve research in the field, he said. Establishing a consensus process to measure social functioning and figuring out a better way to access intranasal oxytocin would lead to studies that are more conclusive, comparable, and less expensive. Dr. Sikich agrees.

Despite the findings, Dr. Geschwind and other autism researchers say it’s too soon to walk away from oxytocin altogether, although it may be time to change the approach to autism research.

“We have to take a page from the playbook of modern medicine in other areas and begin to recognize that these syndromes are incredibly heterogeneous,” Dr. Geschwind says. “We can surmise, although we don’t know, that there might be different biological forms of autism that have different pathways involved that are going to respond differently to different medications.”

Calling the researchers’ efforts “heroic,” Karen Parker, PhD, an associate professor and associate chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford (Calif.) University, says efficacy trials such as this one are critical. However, Dr. Parker said in an interview, there are a number of questions that the study didn’t address.

The majority of medication dispensed in a standard intranasal device is sprayed into the back of the throat. Regular blood tests confirmed that oxytocin was getting into participants’ system, but, given how quickly oxytocin degrades in the blood, Dr. Parker said it’s hard to know just how much reached the brain.

It’s also unclear whether the results would have been different had the treatment been paired with behavioral therapy, an approach Dr. Parker suggests might benefit a subset of children with ASD.

A 2017 study from Dr. Parker’s lab found that children with ASD whose use of oxytocin at baseline was low derived greater benefit from synthetic oxytocin, something the new study failed to find. Still, Dr. Parker said, it’s possible oxytocin might increase social motivation and increase a child’s receptiveness to behavioral therapy.

“When you see a negative trial like this, it decreases enthusiasm for the therapy for autism in this context,” Dr. Parker said. “I hope people who are studying these syndromes will continue to explore oxytocin as a therapy.”

The study was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development through the Autism Centers of Excellence Program and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University. Full disclosures of the authors’ possible conflicts of interest are available online.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

When parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) participating in the largest clinical trial of intranasal oxytocin to date came in for follow-up visits with investigators, they reported marked improvement in the children’s social functioning.

Kids who rarely communicated with their families began to interact more. Those who usually preferred to isolate themselves started joining their parents for meals. It all seemed so promising – until the data came in.

“Those sounded like real improvements to me, and it seemed like they increased over the period of the study,” lead investigator Linmarie Sikich, MD, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry with Duke University School of Medicine and the Duke Center for Autism and Brain Development, Durham, N.C., told this news organization. “Turns out it wasn’t oxytocin that was making that difference.”

Researchers found that after 24 weeks of daily treatment with intranasal oxytocin, there were no significant differences in social functioning between children who received active treatment and those in the placebo group.

The much-anticipated results were published online in The New England Journal of Medicine. To say that they are disappointing, Dr. Sikich said, is an understatement.
 

Increase in off-label use

Most studies in mouse models of ASD and small trials in children produced conflicting results, although there were modest improvements in social functioning associated with the use of intranasal oxytocin. Some clinicians were already prescribing it off label.

On the basis of this research and early feedback from parents of children, Dr. Sikich and colleagues were hopeful.

However, results from a rigorous, 5-year, $11.4 million randomized trial were negative. Yet, parents were convinced their child improved during the study, and there was a significant increase in off-label prescribing of a treatment her research says doesn’t work. What’s next for oxytocin?

Known as the “love hormone,” oxytocin is a neurotransmitter that is primarily synthesized in the hypothalamus. It plays a role in childbirth and lactation and is also involved in the regulation of social functioning and emotions. Research suggests low oxytocin levels are associated with diminished social functioning, regardless of ASD status.

Its potential as an autism therapy for children has been under study for a decade. Some findings link its use to improvements in core deficits associated with ASD, including repetitive behaviors, fixated or restricted interest, and social communication. A study published in 2020 showed that the treatment improved symptoms in high-functioning adults with ASD.

These were mostly small studies and were underpowered to reliably detect an effect of the therapy on social functioning. They often involved only a single dose of oxytocin. Some studies showed improvements, but others did not.

Still, interest in the treatment grew. Physicians began prescribing it for children with ASD, and parents began buying products containing oxytocin on the internet. Researchers feared this off-label use was becoming widespread, despite inconclusive evidence of efficacy.
 

High hopes

With support from a National Institutes of Health grant, Dr. Sikich and her team designed a phase 2, multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study to determine whether the use of oxytocin in children with ASD works and is safe.

The challenges began before they even enrolled a single child. A number of behavioral assessment tools are used to measure social function in ASD, but there is no consensus on which one is best.

A simple blood test could determine how much oxytocin from the nasal spray was absorbed in the blood, but identifying how much made it to the brain would require fMRI, which is expensive and is challenging to use in this study population. Then there was the acquisition of the drug itself.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved intravenous oxytocin for inducing labor. Intranasal oxytocin is not approved for any indication and isn’t available commercially in the United States. Patients or researchers must secure the drug from a manufacturer in a country where it is approved or order it from a U.S. pharmacy that is capable of compounding IV oxytocin into an intranasal formulation.

The pharmacy in Switzerland Dr. Sikich planned to use couldn’t make enough for the study. Contracting with a compounding pharmacy in the United States was significantly more expensive and time consuming, but it was the researchers’ only option.

“If it hadn’t been something we expected to have a major benefit, I think we would have given up the project at multiple points along the line due to all of these challenges,” said Dr. Sikich.

In August 2014, with all the pieces finally in place, researchers began enrolling children aged 3-17 years. The final cohort included 290 participants with ASD, 146 in the oxytocin group and 144 in the placebo group. Of these, 48% had minimal verbal fluency, and 52% had fluent verbal speech.

Participants received daily synthetic oxytocin or placebo via a nasal spray for 24 weeks. The daily oxytocin dose was 48 IU for the first 7 weeks. After that, the dosage could be titrated to a maximum of 80 IU/d. The mean maximal total daily dose of oxytocin throughout the study was 67.6 ± 16.9 IU.
 

‘It just didn’t work’

Both study groups showed improvement in social withdrawal beginning at 4 weeks and continuing throughout the trial, as determined on the basis of caretakers’ responses on the Aberrant Behavior Checklist Modified Social Withdrawal Subscale, the study’s primary outcome measure.

Sociability and social motivation also improved in both groups, as measured by the Pervasive Developmental Disorders Behavior Inventory and the Social Responsiveness Scale.

But by the end of the trial, the difference between the groups in improvement of social function wasn’t significant (difference, -0.2 points; P = .61) after adjusting for age, verbal fluency, and baseline oxytocin level.

“We were so convinced that it would work,” Dr. Sikich said, “but it just didn’t.”

From observation, parents were also convinced the therapy was working. At the trial’s conclusion, fewer than half of caregivers correctly guessed whether their child was in the treatment group or the placebo group.

A lot of development changes can happen in a child over 6 months. It’s possible the improvements would have occurred regardless of the trial, Dr. Sikich said. Parents’ perceptions could also be a placebo effect. Their child was in a clinical trial of a drug they believed could improve social functioning, so in their mind, it did.

Caregivers received training in how to identify certain behavioral changes, which may have helped them spot an existing positive change they had previously overlooked. Or they may have worked with their child more intently as a result of their participation in the trial.

“People may start doing more things or doing them more intensively or purposefully, consciously or subconsciously, to try to help their child improve the skills or behaviors targeted by the active therapy in the study,” Dr. Sikich said. “These are things that might really help the child move forward which are completely separate from the medication being studied.”

The safety analysis offered more hopeful results. Only one serious adverse event from the treatment was reported: A 17-year-old participant taking a daily dose of 48 IU experienced a sedating effect while driving and had an accident.
 

Too soon to walk away?

Perhaps the most important take-away from the study is that even if it’s safe, intranasal oxytocin as it is currently used doesn’t work and clinicians shouldn’t prescribe it, said Daniel Geschwind, MD, PhD, director of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Center for Autism Research, who penned a commentary on the study and discussed the findings with this news organization.

“This study shows that using oxytocin the way it’s used in the community right now is not helping anybody, so why put a child through that?” added Dr. Geschwind, who also is a professor of genetics, neurology, and psychiatry at UCLA.

The trial highlights areas that need to be addressed in order to improve research in the field, he said. Establishing a consensus process to measure social functioning and figuring out a better way to access intranasal oxytocin would lead to studies that are more conclusive, comparable, and less expensive. Dr. Sikich agrees.

Despite the findings, Dr. Geschwind and other autism researchers say it’s too soon to walk away from oxytocin altogether, although it may be time to change the approach to autism research.

“We have to take a page from the playbook of modern medicine in other areas and begin to recognize that these syndromes are incredibly heterogeneous,” Dr. Geschwind says. “We can surmise, although we don’t know, that there might be different biological forms of autism that have different pathways involved that are going to respond differently to different medications.”

Calling the researchers’ efforts “heroic,” Karen Parker, PhD, an associate professor and associate chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford (Calif.) University, says efficacy trials such as this one are critical. However, Dr. Parker said in an interview, there are a number of questions that the study didn’t address.

The majority of medication dispensed in a standard intranasal device is sprayed into the back of the throat. Regular blood tests confirmed that oxytocin was getting into participants’ system, but, given how quickly oxytocin degrades in the blood, Dr. Parker said it’s hard to know just how much reached the brain.

It’s also unclear whether the results would have been different had the treatment been paired with behavioral therapy, an approach Dr. Parker suggests might benefit a subset of children with ASD.

A 2017 study from Dr. Parker’s lab found that children with ASD whose use of oxytocin at baseline was low derived greater benefit from synthetic oxytocin, something the new study failed to find. Still, Dr. Parker said, it’s possible oxytocin might increase social motivation and increase a child’s receptiveness to behavioral therapy.

“When you see a negative trial like this, it decreases enthusiasm for the therapy for autism in this context,” Dr. Parker said. “I hope people who are studying these syndromes will continue to explore oxytocin as a therapy.”

The study was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development through the Autism Centers of Excellence Program and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University. Full disclosures of the authors’ possible conflicts of interest are available online.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Mothers who use cannabis during pregnancy risk disrupting immune gene networks in the placenta and potentially increasing the risk of anxiety and hyperactivity in their children.

These findings emerged from a study led by Yasmin Hurd, PhD, a professor of psychiatry and director of the Addiction Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, and Yoko Nomura, PhD, a professor of behavioral neuroscience at Queen’s College, City University of New York, that was published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The analysis assessed the effects of gestational maternal cannabis use on psychosocial and physiological measures in young children as well as its potentially immunomodulatory effect on the in utero environment as reflected in the placental transcriptome.

Participants were drawn from a larger cohort in a study launched in 2012; the investigators evaluated offspring aged 3-6 years for hair hormone levels, neurobehavioral traits on the Behavioral Assessment System for Children survey, and heart rate variability (HRV) at rest and during auditory startle.

The cohort consisted of 322 mother-child dyads and children with prenatal exposure to cannabis were compared with those having no exposure. The cohort consisted of 251 non–cannabis-using mothers and 71 cannabis-using mothers, with mean maternal ages in the two groups of 28.46 years and 25.91 years, respectively, The mothers gave birth at Mount Sinai and they and their children were assessed annually at affiliated medical centers in Mount Sinai’s catchment area.

For a subset of children with behavioral assessments, placental specimens collected at birth were processed for RNA sequencing.

Among the findings:

• Maternal cannabis use was associated with reduced maternal and paternal age, more single-mother pregnancies, state anxiety, trait anxiety, depression, cigarette smoking, and African American race.
• Hair hormone analysis revealed increased cortisol levels in the children of cannabis-using mothers, and was associated with greater anxiety, aggression, and hyperactivity.
• Affected children showed a reduction in the high-frequency component of HRV at baseline, reflecting reduced vagal tone.
• In the placenta, there was reduced expression of many genes involved in immune system function. These included genes for type I interferon, neutrophil, and cytokine-signaling pathways.

Several of these genes organized into coexpression networks that correlated with child anxiety and hyperactivity.

The principal active component of cannabis, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), targets the endocannabinoid system in placental tissue and the developing brain, the authors noted. Exposure during pregnancy is associated with a range of adverse outcomes from fetal growth restriction to low birth weight and preterm birth.

“There are cannabinoid receptors on immune cells, and it is known that cannabinoids can alter immune function, which is important for maintaining maternal tolerance and protecting the fetus,” Dr. Hurd said. “It’s not surprising that something that affects the immune cells can have an impact on the developing fetus.”

“Overall, our findings reveal a relationship between [maternal cannabis use] and immune response gene networks in the placenta as a potential mediator of risk for anxiety-related problems in early childhood,” Dr. Hurd and colleagues wrote, adding that the results have significant implications for defining mental health issues in the children gestated by cannabis-smoking mothers.

Their results align with previous research indicating a greater risk for psychiatric illness in children with prenatal cannabis exposure from maternal use.

“While data are pretty limited in this realm, there are other studies that demonstrate a relationship between early child developmental and behavioral measures and cannabis use during pregnancy,” Camille Hoffman, MD, MSc, a high-risk obstetrics specialist and an associate professor at the University of Colorado at Denver, Aurora, said in an interview. “Our research group found children exposed to cannabis in utero at 10 weeks’ gestation and beyond were less interactive and more withdrawn than children who were not exposed.”

And THC remains in maternal breast milk even 6 weeks after usage stops.

The long-term effects of prenatal cannabis exposure remain to be determined and it is unknown whether the effects of gestational THC might attenuate as a child grows older. “We use early childhood measures in research as a proxy for the later development of diagnosed mental health conditions or behavioral problems,” Dr. Hoffman explained. “We know when we do this that not every child with an abnormal score early will go on to develop an actual condition. Fortunately, or unfortunately, other factors and exposures during childhood can change the trajectory for the better or worse.”

According to Dr. Hurd, child development is a dynamic process and epigenetic events in utero need not be deterministic. “The important thing is to identify children at risk early and to be able to go in and try to improve the environment they’re being raised in – not in terms of impoverishment but in terms of positive nurturing and giving the mother and family support.”

At the prenatal level, what’s the best advice for cannabis-using mothers-to-be? “If a woman doesn’t know she’s pregnant and has been using cannabis, taking extra choline for the remainder of the pregnancy can help buffer the potential negative impact of the cannabis exposure,” Dr. Hoffman said. The Food and Drug Administration and the American Medical Association recommend a dose of 550 mg daily. “The same is true for alcohol, which we know is also very bad for fetal brain development. This is not to say go ahead and use these substances and just take choline. The choline is more to try and salvage damage to the fetal brain that may have already occurred.”

This study was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The authors declared no competing interests. Dr. Hoffman disclosed no conflicts of interest with respect to her comments.

Mothers who use cannabis during pregnancy risk disrupting immune gene networks in the placenta and potentially increasing the risk of anxiety and hyperactivity in their children.

These findings emerged from a study led by Yasmin Hurd, PhD, a professor of psychiatry and director of the Addiction Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, and Yoko Nomura, PhD, a professor of behavioral neuroscience at Queen’s College, City University of New York, that was published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The analysis assessed the effects of gestational maternal cannabis use on psychosocial and physiological measures in young children as well as its potentially immunomodulatory effect on the in utero environment as reflected in the placental transcriptome.

Participants were drawn from a larger cohort in a study launched in 2012; the investigators evaluated offspring aged 3-6 years for hair hormone levels, neurobehavioral traits on the Behavioral Assessment System for Children survey, and heart rate variability (HRV) at rest and during auditory startle.

The cohort consisted of 322 mother-child dyads and children with prenatal exposure to cannabis were compared with those having no exposure. The cohort consisted of 251 non–cannabis-using mothers and 71 cannabis-using mothers, with mean maternal ages in the two groups of 28.46 years and 25.91 years, respectively, The mothers gave birth at Mount Sinai and they and their children were assessed annually at affiliated medical centers in Mount Sinai’s catchment area.

For a subset of children with behavioral assessments, placental specimens collected at birth were processed for RNA sequencing.

Among the findings:

• Maternal cannabis use was associated with reduced maternal and paternal age, more single-mother pregnancies, state anxiety, trait anxiety, depression, cigarette smoking, and African American race.
• Hair hormone analysis revealed increased cortisol levels in the children of cannabis-using mothers, and was associated with greater anxiety, aggression, and hyperactivity.
• Affected children showed a reduction in the high-frequency component of HRV at baseline, reflecting reduced vagal tone.
• In the placenta, there was reduced expression of many genes involved in immune system function. These included genes for type I interferon, neutrophil, and cytokine-signaling pathways.

Several of these genes organized into coexpression networks that correlated with child anxiety and hyperactivity.

The principal active component of cannabis, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), targets the endocannabinoid system in placental tissue and the developing brain, the authors noted. Exposure during pregnancy is associated with a range of adverse outcomes from fetal growth restriction to low birth weight and preterm birth.

“There are cannabinoid receptors on immune cells, and it is known that cannabinoids can alter immune function, which is important for maintaining maternal tolerance and protecting the fetus,” Dr. Hurd said. “It’s not surprising that something that affects the immune cells can have an impact on the developing fetus.”

“Overall, our findings reveal a relationship between [maternal cannabis use] and immune response gene networks in the placenta as a potential mediator of risk for anxiety-related problems in early childhood,” Dr. Hurd and colleagues wrote, adding that the results have significant implications for defining mental health issues in the children gestated by cannabis-smoking mothers.

Their results align with previous research indicating a greater risk for psychiatric illness in children with prenatal cannabis exposure from maternal use.

“While data are pretty limited in this realm, there are other studies that demonstrate a relationship between early child developmental and behavioral measures and cannabis use during pregnancy,” Camille Hoffman, MD, MSc, a high-risk obstetrics specialist and an associate professor at the University of Colorado at Denver, Aurora, said in an interview. “Our research group found children exposed to cannabis in utero at 10 weeks’ gestation and beyond were less interactive and more withdrawn than children who were not exposed.”

And THC remains in maternal breast milk even 6 weeks after usage stops.

The long-term effects of prenatal cannabis exposure remain to be determined and it is unknown whether the effects of gestational THC might attenuate as a child grows older. “We use early childhood measures in research as a proxy for the later development of diagnosed mental health conditions or behavioral problems,” Dr. Hoffman explained. “We know when we do this that not every child with an abnormal score early will go on to develop an actual condition. Fortunately, or unfortunately, other factors and exposures during childhood can change the trajectory for the better or worse.”

According to Dr. Hurd, child development is a dynamic process and epigenetic events in utero need not be deterministic. “The important thing is to identify children at risk early and to be able to go in and try to improve the environment they’re being raised in – not in terms of impoverishment but in terms of positive nurturing and giving the mother and family support.”

At the prenatal level, what’s the best advice for cannabis-using mothers-to-be? “If a woman doesn’t know she’s pregnant and has been using cannabis, taking extra choline for the remainder of the pregnancy can help buffer the potential negative impact of the cannabis exposure,” Dr. Hoffman said. The Food and Drug Administration and the American Medical Association recommend a dose of 550 mg daily. “The same is true for alcohol, which we know is also very bad for fetal brain development. This is not to say go ahead and use these substances and just take choline. The choline is more to try and salvage damage to the fetal brain that may have already occurred.”

This study was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The authors declared no competing interests. Dr. Hoffman disclosed no conflicts of interest with respect to her comments.

Mothers who use cannabis during pregnancy risk disrupting immune gene networks in the placenta and potentially increasing the risk of anxiety and hyperactivity in their children.

These findings emerged from a study led by Yasmin Hurd, PhD, a professor of psychiatry and director of the Addiction Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, and Yoko Nomura, PhD, a professor of behavioral neuroscience at Queen’s College, City University of New York, that was published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The analysis assessed the effects of gestational maternal cannabis use on psychosocial and physiological measures in young children as well as its potentially immunomodulatory effect on the in utero environment as reflected in the placental transcriptome.

Participants were drawn from a larger cohort in a study launched in 2012; the investigators evaluated offspring aged 3-6 years for hair hormone levels, neurobehavioral traits on the Behavioral Assessment System for Children survey, and heart rate variability (HRV) at rest and during auditory startle.

The cohort consisted of 322 mother-child dyads and children with prenatal exposure to cannabis were compared with those having no exposure. The cohort consisted of 251 non–cannabis-using mothers and 71 cannabis-using mothers, with mean maternal ages in the two groups of 28.46 years and 25.91 years, respectively, The mothers gave birth at Mount Sinai and they and their children were assessed annually at affiliated medical centers in Mount Sinai’s catchment area.

For a subset of children with behavioral assessments, placental specimens collected at birth were processed for RNA sequencing.

Among the findings:

• Maternal cannabis use was associated with reduced maternal and paternal age, more single-mother pregnancies, state anxiety, trait anxiety, depression, cigarette smoking, and African American race.
• Hair hormone analysis revealed increased cortisol levels in the children of cannabis-using mothers, and was associated with greater anxiety, aggression, and hyperactivity.
• Affected children showed a reduction in the high-frequency component of HRV at baseline, reflecting reduced vagal tone.
• In the placenta, there was reduced expression of many genes involved in immune system function. These included genes for type I interferon, neutrophil, and cytokine-signaling pathways.

Several of these genes organized into coexpression networks that correlated with child anxiety and hyperactivity.

The principal active component of cannabis, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), targets the endocannabinoid system in placental tissue and the developing brain, the authors noted. Exposure during pregnancy is associated with a range of adverse outcomes from fetal growth restriction to low birth weight and preterm birth.

“There are cannabinoid receptors on immune cells, and it is known that cannabinoids can alter immune function, which is important for maintaining maternal tolerance and protecting the fetus,” Dr. Hurd said. “It’s not surprising that something that affects the immune cells can have an impact on the developing fetus.”

“Overall, our findings reveal a relationship between [maternal cannabis use] and immune response gene networks in the placenta as a potential mediator of risk for anxiety-related problems in early childhood,” Dr. Hurd and colleagues wrote, adding that the results have significant implications for defining mental health issues in the children gestated by cannabis-smoking mothers.

Their results align with previous research indicating a greater risk for psychiatric illness in children with prenatal cannabis exposure from maternal use.

“While data are pretty limited in this realm, there are other studies that demonstrate a relationship between early child developmental and behavioral measures and cannabis use during pregnancy,” Camille Hoffman, MD, MSc, a high-risk obstetrics specialist and an associate professor at the University of Colorado at Denver, Aurora, said in an interview. “Our research group found children exposed to cannabis in utero at 10 weeks’ gestation and beyond were less interactive and more withdrawn than children who were not exposed.”

And THC remains in maternal breast milk even 6 weeks after usage stops.

The long-term effects of prenatal cannabis exposure remain to be determined and it is unknown whether the effects of gestational THC might attenuate as a child grows older. “We use early childhood measures in research as a proxy for the later development of diagnosed mental health conditions or behavioral problems,” Dr. Hoffman explained. “We know when we do this that not every child with an abnormal score early will go on to develop an actual condition. Fortunately, or unfortunately, other factors and exposures during childhood can change the trajectory for the better or worse.”

According to Dr. Hurd, child development is a dynamic process and epigenetic events in utero need not be deterministic. “The important thing is to identify children at risk early and to be able to go in and try to improve the environment they’re being raised in – not in terms of impoverishment but in terms of positive nurturing and giving the mother and family support.”

At the prenatal level, what’s the best advice for cannabis-using mothers-to-be? “If a woman doesn’t know she’s pregnant and has been using cannabis, taking extra choline for the remainder of the pregnancy can help buffer the potential negative impact of the cannabis exposure,” Dr. Hoffman said. The Food and Drug Administration and the American Medical Association recommend a dose of 550 mg daily. “The same is true for alcohol, which we know is also very bad for fetal brain development. This is not to say go ahead and use these substances and just take choline. The choline is more to try and salvage damage to the fetal brain that may have already occurred.”

This study was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The authors declared no competing interests. Dr. Hoffman disclosed no conflicts of interest with respect to her comments.