User login
Would it be smart to sell your medical practice now?
The COVID-19 pandemic has decimated the bottom lines of many private practices, prompting physician-owners to seriously contemplate selling.
Physician-owners have had to sell at lower prices, reflecting lower cash flow under COVID-19. But sales prices may rebound following news on Nov. 9 that a COVID-19 vaccine candidate produced by Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, may be ready for initial distribution before the end of the year.
“There are a lot of ifs still, but if things go according to expectations, we may see an increase in the value of practices,” said Mark O. Dietrich, a CPA in Framingham, Mass., who deals mostly with valuations of physician practices.
“Practice valuations have been lower because many patients have kept away and cash flow has been reduced,” Mr. Dietrich said. “But once patients feel safe, that barrier would be removed, and cash flow, which sales prices are generally based on, could rise. However, this may take a while. One major hurdle would be getting people to take the vaccine.”
Many doctors have been contemplating closing
The nation is currently undergoing a significant spike in COVID-19 hospitalizations, which could prompt another COVID-19–related downturn in practice volume, as occurred earlier in the year. That downturn forced many private practitioners to contemplate selling their practices.
In a survey released this summer by McKinsey & Company, 53% of independent physicians reported that they were worried about their practices surviving. Although many physicians have now reopened their offices, patient volume is reduced, and physicians are earning far less than before.
“In many cases, physicians who had been considering retirement in the next few years have moved their planning up and want to sell as soon as possible,” said John D. Fanburg, an attorney at Brach Eichler, a law firm in Roseland, N.J., who specializes in medical practice sales and mergers.
“For physicians over age 65, it’s not just worries about finances; it’s also worries about the health risks of staying open,” Mr. Fanburg added.
Mid-career physicians are also selling their practices. Many of them become employees of the hospital, large practice, or private-equity firm that bought the practice – receiving a level of compensation set by the sales agreement.
Will your practice be hard to sell?
With so many physicians ready to sell, are there enough potential buyers to acquire them all? Probably not, said Mr. Dietrich.
“Many hospitals may not need new practices right now,” he said. “In the depths of the pandemic, they furloughed many of their existing doctors and may not have brought all of them back yet.”
In fact, because of the pandemic, some buyers have delayed sales that were already in progress, said Monica H. Kaden, director of business valuations at Sobel Valuations, based in Livingston, N.J.
“Buyers are not only worried about their own cash flow but also about the possibility of lower revenues of the selling practices due to COVID-19,” she said, citing a very large multispecialty group that has put its purchase of a another large multispecialty group on hold.
Practice values have (temporarily) fallen
Many potential buyers are still looking, though. One thing that drives them is the possibility of discounted sales because of COVID-19. “The sense I get is that a lot of hospitals see this as an opportunity to pick up practices on the cheap,” Mr. Dietrich said.
COVID-19 has been reducing practice values somewhat, said Reed Tinsley, a CPA in Houston who performs medical practice valuations and runs a practice brokerage firm. “Practice revenues and net income are lower under COVID-19, so prices are lower.”
Ms. Kadan advised physicians to hold off selling if they can afford to wait. “It’s always best to sell when the practice volume looks the best, because then the practice is worth more. But there are doctors who can’t wait because revenues are really falling and they are running out of money. They may have no choice but to sell.”
Even in the best of times, not all practices can be sold, said Sean Tinsley, a broker and licensed financial adviser at Tinsley Medical Practice Brokers in Austin, Tex., which he runs with his father, Reed Tinsley.
“We turn down about as many deals to sell practices as we accept,” he said. “Brokers have to be very selective because we don’t get paid until the practice gets sold. Generally, we won’t take practices in rural areas or practices that still only have a fraction of their pre–COVID-19 volume.”
How long will it take to sell your practice?
Some practices find a buyer within weeks, but in other cases, it can take as long as a year, he said. Once the buyer is located, preparing the paperwork for the sale can take 45-60 days.
Doctors can sell their practices on their own, but a broker can help them find potential buyers and select the right price. Business brokers generally receive a greater percentage of the sales price than residential brokers. They have greater command of business and finance, and the sale is more complex than a residential sale.
The broker may also help with selling the building where the practice is located, which is usually a separate sale, said Bruce E. Wood, an attorney at CCB Law in Syracuse, N.Y., who deals with practice sales. “A hospital buying your practice may not want to buy the building, so it has to be sold separately. You can always sell the space to a different buyer.”
What’s the right price for your practice?
For small practices, brokers often set a price by establishing a multiple, such as two times net earnings, Sean Tinsley said. In many cases, practices haven’t retained net earnings, so the broker uses gross annual revenue and sets the price at 50%-55% of that figure.
An alternative that is widely used in the business world and for many large practices is to base the price on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA). To determine a price, the EBITDA is then multiplied by a particular multiple, which depends on the perceived value of the practice.
Higher multiples go to practices that have a qualified management team, have documented financial policies and procedures, or have had significant past growth. Generally, the multiple of EBITDA at smaller practices is 1 or 2; larger practices have a multiple of 5-7 times EBITDA, Sean Tinsley said.
COVID-19 has had the effect of reducing the multiple somewhat. “As market forces shift from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market, multiples will likely remain below pre–COVID-19 levels for the remainder of 2020 and the first half of 2021,” one report stated.
Certified valuators like Reed Tinsley have more complex ways to establish the value of a practice, but as a broker, Sean Tinsley tends to use the multiples approach. He asserted that the prices derived from this method are on the mark. “Almost all the time we sell at the asking price.”
Using valuations to set the price
A more complex and expensive way to set a price for a practice is to order a valuation of the practice. The valuator issues a report that runs dozens of pages and costs thousands of dollars.
Mr. Fanburg said that very few physicians selling practices order valuation reports, owing to the cost and complexity. As a result, “they don’t have a clear idea what their practices are worth.”
A comprehensive report is called a conclusion of value. The amount it finds – expressed as a range – is called “fair market value.” The report can be used in the courts for legal disputes as well as for deriving a sales price.
Practices that don’t want to pay for a conclusion of value can ask a valuator to assemble a less extensive report, called an opinion of calculated value. Also known as a calculation engagement or engagement letter, it still costs several thousand dollars.
This report has limited validity and can’t be used in the courts, according to Jarrod Barraza, a certified valuator in the Nashville, Tenn., office of Horne, a health care business valuator. “When I issue an engagement letter, I am not talking as an appraiser but as a valuation consultant, and I don’t call the result fair market value; it’s only estimating,” he said.
For all of the precision of formal reports, however, valuations of a practice can vary widely, according to Reed Tinsley. “Two valuations using the same methodology can differ by $300,000.”
Also, the valuation can be well above a reasonable asking price, said Sean Tinsley. “The market dictates the price. A traditional valuation almost invariably quotes a higher return than the market is willing to pay.”
Buyers’ valuations
Physicians who decide not to get a valuation still have to deal with valuations ordered by buyers. Hospitals and large practices often order valuations of the practices they want to buy, and private-equity firms use methods much like a valuation for the practices they are interested in.
Buyers rarely share the valuation report with the seller, so the seller has to accept the buyer’s price without being able to review the thought process behind it, Mr. Fanburg said. “Relying on the buyer to tell you what you’re worth means you may sell your practice well below its true value.”
When the buyer orders a valuation, the valuator interviews managers of the practice and asks for a great deal of information, says G. Don Barbo, managing director at VMG Health, a health care valuation firm based in Dallas.
Mr. Barbo said these documents include financial statements for the practice, usually going back 3-5 years; productivity reports for doctors and other providers; accounts receivables; reports of fixed assets; a roster of employees; employment agreements and management services agreements; reports on payer mix; facility leases and equipment lease agreements; budgets and projections; and tax returns.
Mr. Dietrich said valuators hone in on the practice’s current procedural terminology codes. “If the practice is coding too high, this would artificially increase the profit and purported value of the practice. For example, coding at 99214 rather than 99213 for an established patient means that the practice is being paid 45% more for each visit.” The valuator then reduces the value of the practice on the basis of the extent of the improper up-coding.
Mr. Barbo said some sellers don’t want all the scrutiny of the buyer’s valuation and just sell the practice’s tangible assets – furnishings, fixtures, and equipment – which do not require a great deal of documentation but yield a much lower price.
A primer on valuations
As a valuator, “my job is to project into the future,” Mr. Barraza said. “I am trying to see how the practice will fare going forward.”
Mr. Dietrich agreed, with one caveat: “As Yogi Berra said: ‘It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.’ ”
The formal valuation assesses the practice in three ways: measuring income, assets, and what other practices sell for, called the market approach.
With the income approach, the most used measurement for practices, one tries to determine future income, which is what buyers are most interested in, Mr. Dietrich said. The income equals revenue (total collections) minus operating expenses and overhead.
“You are then left with all the money the physician is paid,” he said. “The issue is, how much is attributed to the physician’s own labor and how much to his or her ownership of the practice? This second category helps determine the value of the practice.”
The market approach is often used as a way to double-check the accuracy of the income approach. The appraiser looks for the prices of similar practices that have already been sold and then adjusts the price on the basis of differences with the practice up for sale.
The asset approach may be used when the practice has no positive cash flow. It establishes a price for tangible assets, which are often much lower in value than the values that the other approaches come up with. The asset approach can be a lower-priced alternative for practices that can’t be measured under the income or market approach.
“Equipment appraisers can do an inventory of your equipment,” Mr. Wood said. “Generally, equipment that is more than 3 years old, such as computers, is not that valuable, but an ultrasound machine probably has some resale value.”
Will the buyer pay for goodwill?
Many practice owners hope they can get money for the “goodwill” of their practice when they sell. Goodwill basically represents the reputation of the practice, which is difficult to pinpoint, and Mr. Wood said buyers often don’t want to pay for it.
“The goodwill is a wild card,” Mr. Wood said. “It can range from zero to crazy numbers. There is a Goodwill Registry – a list of the goodwill in other practice sales – that you can consult.”
One simple way to calculate the goodwill, he said, is to take the value of the practice based on examining income and remove the value of tangible assets. What is left is considered the goodwill.
Another form of intangible asset that is sometimes lumped together with goodwill is the value of the practice’s trained staff. “Some buyers agree to pay for the staff in place, because they plan to use that staff,” Ms. Kadan said. In one large deal she was involved with, the buyer agreed to pay something for the selling practice’s staff of 180 people.
Another item that buyers also do not typically pay for is the practice’s accounts receivable. They may also not pay for any liabilities the practice holds, such as the facility lease, equipment lease, and maintenance contracts, Mr. Barbo said. “The buyer then often stipulates that all liabilities are left to the practice, or stipulates any specific liabilities that it may assume.”
Selling to other doctors
Doctors can sell practices or shares in practices to other doctors. A retiring physician, for example, can sell his or her share to the other partners. A valuator may be brought in to establish the value of the doctor’s equity interest in the practice.
“Generally, practice buyouts aren’t lucrative for selling physician,” Mr. Wood said. “There are exceptions, of course, such as specialty practices in some cases.”
A practice can also be sold to a new doctor or to a previously employed physician who wants to be an owner. These physicians usually need to get a bank loan to buy the practice.
The bank assesses the finances of the selling practice to determine whether the buying physician will earn enough money to pay back the loan. “Banks don’t want lend more than the gross annual revenue of the practice, and some banks will only lend at 65% of gross annual revenue,” Sean Tinsley said.
COVID-19 has seriously affected banks’ lending decisions. Banks stopped lending to practice buyers at the beginning of the pandemic, and when they started lending again, they were more cautious, Sean Tinsley said. “Generally, banks want to see the practice at 85%-90% of pre–COVID-19 numbers before they make a loan.”
He added that, if a buyer can’t get a bank loan, the selling doctor may decide to finance the sale. The buyer agrees to a payment schedule to pay off the full price over several years.
Selling to or merging with other practices
The usual buyer is another practice, Reed Tinsley said. “You can sell to a group, but prices are low because, with COVID-19, buyers don’t want to incur a lot of money up front. Or you can merge with the practice, which means the selling doctor usually doesn’t get any money, but he does get a share in the larger practice. In that case, the partnership is the object of value, and it can be cashed out when the physician leaves the practice.”
Mergers can get very complicated. Mr. Fanburg said he has been working with seven groups that are merging into one. “The merger was scheduled to go live last January, but it was slowed down over negotiations about new managed care contracts and putting together a management structure, plus the groups were a little wary of each other. Now the deal is scheduled to go live next January.”
One advantage to selling to a larger entity, such as a big group practice or a hospital, is that the selling physician benefits from the higher reimbursement rates that large providers usually command. “If the buyer has more favorable reimbursement rates with insurers, it could pay the selling doctor much more than he is making now,” Mr. Barraza said.
Hospitals as buyers
Because of COVID-19, currently many hospitals don’t have money to buy more practices. However, this is most likely a temporary situation.
Hospitals typically offer less money than other buyers, according to Sean Tinsley. “We have never sold to a hospital, because hospitals generally don’t pay for goodwill. They pay for the practice assets and offer a dollar amount for each chart.”
Hospitals have to be careful not to pay physicians more than the usual amount for their practices, because the extra amount could be seen as a kickback for referrals, which would violate the federal Stark law and Anti-Kickback Statute. Not-for-profit hospitals also have to comply with regulations at the Internal Revenue Service.
Hospitals usually require that the selling physician continue to work in the practice after it is sold. The selling physician’s presence helps ensure that the practice’s output will not decline after sale. Although the sales price may be low, the hospital may make up for it by paying a higher compensation, Sean Tinsley said.
Selling to private-equity firms
Private-equity purchases are financed by investors who essentially want to “flip” practices – that is, they want to make them more profitable and then sell them to someone else. The private-equity firm starts by buying a “platform” practice, which forms the core of the venture. It then buys smaller practices that will be managed by the platform practice.
The number of private-equity deals increased continually through 2019, then plummeted in March because of COVID-19, but by the summer, activity began to rise again.
Physicians are very intrigued about selling to private-equity firms because they are known to pay the most for practices. But private-equity buyers focus on a fairly narrow group of specialties.
Generally, Sean Tinsley said, private-equity firms only look for pain, dermatology, and ophthalmology practices, but they have been starting to branch out to specialties such as gastroenterology. In 2018, there were only two private-equity deals for gastroenterology practices, but in 2019, there were 16, according to one assessment.
Private-equity firms buy very few of the practices they initially review, according to Mr. Fanburg. “Private equity negotiates with dozens or even hundreds of physician practices at a time, with only 1%-5% of those practices actually being acquired.”
The private-equity firm’s upfront payment to selling physicians is quite high, but then the physicians become employees of the new group and earn much less in compensation than they earned on this own.
“In order for the venture to get any value out of the acquisition, the doctors have to make less going forward than they did historically,” Mr. Dietrich said. That freed-up money boosts the value of the venture.
When the platform practice is sold – usually after 5 years or so – “chances are the management team will be replaced,” Mr. Fanburg said. “There could be new policies and objectives, which could mean a bumpy ride for physicians.”
Do you really want to sell?
“When a group of physicians comes to me asking for help selling their practice, my first question is, Why are you doing this?” Mr. Fanburg said. “You need a better reason for selling than just the money.
“Once you make the leap, there is a certain amount of autonomy you lose,” he continued. “The sale gives you an economic boost, but it may not be enough for the long haul. If you stay on with the buyer, your compensation is often lower. That makes sense if you’re retiring, but not if you’re a younger physician with many years of practice in the years ahead.
“When physicians say they see no other way out except to sell,” Mr. Fanburg said, “I tell them that their buyer will see a path to future growth for your practice. If you think reimbursements are getting worse, why are the buyers pressing ahead?”
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.
The COVID-19 pandemic has decimated the bottom lines of many private practices, prompting physician-owners to seriously contemplate selling.
Physician-owners have had to sell at lower prices, reflecting lower cash flow under COVID-19. But sales prices may rebound following news on Nov. 9 that a COVID-19 vaccine candidate produced by Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, may be ready for initial distribution before the end of the year.
“There are a lot of ifs still, but if things go according to expectations, we may see an increase in the value of practices,” said Mark O. Dietrich, a CPA in Framingham, Mass., who deals mostly with valuations of physician practices.
“Practice valuations have been lower because many patients have kept away and cash flow has been reduced,” Mr. Dietrich said. “But once patients feel safe, that barrier would be removed, and cash flow, which sales prices are generally based on, could rise. However, this may take a while. One major hurdle would be getting people to take the vaccine.”
Many doctors have been contemplating closing
The nation is currently undergoing a significant spike in COVID-19 hospitalizations, which could prompt another COVID-19–related downturn in practice volume, as occurred earlier in the year. That downturn forced many private practitioners to contemplate selling their practices.
In a survey released this summer by McKinsey & Company, 53% of independent physicians reported that they were worried about their practices surviving. Although many physicians have now reopened their offices, patient volume is reduced, and physicians are earning far less than before.
“In many cases, physicians who had been considering retirement in the next few years have moved their planning up and want to sell as soon as possible,” said John D. Fanburg, an attorney at Brach Eichler, a law firm in Roseland, N.J., who specializes in medical practice sales and mergers.
“For physicians over age 65, it’s not just worries about finances; it’s also worries about the health risks of staying open,” Mr. Fanburg added.
Mid-career physicians are also selling their practices. Many of them become employees of the hospital, large practice, or private-equity firm that bought the practice – receiving a level of compensation set by the sales agreement.
Will your practice be hard to sell?
With so many physicians ready to sell, are there enough potential buyers to acquire them all? Probably not, said Mr. Dietrich.
“Many hospitals may not need new practices right now,” he said. “In the depths of the pandemic, they furloughed many of their existing doctors and may not have brought all of them back yet.”
In fact, because of the pandemic, some buyers have delayed sales that were already in progress, said Monica H. Kaden, director of business valuations at Sobel Valuations, based in Livingston, N.J.
“Buyers are not only worried about their own cash flow but also about the possibility of lower revenues of the selling practices due to COVID-19,” she said, citing a very large multispecialty group that has put its purchase of a another large multispecialty group on hold.
Practice values have (temporarily) fallen
Many potential buyers are still looking, though. One thing that drives them is the possibility of discounted sales because of COVID-19. “The sense I get is that a lot of hospitals see this as an opportunity to pick up practices on the cheap,” Mr. Dietrich said.
COVID-19 has been reducing practice values somewhat, said Reed Tinsley, a CPA in Houston who performs medical practice valuations and runs a practice brokerage firm. “Practice revenues and net income are lower under COVID-19, so prices are lower.”
Ms. Kadan advised physicians to hold off selling if they can afford to wait. “It’s always best to sell when the practice volume looks the best, because then the practice is worth more. But there are doctors who can’t wait because revenues are really falling and they are running out of money. They may have no choice but to sell.”
Even in the best of times, not all practices can be sold, said Sean Tinsley, a broker and licensed financial adviser at Tinsley Medical Practice Brokers in Austin, Tex., which he runs with his father, Reed Tinsley.
“We turn down about as many deals to sell practices as we accept,” he said. “Brokers have to be very selective because we don’t get paid until the practice gets sold. Generally, we won’t take practices in rural areas or practices that still only have a fraction of their pre–COVID-19 volume.”
How long will it take to sell your practice?
Some practices find a buyer within weeks, but in other cases, it can take as long as a year, he said. Once the buyer is located, preparing the paperwork for the sale can take 45-60 days.
Doctors can sell their practices on their own, but a broker can help them find potential buyers and select the right price. Business brokers generally receive a greater percentage of the sales price than residential brokers. They have greater command of business and finance, and the sale is more complex than a residential sale.
The broker may also help with selling the building where the practice is located, which is usually a separate sale, said Bruce E. Wood, an attorney at CCB Law in Syracuse, N.Y., who deals with practice sales. “A hospital buying your practice may not want to buy the building, so it has to be sold separately. You can always sell the space to a different buyer.”
What’s the right price for your practice?
For small practices, brokers often set a price by establishing a multiple, such as two times net earnings, Sean Tinsley said. In many cases, practices haven’t retained net earnings, so the broker uses gross annual revenue and sets the price at 50%-55% of that figure.
An alternative that is widely used in the business world and for many large practices is to base the price on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA). To determine a price, the EBITDA is then multiplied by a particular multiple, which depends on the perceived value of the practice.
Higher multiples go to practices that have a qualified management team, have documented financial policies and procedures, or have had significant past growth. Generally, the multiple of EBITDA at smaller practices is 1 or 2; larger practices have a multiple of 5-7 times EBITDA, Sean Tinsley said.
COVID-19 has had the effect of reducing the multiple somewhat. “As market forces shift from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market, multiples will likely remain below pre–COVID-19 levels for the remainder of 2020 and the first half of 2021,” one report stated.
Certified valuators like Reed Tinsley have more complex ways to establish the value of a practice, but as a broker, Sean Tinsley tends to use the multiples approach. He asserted that the prices derived from this method are on the mark. “Almost all the time we sell at the asking price.”
Using valuations to set the price
A more complex and expensive way to set a price for a practice is to order a valuation of the practice. The valuator issues a report that runs dozens of pages and costs thousands of dollars.
Mr. Fanburg said that very few physicians selling practices order valuation reports, owing to the cost and complexity. As a result, “they don’t have a clear idea what their practices are worth.”
A comprehensive report is called a conclusion of value. The amount it finds – expressed as a range – is called “fair market value.” The report can be used in the courts for legal disputes as well as for deriving a sales price.
Practices that don’t want to pay for a conclusion of value can ask a valuator to assemble a less extensive report, called an opinion of calculated value. Also known as a calculation engagement or engagement letter, it still costs several thousand dollars.
This report has limited validity and can’t be used in the courts, according to Jarrod Barraza, a certified valuator in the Nashville, Tenn., office of Horne, a health care business valuator. “When I issue an engagement letter, I am not talking as an appraiser but as a valuation consultant, and I don’t call the result fair market value; it’s only estimating,” he said.
For all of the precision of formal reports, however, valuations of a practice can vary widely, according to Reed Tinsley. “Two valuations using the same methodology can differ by $300,000.”
Also, the valuation can be well above a reasonable asking price, said Sean Tinsley. “The market dictates the price. A traditional valuation almost invariably quotes a higher return than the market is willing to pay.”
Buyers’ valuations
Physicians who decide not to get a valuation still have to deal with valuations ordered by buyers. Hospitals and large practices often order valuations of the practices they want to buy, and private-equity firms use methods much like a valuation for the practices they are interested in.
Buyers rarely share the valuation report with the seller, so the seller has to accept the buyer’s price without being able to review the thought process behind it, Mr. Fanburg said. “Relying on the buyer to tell you what you’re worth means you may sell your practice well below its true value.”
When the buyer orders a valuation, the valuator interviews managers of the practice and asks for a great deal of information, says G. Don Barbo, managing director at VMG Health, a health care valuation firm based in Dallas.
Mr. Barbo said these documents include financial statements for the practice, usually going back 3-5 years; productivity reports for doctors and other providers; accounts receivables; reports of fixed assets; a roster of employees; employment agreements and management services agreements; reports on payer mix; facility leases and equipment lease agreements; budgets and projections; and tax returns.
Mr. Dietrich said valuators hone in on the practice’s current procedural terminology codes. “If the practice is coding too high, this would artificially increase the profit and purported value of the practice. For example, coding at 99214 rather than 99213 for an established patient means that the practice is being paid 45% more for each visit.” The valuator then reduces the value of the practice on the basis of the extent of the improper up-coding.
Mr. Barbo said some sellers don’t want all the scrutiny of the buyer’s valuation and just sell the practice’s tangible assets – furnishings, fixtures, and equipment – which do not require a great deal of documentation but yield a much lower price.
A primer on valuations
As a valuator, “my job is to project into the future,” Mr. Barraza said. “I am trying to see how the practice will fare going forward.”
Mr. Dietrich agreed, with one caveat: “As Yogi Berra said: ‘It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.’ ”
The formal valuation assesses the practice in three ways: measuring income, assets, and what other practices sell for, called the market approach.
With the income approach, the most used measurement for practices, one tries to determine future income, which is what buyers are most interested in, Mr. Dietrich said. The income equals revenue (total collections) minus operating expenses and overhead.
“You are then left with all the money the physician is paid,” he said. “The issue is, how much is attributed to the physician’s own labor and how much to his or her ownership of the practice? This second category helps determine the value of the practice.”
The market approach is often used as a way to double-check the accuracy of the income approach. The appraiser looks for the prices of similar practices that have already been sold and then adjusts the price on the basis of differences with the practice up for sale.
The asset approach may be used when the practice has no positive cash flow. It establishes a price for tangible assets, which are often much lower in value than the values that the other approaches come up with. The asset approach can be a lower-priced alternative for practices that can’t be measured under the income or market approach.
“Equipment appraisers can do an inventory of your equipment,” Mr. Wood said. “Generally, equipment that is more than 3 years old, such as computers, is not that valuable, but an ultrasound machine probably has some resale value.”
Will the buyer pay for goodwill?
Many practice owners hope they can get money for the “goodwill” of their practice when they sell. Goodwill basically represents the reputation of the practice, which is difficult to pinpoint, and Mr. Wood said buyers often don’t want to pay for it.
“The goodwill is a wild card,” Mr. Wood said. “It can range from zero to crazy numbers. There is a Goodwill Registry – a list of the goodwill in other practice sales – that you can consult.”
One simple way to calculate the goodwill, he said, is to take the value of the practice based on examining income and remove the value of tangible assets. What is left is considered the goodwill.
Another form of intangible asset that is sometimes lumped together with goodwill is the value of the practice’s trained staff. “Some buyers agree to pay for the staff in place, because they plan to use that staff,” Ms. Kadan said. In one large deal she was involved with, the buyer agreed to pay something for the selling practice’s staff of 180 people.
Another item that buyers also do not typically pay for is the practice’s accounts receivable. They may also not pay for any liabilities the practice holds, such as the facility lease, equipment lease, and maintenance contracts, Mr. Barbo said. “The buyer then often stipulates that all liabilities are left to the practice, or stipulates any specific liabilities that it may assume.”
Selling to other doctors
Doctors can sell practices or shares in practices to other doctors. A retiring physician, for example, can sell his or her share to the other partners. A valuator may be brought in to establish the value of the doctor’s equity interest in the practice.
“Generally, practice buyouts aren’t lucrative for selling physician,” Mr. Wood said. “There are exceptions, of course, such as specialty practices in some cases.”
A practice can also be sold to a new doctor or to a previously employed physician who wants to be an owner. These physicians usually need to get a bank loan to buy the practice.
The bank assesses the finances of the selling practice to determine whether the buying physician will earn enough money to pay back the loan. “Banks don’t want lend more than the gross annual revenue of the practice, and some banks will only lend at 65% of gross annual revenue,” Sean Tinsley said.
COVID-19 has seriously affected banks’ lending decisions. Banks stopped lending to practice buyers at the beginning of the pandemic, and when they started lending again, they were more cautious, Sean Tinsley said. “Generally, banks want to see the practice at 85%-90% of pre–COVID-19 numbers before they make a loan.”
He added that, if a buyer can’t get a bank loan, the selling doctor may decide to finance the sale. The buyer agrees to a payment schedule to pay off the full price over several years.
Selling to or merging with other practices
The usual buyer is another practice, Reed Tinsley said. “You can sell to a group, but prices are low because, with COVID-19, buyers don’t want to incur a lot of money up front. Or you can merge with the practice, which means the selling doctor usually doesn’t get any money, but he does get a share in the larger practice. In that case, the partnership is the object of value, and it can be cashed out when the physician leaves the practice.”
Mergers can get very complicated. Mr. Fanburg said he has been working with seven groups that are merging into one. “The merger was scheduled to go live last January, but it was slowed down over negotiations about new managed care contracts and putting together a management structure, plus the groups were a little wary of each other. Now the deal is scheduled to go live next January.”
One advantage to selling to a larger entity, such as a big group practice or a hospital, is that the selling physician benefits from the higher reimbursement rates that large providers usually command. “If the buyer has more favorable reimbursement rates with insurers, it could pay the selling doctor much more than he is making now,” Mr. Barraza said.
Hospitals as buyers
Because of COVID-19, currently many hospitals don’t have money to buy more practices. However, this is most likely a temporary situation.
Hospitals typically offer less money than other buyers, according to Sean Tinsley. “We have never sold to a hospital, because hospitals generally don’t pay for goodwill. They pay for the practice assets and offer a dollar amount for each chart.”
Hospitals have to be careful not to pay physicians more than the usual amount for their practices, because the extra amount could be seen as a kickback for referrals, which would violate the federal Stark law and Anti-Kickback Statute. Not-for-profit hospitals also have to comply with regulations at the Internal Revenue Service.
Hospitals usually require that the selling physician continue to work in the practice after it is sold. The selling physician’s presence helps ensure that the practice’s output will not decline after sale. Although the sales price may be low, the hospital may make up for it by paying a higher compensation, Sean Tinsley said.
Selling to private-equity firms
Private-equity purchases are financed by investors who essentially want to “flip” practices – that is, they want to make them more profitable and then sell them to someone else. The private-equity firm starts by buying a “platform” practice, which forms the core of the venture. It then buys smaller practices that will be managed by the platform practice.
The number of private-equity deals increased continually through 2019, then plummeted in March because of COVID-19, but by the summer, activity began to rise again.
Physicians are very intrigued about selling to private-equity firms because they are known to pay the most for practices. But private-equity buyers focus on a fairly narrow group of specialties.
Generally, Sean Tinsley said, private-equity firms only look for pain, dermatology, and ophthalmology practices, but they have been starting to branch out to specialties such as gastroenterology. In 2018, there were only two private-equity deals for gastroenterology practices, but in 2019, there were 16, according to one assessment.
Private-equity firms buy very few of the practices they initially review, according to Mr. Fanburg. “Private equity negotiates with dozens or even hundreds of physician practices at a time, with only 1%-5% of those practices actually being acquired.”
The private-equity firm’s upfront payment to selling physicians is quite high, but then the physicians become employees of the new group and earn much less in compensation than they earned on this own.
“In order for the venture to get any value out of the acquisition, the doctors have to make less going forward than they did historically,” Mr. Dietrich said. That freed-up money boosts the value of the venture.
When the platform practice is sold – usually after 5 years or so – “chances are the management team will be replaced,” Mr. Fanburg said. “There could be new policies and objectives, which could mean a bumpy ride for physicians.”
Do you really want to sell?
“When a group of physicians comes to me asking for help selling their practice, my first question is, Why are you doing this?” Mr. Fanburg said. “You need a better reason for selling than just the money.
“Once you make the leap, there is a certain amount of autonomy you lose,” he continued. “The sale gives you an economic boost, but it may not be enough for the long haul. If you stay on with the buyer, your compensation is often lower. That makes sense if you’re retiring, but not if you’re a younger physician with many years of practice in the years ahead.
“When physicians say they see no other way out except to sell,” Mr. Fanburg said, “I tell them that their buyer will see a path to future growth for your practice. If you think reimbursements are getting worse, why are the buyers pressing ahead?”
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.
The COVID-19 pandemic has decimated the bottom lines of many private practices, prompting physician-owners to seriously contemplate selling.
Physician-owners have had to sell at lower prices, reflecting lower cash flow under COVID-19. But sales prices may rebound following news on Nov. 9 that a COVID-19 vaccine candidate produced by Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, may be ready for initial distribution before the end of the year.
“There are a lot of ifs still, but if things go according to expectations, we may see an increase in the value of practices,” said Mark O. Dietrich, a CPA in Framingham, Mass., who deals mostly with valuations of physician practices.
“Practice valuations have been lower because many patients have kept away and cash flow has been reduced,” Mr. Dietrich said. “But once patients feel safe, that barrier would be removed, and cash flow, which sales prices are generally based on, could rise. However, this may take a while. One major hurdle would be getting people to take the vaccine.”
Many doctors have been contemplating closing
The nation is currently undergoing a significant spike in COVID-19 hospitalizations, which could prompt another COVID-19–related downturn in practice volume, as occurred earlier in the year. That downturn forced many private practitioners to contemplate selling their practices.
In a survey released this summer by McKinsey & Company, 53% of independent physicians reported that they were worried about their practices surviving. Although many physicians have now reopened their offices, patient volume is reduced, and physicians are earning far less than before.
“In many cases, physicians who had been considering retirement in the next few years have moved their planning up and want to sell as soon as possible,” said John D. Fanburg, an attorney at Brach Eichler, a law firm in Roseland, N.J., who specializes in medical practice sales and mergers.
“For physicians over age 65, it’s not just worries about finances; it’s also worries about the health risks of staying open,” Mr. Fanburg added.
Mid-career physicians are also selling their practices. Many of them become employees of the hospital, large practice, or private-equity firm that bought the practice – receiving a level of compensation set by the sales agreement.
Will your practice be hard to sell?
With so many physicians ready to sell, are there enough potential buyers to acquire them all? Probably not, said Mr. Dietrich.
“Many hospitals may not need new practices right now,” he said. “In the depths of the pandemic, they furloughed many of their existing doctors and may not have brought all of them back yet.”
In fact, because of the pandemic, some buyers have delayed sales that were already in progress, said Monica H. Kaden, director of business valuations at Sobel Valuations, based in Livingston, N.J.
“Buyers are not only worried about their own cash flow but also about the possibility of lower revenues of the selling practices due to COVID-19,” she said, citing a very large multispecialty group that has put its purchase of a another large multispecialty group on hold.
Practice values have (temporarily) fallen
Many potential buyers are still looking, though. One thing that drives them is the possibility of discounted sales because of COVID-19. “The sense I get is that a lot of hospitals see this as an opportunity to pick up practices on the cheap,” Mr. Dietrich said.
COVID-19 has been reducing practice values somewhat, said Reed Tinsley, a CPA in Houston who performs medical practice valuations and runs a practice brokerage firm. “Practice revenues and net income are lower under COVID-19, so prices are lower.”
Ms. Kadan advised physicians to hold off selling if they can afford to wait. “It’s always best to sell when the practice volume looks the best, because then the practice is worth more. But there are doctors who can’t wait because revenues are really falling and they are running out of money. They may have no choice but to sell.”
Even in the best of times, not all practices can be sold, said Sean Tinsley, a broker and licensed financial adviser at Tinsley Medical Practice Brokers in Austin, Tex., which he runs with his father, Reed Tinsley.
“We turn down about as many deals to sell practices as we accept,” he said. “Brokers have to be very selective because we don’t get paid until the practice gets sold. Generally, we won’t take practices in rural areas or practices that still only have a fraction of their pre–COVID-19 volume.”
How long will it take to sell your practice?
Some practices find a buyer within weeks, but in other cases, it can take as long as a year, he said. Once the buyer is located, preparing the paperwork for the sale can take 45-60 days.
Doctors can sell their practices on their own, but a broker can help them find potential buyers and select the right price. Business brokers generally receive a greater percentage of the sales price than residential brokers. They have greater command of business and finance, and the sale is more complex than a residential sale.
The broker may also help with selling the building where the practice is located, which is usually a separate sale, said Bruce E. Wood, an attorney at CCB Law in Syracuse, N.Y., who deals with practice sales. “A hospital buying your practice may not want to buy the building, so it has to be sold separately. You can always sell the space to a different buyer.”
What’s the right price for your practice?
For small practices, brokers often set a price by establishing a multiple, such as two times net earnings, Sean Tinsley said. In many cases, practices haven’t retained net earnings, so the broker uses gross annual revenue and sets the price at 50%-55% of that figure.
An alternative that is widely used in the business world and for many large practices is to base the price on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA). To determine a price, the EBITDA is then multiplied by a particular multiple, which depends on the perceived value of the practice.
Higher multiples go to practices that have a qualified management team, have documented financial policies and procedures, or have had significant past growth. Generally, the multiple of EBITDA at smaller practices is 1 or 2; larger practices have a multiple of 5-7 times EBITDA, Sean Tinsley said.
COVID-19 has had the effect of reducing the multiple somewhat. “As market forces shift from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market, multiples will likely remain below pre–COVID-19 levels for the remainder of 2020 and the first half of 2021,” one report stated.
Certified valuators like Reed Tinsley have more complex ways to establish the value of a practice, but as a broker, Sean Tinsley tends to use the multiples approach. He asserted that the prices derived from this method are on the mark. “Almost all the time we sell at the asking price.”
Using valuations to set the price
A more complex and expensive way to set a price for a practice is to order a valuation of the practice. The valuator issues a report that runs dozens of pages and costs thousands of dollars.
Mr. Fanburg said that very few physicians selling practices order valuation reports, owing to the cost and complexity. As a result, “they don’t have a clear idea what their practices are worth.”
A comprehensive report is called a conclusion of value. The amount it finds – expressed as a range – is called “fair market value.” The report can be used in the courts for legal disputes as well as for deriving a sales price.
Practices that don’t want to pay for a conclusion of value can ask a valuator to assemble a less extensive report, called an opinion of calculated value. Also known as a calculation engagement or engagement letter, it still costs several thousand dollars.
This report has limited validity and can’t be used in the courts, according to Jarrod Barraza, a certified valuator in the Nashville, Tenn., office of Horne, a health care business valuator. “When I issue an engagement letter, I am not talking as an appraiser but as a valuation consultant, and I don’t call the result fair market value; it’s only estimating,” he said.
For all of the precision of formal reports, however, valuations of a practice can vary widely, according to Reed Tinsley. “Two valuations using the same methodology can differ by $300,000.”
Also, the valuation can be well above a reasonable asking price, said Sean Tinsley. “The market dictates the price. A traditional valuation almost invariably quotes a higher return than the market is willing to pay.”
Buyers’ valuations
Physicians who decide not to get a valuation still have to deal with valuations ordered by buyers. Hospitals and large practices often order valuations of the practices they want to buy, and private-equity firms use methods much like a valuation for the practices they are interested in.
Buyers rarely share the valuation report with the seller, so the seller has to accept the buyer’s price without being able to review the thought process behind it, Mr. Fanburg said. “Relying on the buyer to tell you what you’re worth means you may sell your practice well below its true value.”
When the buyer orders a valuation, the valuator interviews managers of the practice and asks for a great deal of information, says G. Don Barbo, managing director at VMG Health, a health care valuation firm based in Dallas.
Mr. Barbo said these documents include financial statements for the practice, usually going back 3-5 years; productivity reports for doctors and other providers; accounts receivables; reports of fixed assets; a roster of employees; employment agreements and management services agreements; reports on payer mix; facility leases and equipment lease agreements; budgets and projections; and tax returns.
Mr. Dietrich said valuators hone in on the practice’s current procedural terminology codes. “If the practice is coding too high, this would artificially increase the profit and purported value of the practice. For example, coding at 99214 rather than 99213 for an established patient means that the practice is being paid 45% more for each visit.” The valuator then reduces the value of the practice on the basis of the extent of the improper up-coding.
Mr. Barbo said some sellers don’t want all the scrutiny of the buyer’s valuation and just sell the practice’s tangible assets – furnishings, fixtures, and equipment – which do not require a great deal of documentation but yield a much lower price.
A primer on valuations
As a valuator, “my job is to project into the future,” Mr. Barraza said. “I am trying to see how the practice will fare going forward.”
Mr. Dietrich agreed, with one caveat: “As Yogi Berra said: ‘It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.’ ”
The formal valuation assesses the practice in three ways: measuring income, assets, and what other practices sell for, called the market approach.
With the income approach, the most used measurement for practices, one tries to determine future income, which is what buyers are most interested in, Mr. Dietrich said. The income equals revenue (total collections) minus operating expenses and overhead.
“You are then left with all the money the physician is paid,” he said. “The issue is, how much is attributed to the physician’s own labor and how much to his or her ownership of the practice? This second category helps determine the value of the practice.”
The market approach is often used as a way to double-check the accuracy of the income approach. The appraiser looks for the prices of similar practices that have already been sold and then adjusts the price on the basis of differences with the practice up for sale.
The asset approach may be used when the practice has no positive cash flow. It establishes a price for tangible assets, which are often much lower in value than the values that the other approaches come up with. The asset approach can be a lower-priced alternative for practices that can’t be measured under the income or market approach.
“Equipment appraisers can do an inventory of your equipment,” Mr. Wood said. “Generally, equipment that is more than 3 years old, such as computers, is not that valuable, but an ultrasound machine probably has some resale value.”
Will the buyer pay for goodwill?
Many practice owners hope they can get money for the “goodwill” of their practice when they sell. Goodwill basically represents the reputation of the practice, which is difficult to pinpoint, and Mr. Wood said buyers often don’t want to pay for it.
“The goodwill is a wild card,” Mr. Wood said. “It can range from zero to crazy numbers. There is a Goodwill Registry – a list of the goodwill in other practice sales – that you can consult.”
One simple way to calculate the goodwill, he said, is to take the value of the practice based on examining income and remove the value of tangible assets. What is left is considered the goodwill.
Another form of intangible asset that is sometimes lumped together with goodwill is the value of the practice’s trained staff. “Some buyers agree to pay for the staff in place, because they plan to use that staff,” Ms. Kadan said. In one large deal she was involved with, the buyer agreed to pay something for the selling practice’s staff of 180 people.
Another item that buyers also do not typically pay for is the practice’s accounts receivable. They may also not pay for any liabilities the practice holds, such as the facility lease, equipment lease, and maintenance contracts, Mr. Barbo said. “The buyer then often stipulates that all liabilities are left to the practice, or stipulates any specific liabilities that it may assume.”
Selling to other doctors
Doctors can sell practices or shares in practices to other doctors. A retiring physician, for example, can sell his or her share to the other partners. A valuator may be brought in to establish the value of the doctor’s equity interest in the practice.
“Generally, practice buyouts aren’t lucrative for selling physician,” Mr. Wood said. “There are exceptions, of course, such as specialty practices in some cases.”
A practice can also be sold to a new doctor or to a previously employed physician who wants to be an owner. These physicians usually need to get a bank loan to buy the practice.
The bank assesses the finances of the selling practice to determine whether the buying physician will earn enough money to pay back the loan. “Banks don’t want lend more than the gross annual revenue of the practice, and some banks will only lend at 65% of gross annual revenue,” Sean Tinsley said.
COVID-19 has seriously affected banks’ lending decisions. Banks stopped lending to practice buyers at the beginning of the pandemic, and when they started lending again, they were more cautious, Sean Tinsley said. “Generally, banks want to see the practice at 85%-90% of pre–COVID-19 numbers before they make a loan.”
He added that, if a buyer can’t get a bank loan, the selling doctor may decide to finance the sale. The buyer agrees to a payment schedule to pay off the full price over several years.
Selling to or merging with other practices
The usual buyer is another practice, Reed Tinsley said. “You can sell to a group, but prices are low because, with COVID-19, buyers don’t want to incur a lot of money up front. Or you can merge with the practice, which means the selling doctor usually doesn’t get any money, but he does get a share in the larger practice. In that case, the partnership is the object of value, and it can be cashed out when the physician leaves the practice.”
Mergers can get very complicated. Mr. Fanburg said he has been working with seven groups that are merging into one. “The merger was scheduled to go live last January, but it was slowed down over negotiations about new managed care contracts and putting together a management structure, plus the groups were a little wary of each other. Now the deal is scheduled to go live next January.”
One advantage to selling to a larger entity, such as a big group practice or a hospital, is that the selling physician benefits from the higher reimbursement rates that large providers usually command. “If the buyer has more favorable reimbursement rates with insurers, it could pay the selling doctor much more than he is making now,” Mr. Barraza said.
Hospitals as buyers
Because of COVID-19, currently many hospitals don’t have money to buy more practices. However, this is most likely a temporary situation.
Hospitals typically offer less money than other buyers, according to Sean Tinsley. “We have never sold to a hospital, because hospitals generally don’t pay for goodwill. They pay for the practice assets and offer a dollar amount for each chart.”
Hospitals have to be careful not to pay physicians more than the usual amount for their practices, because the extra amount could be seen as a kickback for referrals, which would violate the federal Stark law and Anti-Kickback Statute. Not-for-profit hospitals also have to comply with regulations at the Internal Revenue Service.
Hospitals usually require that the selling physician continue to work in the practice after it is sold. The selling physician’s presence helps ensure that the practice’s output will not decline after sale. Although the sales price may be low, the hospital may make up for it by paying a higher compensation, Sean Tinsley said.
Selling to private-equity firms
Private-equity purchases are financed by investors who essentially want to “flip” practices – that is, they want to make them more profitable and then sell them to someone else. The private-equity firm starts by buying a “platform” practice, which forms the core of the venture. It then buys smaller practices that will be managed by the platform practice.
The number of private-equity deals increased continually through 2019, then plummeted in March because of COVID-19, but by the summer, activity began to rise again.
Physicians are very intrigued about selling to private-equity firms because they are known to pay the most for practices. But private-equity buyers focus on a fairly narrow group of specialties.
Generally, Sean Tinsley said, private-equity firms only look for pain, dermatology, and ophthalmology practices, but they have been starting to branch out to specialties such as gastroenterology. In 2018, there were only two private-equity deals for gastroenterology practices, but in 2019, there were 16, according to one assessment.
Private-equity firms buy very few of the practices they initially review, according to Mr. Fanburg. “Private equity negotiates with dozens or even hundreds of physician practices at a time, with only 1%-5% of those practices actually being acquired.”
The private-equity firm’s upfront payment to selling physicians is quite high, but then the physicians become employees of the new group and earn much less in compensation than they earned on this own.
“In order for the venture to get any value out of the acquisition, the doctors have to make less going forward than they did historically,” Mr. Dietrich said. That freed-up money boosts the value of the venture.
When the platform practice is sold – usually after 5 years or so – “chances are the management team will be replaced,” Mr. Fanburg said. “There could be new policies and objectives, which could mean a bumpy ride for physicians.”
Do you really want to sell?
“When a group of physicians comes to me asking for help selling their practice, my first question is, Why are you doing this?” Mr. Fanburg said. “You need a better reason for selling than just the money.
“Once you make the leap, there is a certain amount of autonomy you lose,” he continued. “The sale gives you an economic boost, but it may not be enough for the long haul. If you stay on with the buyer, your compensation is often lower. That makes sense if you’re retiring, but not if you’re a younger physician with many years of practice in the years ahead.
“When physicians say they see no other way out except to sell,” Mr. Fanburg said, “I tell them that their buyer will see a path to future growth for your practice. If you think reimbursements are getting worse, why are the buyers pressing ahead?”
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.
Immunotherapy could fill unmet need in leptomeningeal metastases
Results from the trial were reported at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer’s 35th Anniversary Annual Meeting.
“Unfortunately, when patients present with leptomeningeal disease, they usually have a poor prognosis. Their median survival is measured at 6-24 weeks,” commented lead study author Jarushka Naidoo, MBBCh, an adjunct assistant professor of oncology at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and a consultant medical oncologist at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin.
“While there may be some standard approaches for how we treat leptomeningeal disease, there are no universal standard therapies that are efficacious across solid tumor types,” Dr. Naidoo added.
With this in mind, Dr. Naidoo and colleagues tested systemic pembrolizumab in a trial of patients with leptomeningeal metastases from solid tumors.
The trial closed early because of poor accrual, after enrolling 13 patients: 5 with breast carcinoma, 3 with high-grade glioma, 3 with non–small cell lung cancer, 1 with squamous cell carcinoma of the skin, and 1 with head and neck squamous carcinoma. Nine patients (69%) had received at least two prior lines of systemic therapy.
Response, safety, and biomarkers
Overall, five patients (38%) had a central nervous system response, as ascertained from radiologic response on MRI, cytologic response in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), and/or clinical response in neurologic symptoms, Dr. Naidoo reported.
Two patients had a complete CNS response: a patient with squamous cell carcinoma of the skin, who was still alive at 3 years, and a patient with non–small cell lung cancer, who survived 9 months but succumbed to metastases elsewhere.
For the entire cohort, median CNS progression-free survival was 2.9 months, and median overall survival was 4.9 months.
“This is consistent with published prospective studies of systemic agents for leptomeningeal disease,” Dr. Naidoo pointed out. “Notably, even though numbers are small, we do see the tail-on-the-curve phenomenon in both of these survival curves, which is consistent with immune checkpoint blockade prospective studies.”
The rate of grade 3 or higher treatment-related adverse events was 15.4%, and there were no grade 3 or higher immune-related adverse events.
The number of patients was too small for formal correlational testing, but both patients who achieved a complete response developed immune-related adverse events.
The trial’s biomarker analyses showed that an aneuploidy assay using CSF tumor-derived DNA performed well at detecting leptomeningeal metastases, with sensitivity of 84.6%, compared with just 53.8% for CSF cytopathology (the current preferred method).
A multiplex assay of CSF cytokines identified similar baseline profiles for patients who went on to have responses and showed similar changes in profile (notably a reduction in proinflammatory cytokines) for the two patients who had complete responses.
Given the trial’s 38% CNS response rate, pembrolizumab “needs to be studied in larger populations of patients to confirm this result, but it could be used as a potential treatment option for patients with leptomeningeal disease from solid tumors,” Dr. Naidoo concluded. “Reassuringly, pembrolizumab was well tolerated, and this is extremely important in a patient population that is traditionally quite frail and in which other standard therapies that are used, such as high-dose methotrexate or intrathecal chemotherapy, are associated with far higher rates of toxicity.”
An unmet need
“Leptomeningeal metastasis is a strong unmet need, although its occurrence is fortunately quite rare,” commented Kim Margolin, MD, a clinical professor and medical oncologist at City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, Calif., who was not involved in this study.
The trial is noteworthy for showing activity of programmed death–1 (PD-1) blockade given only systemically and not with additional intrathecal therapy (as has been done in a concurrent study at MD Anderson Cancer Center) and for providing insight into various biomarkers, Dr. Margolin said in an interview.
“I cannot take a stand on author conclusions other than to agree it warrants further evaluation in carefully selected patients, and it would be great to compare something like peripheral PD-1 blockade alone versus in combination with intrathecal therapy versus a combination such as CTLA4 blockade plus PD-1 blockade such as our group and others have shown to have increased activity in CNS metastases over PD-1 block alone,” Dr. Margolin said.
“The drugs in this class are already approved, so there is no reason not to try them,” she noted.
However, patients with leptomeningeal metastases of melanoma, for example, are likely to have already received anti-PD-1 immunotherapy.
“So the settings in which off-the-shelf PD-1 blockade would be useful are extremely limited,” she concluded.
The current trial was funded by Merck, the National Institutes of Health, the Lung Cancer Foundation of America, the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, and Johns Hopkins University Seed Grants. Dr. Naidoo disclosed relationships with AstraZeneca, Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Roche/Genentech. Dr. Margolin disclosed no relevant conflicts of interest.
SOURCE: Naidoo J et al. SITC 2020, Abstract 788.
Results from the trial were reported at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer’s 35th Anniversary Annual Meeting.
“Unfortunately, when patients present with leptomeningeal disease, they usually have a poor prognosis. Their median survival is measured at 6-24 weeks,” commented lead study author Jarushka Naidoo, MBBCh, an adjunct assistant professor of oncology at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and a consultant medical oncologist at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin.
“While there may be some standard approaches for how we treat leptomeningeal disease, there are no universal standard therapies that are efficacious across solid tumor types,” Dr. Naidoo added.
With this in mind, Dr. Naidoo and colleagues tested systemic pembrolizumab in a trial of patients with leptomeningeal metastases from solid tumors.
The trial closed early because of poor accrual, after enrolling 13 patients: 5 with breast carcinoma, 3 with high-grade glioma, 3 with non–small cell lung cancer, 1 with squamous cell carcinoma of the skin, and 1 with head and neck squamous carcinoma. Nine patients (69%) had received at least two prior lines of systemic therapy.
Response, safety, and biomarkers
Overall, five patients (38%) had a central nervous system response, as ascertained from radiologic response on MRI, cytologic response in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), and/or clinical response in neurologic symptoms, Dr. Naidoo reported.
Two patients had a complete CNS response: a patient with squamous cell carcinoma of the skin, who was still alive at 3 years, and a patient with non–small cell lung cancer, who survived 9 months but succumbed to metastases elsewhere.
For the entire cohort, median CNS progression-free survival was 2.9 months, and median overall survival was 4.9 months.
“This is consistent with published prospective studies of systemic agents for leptomeningeal disease,” Dr. Naidoo pointed out. “Notably, even though numbers are small, we do see the tail-on-the-curve phenomenon in both of these survival curves, which is consistent with immune checkpoint blockade prospective studies.”
The rate of grade 3 or higher treatment-related adverse events was 15.4%, and there were no grade 3 or higher immune-related adverse events.
The number of patients was too small for formal correlational testing, but both patients who achieved a complete response developed immune-related adverse events.
The trial’s biomarker analyses showed that an aneuploidy assay using CSF tumor-derived DNA performed well at detecting leptomeningeal metastases, with sensitivity of 84.6%, compared with just 53.8% for CSF cytopathology (the current preferred method).
A multiplex assay of CSF cytokines identified similar baseline profiles for patients who went on to have responses and showed similar changes in profile (notably a reduction in proinflammatory cytokines) for the two patients who had complete responses.
Given the trial’s 38% CNS response rate, pembrolizumab “needs to be studied in larger populations of patients to confirm this result, but it could be used as a potential treatment option for patients with leptomeningeal disease from solid tumors,” Dr. Naidoo concluded. “Reassuringly, pembrolizumab was well tolerated, and this is extremely important in a patient population that is traditionally quite frail and in which other standard therapies that are used, such as high-dose methotrexate or intrathecal chemotherapy, are associated with far higher rates of toxicity.”
An unmet need
“Leptomeningeal metastasis is a strong unmet need, although its occurrence is fortunately quite rare,” commented Kim Margolin, MD, a clinical professor and medical oncologist at City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, Calif., who was not involved in this study.
The trial is noteworthy for showing activity of programmed death–1 (PD-1) blockade given only systemically and not with additional intrathecal therapy (as has been done in a concurrent study at MD Anderson Cancer Center) and for providing insight into various biomarkers, Dr. Margolin said in an interview.
“I cannot take a stand on author conclusions other than to agree it warrants further evaluation in carefully selected patients, and it would be great to compare something like peripheral PD-1 blockade alone versus in combination with intrathecal therapy versus a combination such as CTLA4 blockade plus PD-1 blockade such as our group and others have shown to have increased activity in CNS metastases over PD-1 block alone,” Dr. Margolin said.
“The drugs in this class are already approved, so there is no reason not to try them,” she noted.
However, patients with leptomeningeal metastases of melanoma, for example, are likely to have already received anti-PD-1 immunotherapy.
“So the settings in which off-the-shelf PD-1 blockade would be useful are extremely limited,” she concluded.
The current trial was funded by Merck, the National Institutes of Health, the Lung Cancer Foundation of America, the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, and Johns Hopkins University Seed Grants. Dr. Naidoo disclosed relationships with AstraZeneca, Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Roche/Genentech. Dr. Margolin disclosed no relevant conflicts of interest.
SOURCE: Naidoo J et al. SITC 2020, Abstract 788.
Results from the trial were reported at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer’s 35th Anniversary Annual Meeting.
“Unfortunately, when patients present with leptomeningeal disease, they usually have a poor prognosis. Their median survival is measured at 6-24 weeks,” commented lead study author Jarushka Naidoo, MBBCh, an adjunct assistant professor of oncology at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and a consultant medical oncologist at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin.
“While there may be some standard approaches for how we treat leptomeningeal disease, there are no universal standard therapies that are efficacious across solid tumor types,” Dr. Naidoo added.
With this in mind, Dr. Naidoo and colleagues tested systemic pembrolizumab in a trial of patients with leptomeningeal metastases from solid tumors.
The trial closed early because of poor accrual, after enrolling 13 patients: 5 with breast carcinoma, 3 with high-grade glioma, 3 with non–small cell lung cancer, 1 with squamous cell carcinoma of the skin, and 1 with head and neck squamous carcinoma. Nine patients (69%) had received at least two prior lines of systemic therapy.
Response, safety, and biomarkers
Overall, five patients (38%) had a central nervous system response, as ascertained from radiologic response on MRI, cytologic response in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), and/or clinical response in neurologic symptoms, Dr. Naidoo reported.
Two patients had a complete CNS response: a patient with squamous cell carcinoma of the skin, who was still alive at 3 years, and a patient with non–small cell lung cancer, who survived 9 months but succumbed to metastases elsewhere.
For the entire cohort, median CNS progression-free survival was 2.9 months, and median overall survival was 4.9 months.
“This is consistent with published prospective studies of systemic agents for leptomeningeal disease,” Dr. Naidoo pointed out. “Notably, even though numbers are small, we do see the tail-on-the-curve phenomenon in both of these survival curves, which is consistent with immune checkpoint blockade prospective studies.”
The rate of grade 3 or higher treatment-related adverse events was 15.4%, and there were no grade 3 or higher immune-related adverse events.
The number of patients was too small for formal correlational testing, but both patients who achieved a complete response developed immune-related adverse events.
The trial’s biomarker analyses showed that an aneuploidy assay using CSF tumor-derived DNA performed well at detecting leptomeningeal metastases, with sensitivity of 84.6%, compared with just 53.8% for CSF cytopathology (the current preferred method).
A multiplex assay of CSF cytokines identified similar baseline profiles for patients who went on to have responses and showed similar changes in profile (notably a reduction in proinflammatory cytokines) for the two patients who had complete responses.
Given the trial’s 38% CNS response rate, pembrolizumab “needs to be studied in larger populations of patients to confirm this result, but it could be used as a potential treatment option for patients with leptomeningeal disease from solid tumors,” Dr. Naidoo concluded. “Reassuringly, pembrolizumab was well tolerated, and this is extremely important in a patient population that is traditionally quite frail and in which other standard therapies that are used, such as high-dose methotrexate or intrathecal chemotherapy, are associated with far higher rates of toxicity.”
An unmet need
“Leptomeningeal metastasis is a strong unmet need, although its occurrence is fortunately quite rare,” commented Kim Margolin, MD, a clinical professor and medical oncologist at City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, Calif., who was not involved in this study.
The trial is noteworthy for showing activity of programmed death–1 (PD-1) blockade given only systemically and not with additional intrathecal therapy (as has been done in a concurrent study at MD Anderson Cancer Center) and for providing insight into various biomarkers, Dr. Margolin said in an interview.
“I cannot take a stand on author conclusions other than to agree it warrants further evaluation in carefully selected patients, and it would be great to compare something like peripheral PD-1 blockade alone versus in combination with intrathecal therapy versus a combination such as CTLA4 blockade plus PD-1 blockade such as our group and others have shown to have increased activity in CNS metastases over PD-1 block alone,” Dr. Margolin said.
“The drugs in this class are already approved, so there is no reason not to try them,” she noted.
However, patients with leptomeningeal metastases of melanoma, for example, are likely to have already received anti-PD-1 immunotherapy.
“So the settings in which off-the-shelf PD-1 blockade would be useful are extremely limited,” she concluded.
The current trial was funded by Merck, the National Institutes of Health, the Lung Cancer Foundation of America, the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, and Johns Hopkins University Seed Grants. Dr. Naidoo disclosed relationships with AstraZeneca, Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Roche/Genentech. Dr. Margolin disclosed no relevant conflicts of interest.
SOURCE: Naidoo J et al. SITC 2020, Abstract 788.
FROM SITC 2020
Expert shares key facts about keloid therapy
although few understand what this process entails, according to Hilary E. Baldwin, MD, of Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, N.J.
A key point to keep in mind about keloids is that, while they result from trauma, however slight, trauma alone does not cause them, Dr. Baldwin said in a presentation at the virtual MedscapeLive’s annual Las Vegas Dermatology Seminar.
In general, people with darker skin form keloids more easily and consistently than those with lighter skin, but keloids in people with darker skin are often easier to treat, Dr. Baldwin added. Also worth noting is the fact that earlobe keloids recur less frequently, she said.
Most patients with keloids are not surgical candidates, and they need convincing to pursue alternative options, Dr. Baldwin said.
However, successful management of keloids starts with sorting out what the patient wants. Some want “eradication with normal skin,” which is not realistic, versus simply flattening, lightening, or eradication of the keloid and leaving a scar, she noted. “That skin is never going to look normal,” she said. “Very often, they don’t need the whole thing gone, they just want to be better, and not itch or cause them to think about it all the time.”
Quality clinical research on the management of keloids is limited, Dr. Baldwin continued. “If you are holding out for a good randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind study with a healthy ‘N,’ adequate follow-up rational conclusions, don’t hold your breath,” she said. The few literature reviews on keloids in recent decades concluded that modalities used to treat keloids are based on anecdotal evidence rather than rigorous research, she noted.
Size (and shape) matters
The decision to cut a keloid depends on several factors, including lesion size, shape, age, and location, but especially patient commitment to follow up and postsurgery care, said Dr. Baldwin.
She noted that larger keloids are no more difficult to remove than smaller ones, and patients tend to be more satisfied with the outcome with larger keloids. In terms of shape, pedunculated lesions are most amenable to surgery because of their small footprint. “Often the base does not contain keloidal tissue, and the patient gets the maximum benefit for the least risk,” she said. In addition, the residue from the removal of large keloids is often more acceptable.
Options for adjunctive therapy when excising keloids include corticosteroids, radiation, interferon, pressure dressings, dextran hydrogel scaffolding, and possibly botulinum toxin A, Dr. Baldwin said.
Adjunctive treatment alternatives
Intralesional corticosteroids can prevent the recurrence of keloids, and Dr. Baldwin recommends a 40 mg/cc injection into the base and walls of the excision site immediately postop, with repeat injections every 2 weeks for 2 months regardless of the patient’s clinical appearance. However, appearance determines the dose and concentration during 6 months of monthly follow-up, she said.
Radiation therapy, while not an effective monotherapy for keloids, can be used as an adjunct. A short radiation treatment plan may improve compliance, and no local malignancies linked to radiation therapy for keloids have been reported, she said. Dr. Baldwin also shared details of using an in-office superficial radiation therapy with the SRT-100 device, which she said has shown some ability to reduce recurrence of keloids.
Interferon, which can reduce production of collagen and increase collagenase can be used in an amount of 1.5 million units per linear cm around the base and walls of a keloid excision (maximum is 5 million units a day). Be aware that patients can develop flulike symptoms within a day or so, and warn patients to take it easy and monitor for symptoms, she said.
Studies of imiquimod for keloid recurrence have yielded mixed results, and a 2020 literature review concluded that it is not recommended as a treatment option for keloids, said Dr. Baldwin. Pressure dressings also have not shown effectiveness on existing lesions.
Botulinum toxin A has been studied as a way to prevent hypertrophic scars and keloids and potentially for preventing recurrence by injecting at the wound edges, she said. A meta-analysis showed that botulinum toxin was superior to corticosteroids for treating keloids, but “there were a lot of problems with the studies,” she said.
One other option for postexcision keloid treatment is dextran hydrogel scaffolding, which involves a triple-stranded collagen denatured by heat, with the addition of dextran to form a scaffold for fibroblasts, Dr. Baldwin said. This product, when injected prior to the final closure of surgical excision of keloids, may improve outcomes in certain areas, such as the earlobe, she said.
Dr. Baldwin concluded with comments about preventing other keloids from getting out of hand, which is extraordinarily challenging. However, treatment with dupilumab might provide an answer, although data are limited and more research is needed. She cited a case study of a male patient who had severe atopic dermatitis, with two keloids that improved after 7 months on dupilumab. The Th2 cytokines interleukin (IL)–4 and IL-13 have been implicated as key mediators in the pathogenesis of fibroproliferative disorders, which may respond to dupilumab, which targets Th2, she noted.
Dr. Baldwin had no relevant financial conflicts to disclose.
MedscapeLive and this news organization are owned by the same parent company.
although few understand what this process entails, according to Hilary E. Baldwin, MD, of Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, N.J.
A key point to keep in mind about keloids is that, while they result from trauma, however slight, trauma alone does not cause them, Dr. Baldwin said in a presentation at the virtual MedscapeLive’s annual Las Vegas Dermatology Seminar.
In general, people with darker skin form keloids more easily and consistently than those with lighter skin, but keloids in people with darker skin are often easier to treat, Dr. Baldwin added. Also worth noting is the fact that earlobe keloids recur less frequently, she said.
Most patients with keloids are not surgical candidates, and they need convincing to pursue alternative options, Dr. Baldwin said.
However, successful management of keloids starts with sorting out what the patient wants. Some want “eradication with normal skin,” which is not realistic, versus simply flattening, lightening, or eradication of the keloid and leaving a scar, she noted. “That skin is never going to look normal,” she said. “Very often, they don’t need the whole thing gone, they just want to be better, and not itch or cause them to think about it all the time.”
Quality clinical research on the management of keloids is limited, Dr. Baldwin continued. “If you are holding out for a good randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind study with a healthy ‘N,’ adequate follow-up rational conclusions, don’t hold your breath,” she said. The few literature reviews on keloids in recent decades concluded that modalities used to treat keloids are based on anecdotal evidence rather than rigorous research, she noted.
Size (and shape) matters
The decision to cut a keloid depends on several factors, including lesion size, shape, age, and location, but especially patient commitment to follow up and postsurgery care, said Dr. Baldwin.
She noted that larger keloids are no more difficult to remove than smaller ones, and patients tend to be more satisfied with the outcome with larger keloids. In terms of shape, pedunculated lesions are most amenable to surgery because of their small footprint. “Often the base does not contain keloidal tissue, and the patient gets the maximum benefit for the least risk,” she said. In addition, the residue from the removal of large keloids is often more acceptable.
Options for adjunctive therapy when excising keloids include corticosteroids, radiation, interferon, pressure dressings, dextran hydrogel scaffolding, and possibly botulinum toxin A, Dr. Baldwin said.
Adjunctive treatment alternatives
Intralesional corticosteroids can prevent the recurrence of keloids, and Dr. Baldwin recommends a 40 mg/cc injection into the base and walls of the excision site immediately postop, with repeat injections every 2 weeks for 2 months regardless of the patient’s clinical appearance. However, appearance determines the dose and concentration during 6 months of monthly follow-up, she said.
Radiation therapy, while not an effective monotherapy for keloids, can be used as an adjunct. A short radiation treatment plan may improve compliance, and no local malignancies linked to radiation therapy for keloids have been reported, she said. Dr. Baldwin also shared details of using an in-office superficial radiation therapy with the SRT-100 device, which she said has shown some ability to reduce recurrence of keloids.
Interferon, which can reduce production of collagen and increase collagenase can be used in an amount of 1.5 million units per linear cm around the base and walls of a keloid excision (maximum is 5 million units a day). Be aware that patients can develop flulike symptoms within a day or so, and warn patients to take it easy and monitor for symptoms, she said.
Studies of imiquimod for keloid recurrence have yielded mixed results, and a 2020 literature review concluded that it is not recommended as a treatment option for keloids, said Dr. Baldwin. Pressure dressings also have not shown effectiveness on existing lesions.
Botulinum toxin A has been studied as a way to prevent hypertrophic scars and keloids and potentially for preventing recurrence by injecting at the wound edges, she said. A meta-analysis showed that botulinum toxin was superior to corticosteroids for treating keloids, but “there were a lot of problems with the studies,” she said.
One other option for postexcision keloid treatment is dextran hydrogel scaffolding, which involves a triple-stranded collagen denatured by heat, with the addition of dextran to form a scaffold for fibroblasts, Dr. Baldwin said. This product, when injected prior to the final closure of surgical excision of keloids, may improve outcomes in certain areas, such as the earlobe, she said.
Dr. Baldwin concluded with comments about preventing other keloids from getting out of hand, which is extraordinarily challenging. However, treatment with dupilumab might provide an answer, although data are limited and more research is needed. She cited a case study of a male patient who had severe atopic dermatitis, with two keloids that improved after 7 months on dupilumab. The Th2 cytokines interleukin (IL)–4 and IL-13 have been implicated as key mediators in the pathogenesis of fibroproliferative disorders, which may respond to dupilumab, which targets Th2, she noted.
Dr. Baldwin had no relevant financial conflicts to disclose.
MedscapeLive and this news organization are owned by the same parent company.
although few understand what this process entails, according to Hilary E. Baldwin, MD, of Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, N.J.
A key point to keep in mind about keloids is that, while they result from trauma, however slight, trauma alone does not cause them, Dr. Baldwin said in a presentation at the virtual MedscapeLive’s annual Las Vegas Dermatology Seminar.
In general, people with darker skin form keloids more easily and consistently than those with lighter skin, but keloids in people with darker skin are often easier to treat, Dr. Baldwin added. Also worth noting is the fact that earlobe keloids recur less frequently, she said.
Most patients with keloids are not surgical candidates, and they need convincing to pursue alternative options, Dr. Baldwin said.
However, successful management of keloids starts with sorting out what the patient wants. Some want “eradication with normal skin,” which is not realistic, versus simply flattening, lightening, or eradication of the keloid and leaving a scar, she noted. “That skin is never going to look normal,” she said. “Very often, they don’t need the whole thing gone, they just want to be better, and not itch or cause them to think about it all the time.”
Quality clinical research on the management of keloids is limited, Dr. Baldwin continued. “If you are holding out for a good randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind study with a healthy ‘N,’ adequate follow-up rational conclusions, don’t hold your breath,” she said. The few literature reviews on keloids in recent decades concluded that modalities used to treat keloids are based on anecdotal evidence rather than rigorous research, she noted.
Size (and shape) matters
The decision to cut a keloid depends on several factors, including lesion size, shape, age, and location, but especially patient commitment to follow up and postsurgery care, said Dr. Baldwin.
She noted that larger keloids are no more difficult to remove than smaller ones, and patients tend to be more satisfied with the outcome with larger keloids. In terms of shape, pedunculated lesions are most amenable to surgery because of their small footprint. “Often the base does not contain keloidal tissue, and the patient gets the maximum benefit for the least risk,” she said. In addition, the residue from the removal of large keloids is often more acceptable.
Options for adjunctive therapy when excising keloids include corticosteroids, radiation, interferon, pressure dressings, dextran hydrogel scaffolding, and possibly botulinum toxin A, Dr. Baldwin said.
Adjunctive treatment alternatives
Intralesional corticosteroids can prevent the recurrence of keloids, and Dr. Baldwin recommends a 40 mg/cc injection into the base and walls of the excision site immediately postop, with repeat injections every 2 weeks for 2 months regardless of the patient’s clinical appearance. However, appearance determines the dose and concentration during 6 months of monthly follow-up, she said.
Radiation therapy, while not an effective monotherapy for keloids, can be used as an adjunct. A short radiation treatment plan may improve compliance, and no local malignancies linked to radiation therapy for keloids have been reported, she said. Dr. Baldwin also shared details of using an in-office superficial radiation therapy with the SRT-100 device, which she said has shown some ability to reduce recurrence of keloids.
Interferon, which can reduce production of collagen and increase collagenase can be used in an amount of 1.5 million units per linear cm around the base and walls of a keloid excision (maximum is 5 million units a day). Be aware that patients can develop flulike symptoms within a day or so, and warn patients to take it easy and monitor for symptoms, she said.
Studies of imiquimod for keloid recurrence have yielded mixed results, and a 2020 literature review concluded that it is not recommended as a treatment option for keloids, said Dr. Baldwin. Pressure dressings also have not shown effectiveness on existing lesions.
Botulinum toxin A has been studied as a way to prevent hypertrophic scars and keloids and potentially for preventing recurrence by injecting at the wound edges, she said. A meta-analysis showed that botulinum toxin was superior to corticosteroids for treating keloids, but “there were a lot of problems with the studies,” she said.
One other option for postexcision keloid treatment is dextran hydrogel scaffolding, which involves a triple-stranded collagen denatured by heat, with the addition of dextran to form a scaffold for fibroblasts, Dr. Baldwin said. This product, when injected prior to the final closure of surgical excision of keloids, may improve outcomes in certain areas, such as the earlobe, she said.
Dr. Baldwin concluded with comments about preventing other keloids from getting out of hand, which is extraordinarily challenging. However, treatment with dupilumab might provide an answer, although data are limited and more research is needed. She cited a case study of a male patient who had severe atopic dermatitis, with two keloids that improved after 7 months on dupilumab. The Th2 cytokines interleukin (IL)–4 and IL-13 have been implicated as key mediators in the pathogenesis of fibroproliferative disorders, which may respond to dupilumab, which targets Th2, she noted.
Dr. Baldwin had no relevant financial conflicts to disclose.
MedscapeLive and this news organization are owned by the same parent company.
FROM MEDSCAPELIVE LAS VEGAS DERMATOLOGY SEMINAR
Food preservative for early psychosis: Final word?
Adjunctive use of sodium benzoate (BZ), a common food preservative that has previously shown promise in the treatment of chronic refractory psychosis, appears to be ineffective in the early stages of the disorder, new research suggests.
Results of a randomized controlled trial show the agent was no more effective than placebo in reducing early psychosis symptoms, although it was safe and well tolerated.
“Both groups of patients improved over the 12 weeks of the study, [suggesting] that most people with early psychosis will get well with antipsychotic medication and psychosocial interventions and adding sodium benzoate to their treatment does not add any additional benefits,” the study’s lead author, James Scott, MBBS, PhD, head of mental health research, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Herston, Australia, told Medscape Medical News.
The paper was published online November 10 in JAMA Network Open.
Positive outcomes in chronic disease
Despite treatment with antipsychotics, many patients with psychosis experience persistent impairment, the investigators note.
Most antipsychotics are dopaminergic in action, but it is now recognized that the pathophysiology underlying psychosis extends beyond dopaminergic dysregulation with hypofunction of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors also implicated but not addressed by standard antipsychotics, they add.
NMDA receptors consist of two main subunits – the glutamate and glycine-binding sites. D-amino acids (DAAs) are agonists of the glycine subunit and have shown promise as adjunctive therapies for the treatment of schizophrenia, the investigators note.
DAAs are subject to oxidation by the flavoenzyme D-amino acid oxidase (DAAO). The oxidation limits their bioavailability and can cause nephrotoxic side effects. The food preservative BZ, which is not related to the benzodiazepine class of medications, inhibits DAAO and therefore may make DAAs safer and more effective.
Scott noted that two previous trials of BZ – a 2013 study and a 2017 investigation – in chronic, treatment-refractory schizophrenia have “reported excellent outcomes with significant improvement in clinical symptoms.”
“We saw that sodium benzoate was a safe and well-tolerated agent, and we thought it was important to conduct a trial of this medication in people in the early stages of psychotic illness,” he said.
To investigate, the researchers randomly assigned 100 individuals who were experiencing early psychosis, which was defined as illness onset within the last 2 years, to receive either 500 mg of BZ twice daily or placebo for 12 weeks.
Participants (mean [SD] age 21.4 [4.1] years, 73% male) were required to be taking antipsychotic medications for at least 1 continuous month during the previous 2 years and to be free of comorbid physical illnesses requiring additional treatment or hospitalization.
Most participants (84%) had schizophrenia and the remainder had affective psychoses. Most participants (88%) lived independently.
The BZ and the placebo groups were similar with respect to baseline characteristics, except that the mean waist circumference was higher in the placebo group than in the BZ group.
The majority of patients were being treated with antipsychotics alone (83%), followed by antipsychotics in combination with mood stabilizers (13%) and a small number were taking mood stabilizers alone (4%). The most commonly used antipsychotics were olanzapine and aripiprazole.
Not recommended
Psychosis was confirmed using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), and the inclusion criteria was a baseline score of ≥ 55. Secondary outcomes were scores on the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, the clinician-rated Global Assessment of Function, and the Assessment of Quality of Life Scale.
The researchers also measured concentrations of the amino acids oxidized by DAAO (D-alanine and L-alanine, D-serine and L-serine).
Although both groups experienced a reduction in total PANSS scores during the study, there were no significant differences in PANSS total score between the BZ and the placebo groups at 12 weeks (endpoint least-square mean difference [SE] −1.2 [2.4] t = −0.49, P = .63).
There were also no significant differences between the groups on all PANSS subscales as well as any of the secondary clinical measures (P < .007).
A total of 122 adverse events (AEs) overall were reported by 66 participants, but rates of AEs were comparable between the BZ and placebo groups at 55% vs. 46% respectively. There were 11 serious AEs reported by 10 participants. Only one of these was related to the study drug.
There were no statistically significant changes in amino acid concentrations between the two groups.
The authors note several limitations of the study, including the possibility that protective agents may need longer times than 12 weeks – possibly as long as 6 to 12 months – to show efficacy. Moreover, the dose of BZ needed to produce a response remains “uncertain.”
“ and should further investigate whether benzoate acts by altering amino acid levels or by reducing oxidative stress in people with schizophrenia,” the authors suggest.
Scott added that further research in patients with treatment-refractory schizophrenia is needed to determine whether BZ “has a role in this patient population.”
The authors conclude that at present, “the routine use of this agent as an adjunctive treatment for early psychosis is not recommended.”
No surprise?
Commenting on the study for Medscape Medical News, Kenji Hashimoto, PhD, Division of Clinical Neuroscience, Chiba University Center for Forensic Mental Health, Chiba, Japan, said that, although previous studies of BZ showed benefit in stable patients with chronic schizophrenia, “it is unlikely that [sodium] benzoate may have beneficial effects in the acute phase of psychosis.”
Hashimoto, who was not involved with the study, noted that BZ is a “weak DAAO inhibitor and that DAAO expression in the frontal cortex of human beings is very low.”
This project was supported by a John Cade Fellowship from the National Health and Medical Research Council and support from the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research, which receives funding from the Queensland Health Department. Scott is supported by an NHMRC Practitioner Fellowship. The other authors’ disclosures are listed on the original article. Hashimoto has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
This article first appeared on Medscape.com.
Adjunctive use of sodium benzoate (BZ), a common food preservative that has previously shown promise in the treatment of chronic refractory psychosis, appears to be ineffective in the early stages of the disorder, new research suggests.
Results of a randomized controlled trial show the agent was no more effective than placebo in reducing early psychosis symptoms, although it was safe and well tolerated.
“Both groups of patients improved over the 12 weeks of the study, [suggesting] that most people with early psychosis will get well with antipsychotic medication and psychosocial interventions and adding sodium benzoate to their treatment does not add any additional benefits,” the study’s lead author, James Scott, MBBS, PhD, head of mental health research, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Herston, Australia, told Medscape Medical News.
The paper was published online November 10 in JAMA Network Open.
Positive outcomes in chronic disease
Despite treatment with antipsychotics, many patients with psychosis experience persistent impairment, the investigators note.
Most antipsychotics are dopaminergic in action, but it is now recognized that the pathophysiology underlying psychosis extends beyond dopaminergic dysregulation with hypofunction of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors also implicated but not addressed by standard antipsychotics, they add.
NMDA receptors consist of two main subunits – the glutamate and glycine-binding sites. D-amino acids (DAAs) are agonists of the glycine subunit and have shown promise as adjunctive therapies for the treatment of schizophrenia, the investigators note.
DAAs are subject to oxidation by the flavoenzyme D-amino acid oxidase (DAAO). The oxidation limits their bioavailability and can cause nephrotoxic side effects. The food preservative BZ, which is not related to the benzodiazepine class of medications, inhibits DAAO and therefore may make DAAs safer and more effective.
Scott noted that two previous trials of BZ – a 2013 study and a 2017 investigation – in chronic, treatment-refractory schizophrenia have “reported excellent outcomes with significant improvement in clinical symptoms.”
“We saw that sodium benzoate was a safe and well-tolerated agent, and we thought it was important to conduct a trial of this medication in people in the early stages of psychotic illness,” he said.
To investigate, the researchers randomly assigned 100 individuals who were experiencing early psychosis, which was defined as illness onset within the last 2 years, to receive either 500 mg of BZ twice daily or placebo for 12 weeks.
Participants (mean [SD] age 21.4 [4.1] years, 73% male) were required to be taking antipsychotic medications for at least 1 continuous month during the previous 2 years and to be free of comorbid physical illnesses requiring additional treatment or hospitalization.
Most participants (84%) had schizophrenia and the remainder had affective psychoses. Most participants (88%) lived independently.
The BZ and the placebo groups were similar with respect to baseline characteristics, except that the mean waist circumference was higher in the placebo group than in the BZ group.
The majority of patients were being treated with antipsychotics alone (83%), followed by antipsychotics in combination with mood stabilizers (13%) and a small number were taking mood stabilizers alone (4%). The most commonly used antipsychotics were olanzapine and aripiprazole.
Not recommended
Psychosis was confirmed using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), and the inclusion criteria was a baseline score of ≥ 55. Secondary outcomes were scores on the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, the clinician-rated Global Assessment of Function, and the Assessment of Quality of Life Scale.
The researchers also measured concentrations of the amino acids oxidized by DAAO (D-alanine and L-alanine, D-serine and L-serine).
Although both groups experienced a reduction in total PANSS scores during the study, there were no significant differences in PANSS total score between the BZ and the placebo groups at 12 weeks (endpoint least-square mean difference [SE] −1.2 [2.4] t = −0.49, P = .63).
There were also no significant differences between the groups on all PANSS subscales as well as any of the secondary clinical measures (P < .007).
A total of 122 adverse events (AEs) overall were reported by 66 participants, but rates of AEs were comparable between the BZ and placebo groups at 55% vs. 46% respectively. There were 11 serious AEs reported by 10 participants. Only one of these was related to the study drug.
There were no statistically significant changes in amino acid concentrations between the two groups.
The authors note several limitations of the study, including the possibility that protective agents may need longer times than 12 weeks – possibly as long as 6 to 12 months – to show efficacy. Moreover, the dose of BZ needed to produce a response remains “uncertain.”
“ and should further investigate whether benzoate acts by altering amino acid levels or by reducing oxidative stress in people with schizophrenia,” the authors suggest.
Scott added that further research in patients with treatment-refractory schizophrenia is needed to determine whether BZ “has a role in this patient population.”
The authors conclude that at present, “the routine use of this agent as an adjunctive treatment for early psychosis is not recommended.”
No surprise?
Commenting on the study for Medscape Medical News, Kenji Hashimoto, PhD, Division of Clinical Neuroscience, Chiba University Center for Forensic Mental Health, Chiba, Japan, said that, although previous studies of BZ showed benefit in stable patients with chronic schizophrenia, “it is unlikely that [sodium] benzoate may have beneficial effects in the acute phase of psychosis.”
Hashimoto, who was not involved with the study, noted that BZ is a “weak DAAO inhibitor and that DAAO expression in the frontal cortex of human beings is very low.”
This project was supported by a John Cade Fellowship from the National Health and Medical Research Council and support from the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research, which receives funding from the Queensland Health Department. Scott is supported by an NHMRC Practitioner Fellowship. The other authors’ disclosures are listed on the original article. Hashimoto has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
This article first appeared on Medscape.com.
Adjunctive use of sodium benzoate (BZ), a common food preservative that has previously shown promise in the treatment of chronic refractory psychosis, appears to be ineffective in the early stages of the disorder, new research suggests.
Results of a randomized controlled trial show the agent was no more effective than placebo in reducing early psychosis symptoms, although it was safe and well tolerated.
“Both groups of patients improved over the 12 weeks of the study, [suggesting] that most people with early psychosis will get well with antipsychotic medication and psychosocial interventions and adding sodium benzoate to their treatment does not add any additional benefits,” the study’s lead author, James Scott, MBBS, PhD, head of mental health research, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Herston, Australia, told Medscape Medical News.
The paper was published online November 10 in JAMA Network Open.
Positive outcomes in chronic disease
Despite treatment with antipsychotics, many patients with psychosis experience persistent impairment, the investigators note.
Most antipsychotics are dopaminergic in action, but it is now recognized that the pathophysiology underlying psychosis extends beyond dopaminergic dysregulation with hypofunction of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors also implicated but not addressed by standard antipsychotics, they add.
NMDA receptors consist of two main subunits – the glutamate and glycine-binding sites. D-amino acids (DAAs) are agonists of the glycine subunit and have shown promise as adjunctive therapies for the treatment of schizophrenia, the investigators note.
DAAs are subject to oxidation by the flavoenzyme D-amino acid oxidase (DAAO). The oxidation limits their bioavailability and can cause nephrotoxic side effects. The food preservative BZ, which is not related to the benzodiazepine class of medications, inhibits DAAO and therefore may make DAAs safer and more effective.
Scott noted that two previous trials of BZ – a 2013 study and a 2017 investigation – in chronic, treatment-refractory schizophrenia have “reported excellent outcomes with significant improvement in clinical symptoms.”
“We saw that sodium benzoate was a safe and well-tolerated agent, and we thought it was important to conduct a trial of this medication in people in the early stages of psychotic illness,” he said.
To investigate, the researchers randomly assigned 100 individuals who were experiencing early psychosis, which was defined as illness onset within the last 2 years, to receive either 500 mg of BZ twice daily or placebo for 12 weeks.
Participants (mean [SD] age 21.4 [4.1] years, 73% male) were required to be taking antipsychotic medications for at least 1 continuous month during the previous 2 years and to be free of comorbid physical illnesses requiring additional treatment or hospitalization.
Most participants (84%) had schizophrenia and the remainder had affective psychoses. Most participants (88%) lived independently.
The BZ and the placebo groups were similar with respect to baseline characteristics, except that the mean waist circumference was higher in the placebo group than in the BZ group.
The majority of patients were being treated with antipsychotics alone (83%), followed by antipsychotics in combination with mood stabilizers (13%) and a small number were taking mood stabilizers alone (4%). The most commonly used antipsychotics were olanzapine and aripiprazole.
Not recommended
Psychosis was confirmed using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), and the inclusion criteria was a baseline score of ≥ 55. Secondary outcomes were scores on the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, the clinician-rated Global Assessment of Function, and the Assessment of Quality of Life Scale.
The researchers also measured concentrations of the amino acids oxidized by DAAO (D-alanine and L-alanine, D-serine and L-serine).
Although both groups experienced a reduction in total PANSS scores during the study, there were no significant differences in PANSS total score between the BZ and the placebo groups at 12 weeks (endpoint least-square mean difference [SE] −1.2 [2.4] t = −0.49, P = .63).
There were also no significant differences between the groups on all PANSS subscales as well as any of the secondary clinical measures (P < .007).
A total of 122 adverse events (AEs) overall were reported by 66 participants, but rates of AEs were comparable between the BZ and placebo groups at 55% vs. 46% respectively. There were 11 serious AEs reported by 10 participants. Only one of these was related to the study drug.
There were no statistically significant changes in amino acid concentrations between the two groups.
The authors note several limitations of the study, including the possibility that protective agents may need longer times than 12 weeks – possibly as long as 6 to 12 months – to show efficacy. Moreover, the dose of BZ needed to produce a response remains “uncertain.”
“ and should further investigate whether benzoate acts by altering amino acid levels or by reducing oxidative stress in people with schizophrenia,” the authors suggest.
Scott added that further research in patients with treatment-refractory schizophrenia is needed to determine whether BZ “has a role in this patient population.”
The authors conclude that at present, “the routine use of this agent as an adjunctive treatment for early psychosis is not recommended.”
No surprise?
Commenting on the study for Medscape Medical News, Kenji Hashimoto, PhD, Division of Clinical Neuroscience, Chiba University Center for Forensic Mental Health, Chiba, Japan, said that, although previous studies of BZ showed benefit in stable patients with chronic schizophrenia, “it is unlikely that [sodium] benzoate may have beneficial effects in the acute phase of psychosis.”
Hashimoto, who was not involved with the study, noted that BZ is a “weak DAAO inhibitor and that DAAO expression in the frontal cortex of human beings is very low.”
This project was supported by a John Cade Fellowship from the National Health and Medical Research Council and support from the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research, which receives funding from the Queensland Health Department. Scott is supported by an NHMRC Practitioner Fellowship. The other authors’ disclosures are listed on the original article. Hashimoto has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
This article first appeared on Medscape.com.
Pfizer files for FDA emergency use authorization of COVID vaccine
Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech have filed an application with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for an emergency use authorization of its vaccine against COVID-19, the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, according to a company news release.
It is the latest step in what has been an extraordinarily fast-paced development and testing process, with the companies having reported interim results of phase 3 trials on November 9 and final results this past Wednesday, as reported by Medscape Medical News. The vaccine, BNT162b2, which uses a messenger RNA-based platform, was ultimately found to have 95% efficacy and more than 94% efficacy in individuals over age 65.
“The process of the speed did not compromise at all safety, nor did it compromise scientific integrity,” said Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at a White House press briefing yesterday.
“We need to put to rest any concept that this was rushed in an inappropriate way,” he said. “This is really solid.”
Pfizer and BioNTech said they believe they have met the FDA’s safety data requirements for emergency use authorization (EUA). The agency in October outlined its expectations for safety and efficacy to secure an EUA.
“Filing in the US represents a critical milestone in our journey to deliver a COVID-19 vaccine to the world, and we now have a more complete picture of both the efficacy and safety profile of our vaccine, giving us confidence in its potential,” said Albert Bourla, MD, Pfizer’s chairman and CEO, in its release.
The FDA is expected to hold a meeting of its Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee sometime in December to review the safety and efficacy data in the companies’ application. The committee will review:
- Efficacy data from a total 170 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the phase 3 study.
- Safety data from a randomly assigned subset of 8000 participants 18 years and older.
- Data on 19,000 enrollees who have been followed for a median of 2 months after the second and final dose.
- Data on the manufacturing processes.
According to Pfizer, the companies plan to submit the efficacy and safety data to a peer-reviewed journal once they have completed their analysis.
Vaccine logistics
The companies — which funded their own trials — signed an agreement with the US government’s Operation Warp Speed program in July to provide 100 million doses of its vaccine following FDA authorization or approval in exchange for $1.95 billion. The US government has the option to acquire up to 500 million more doses.
Pfizer and BioNTech said they will be able to supply 50 million doses globally in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021. The vaccine must be given in two doses, spaced 21 days apart. Pfizer expects to be ready to distribute the vaccine within hours after FDA authorization.
The US government is still on track to deliver the Pfizer vaccine within 24 hours of an FDA authorization, said Operation Warp Speed’s Chief Operating Officer Gen. Gustave F. Perna at yesterday’s White House briefing.
Vice President Mike Pence emphasized that point at the briefing: “The moment that the FDA concludes that that vaccine is safe and effective, we have a system in place to begin within 24 hours shipping that vaccine to hospitals, healthcare facilities and, 24 hours after that, literally injecting that vaccine into Americans,” he said.
The vaccine will be pushed out through 64 jurisdictions already part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccines for children distribution program, and will likely be divided up according to population, said Perna.
Pfizer’s vaccine must be shipped and stored at –70°C (–94°F), which has presented logistical and storage issues. The company is testing out delivery methods, including a pilot delivery program in New Mexico, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Texas that will be active after an FDA authorization. States, hospitals, and pharmacy chains are also buying special freezers.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine issued recommendations in October that healthcare workers, first responders, older Americans living in congregate settings (eg, nursing homes), and people with underlying health conditions be the first to receive a coronavirus vaccine. The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will also be issuing recommendations as soon as the FDA authorizes a vaccine.
Pfizer and BioNTech are also seeking approval for the vaccine with several regulatory agencies around the world, including the European Medicines Agency and the Medicines & Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in the United Kingdom.
This article first appeared on Medscape.com.
Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech have filed an application with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for an emergency use authorization of its vaccine against COVID-19, the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, according to a company news release.
It is the latest step in what has been an extraordinarily fast-paced development and testing process, with the companies having reported interim results of phase 3 trials on November 9 and final results this past Wednesday, as reported by Medscape Medical News. The vaccine, BNT162b2, which uses a messenger RNA-based platform, was ultimately found to have 95% efficacy and more than 94% efficacy in individuals over age 65.
“The process of the speed did not compromise at all safety, nor did it compromise scientific integrity,” said Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at a White House press briefing yesterday.
“We need to put to rest any concept that this was rushed in an inappropriate way,” he said. “This is really solid.”
Pfizer and BioNTech said they believe they have met the FDA’s safety data requirements for emergency use authorization (EUA). The agency in October outlined its expectations for safety and efficacy to secure an EUA.
“Filing in the US represents a critical milestone in our journey to deliver a COVID-19 vaccine to the world, and we now have a more complete picture of both the efficacy and safety profile of our vaccine, giving us confidence in its potential,” said Albert Bourla, MD, Pfizer’s chairman and CEO, in its release.
The FDA is expected to hold a meeting of its Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee sometime in December to review the safety and efficacy data in the companies’ application. The committee will review:
- Efficacy data from a total 170 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the phase 3 study.
- Safety data from a randomly assigned subset of 8000 participants 18 years and older.
- Data on 19,000 enrollees who have been followed for a median of 2 months after the second and final dose.
- Data on the manufacturing processes.
According to Pfizer, the companies plan to submit the efficacy and safety data to a peer-reviewed journal once they have completed their analysis.
Vaccine logistics
The companies — which funded their own trials — signed an agreement with the US government’s Operation Warp Speed program in July to provide 100 million doses of its vaccine following FDA authorization or approval in exchange for $1.95 billion. The US government has the option to acquire up to 500 million more doses.
Pfizer and BioNTech said they will be able to supply 50 million doses globally in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021. The vaccine must be given in two doses, spaced 21 days apart. Pfizer expects to be ready to distribute the vaccine within hours after FDA authorization.
The US government is still on track to deliver the Pfizer vaccine within 24 hours of an FDA authorization, said Operation Warp Speed’s Chief Operating Officer Gen. Gustave F. Perna at yesterday’s White House briefing.
Vice President Mike Pence emphasized that point at the briefing: “The moment that the FDA concludes that that vaccine is safe and effective, we have a system in place to begin within 24 hours shipping that vaccine to hospitals, healthcare facilities and, 24 hours after that, literally injecting that vaccine into Americans,” he said.
The vaccine will be pushed out through 64 jurisdictions already part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccines for children distribution program, and will likely be divided up according to population, said Perna.
Pfizer’s vaccine must be shipped and stored at –70°C (–94°F), which has presented logistical and storage issues. The company is testing out delivery methods, including a pilot delivery program in New Mexico, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Texas that will be active after an FDA authorization. States, hospitals, and pharmacy chains are also buying special freezers.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine issued recommendations in October that healthcare workers, first responders, older Americans living in congregate settings (eg, nursing homes), and people with underlying health conditions be the first to receive a coronavirus vaccine. The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will also be issuing recommendations as soon as the FDA authorizes a vaccine.
Pfizer and BioNTech are also seeking approval for the vaccine with several regulatory agencies around the world, including the European Medicines Agency and the Medicines & Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in the United Kingdom.
This article first appeared on Medscape.com.
Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech have filed an application with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for an emergency use authorization of its vaccine against COVID-19, the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, according to a company news release.
It is the latest step in what has been an extraordinarily fast-paced development and testing process, with the companies having reported interim results of phase 3 trials on November 9 and final results this past Wednesday, as reported by Medscape Medical News. The vaccine, BNT162b2, which uses a messenger RNA-based platform, was ultimately found to have 95% efficacy and more than 94% efficacy in individuals over age 65.
“The process of the speed did not compromise at all safety, nor did it compromise scientific integrity,” said Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at a White House press briefing yesterday.
“We need to put to rest any concept that this was rushed in an inappropriate way,” he said. “This is really solid.”
Pfizer and BioNTech said they believe they have met the FDA’s safety data requirements for emergency use authorization (EUA). The agency in October outlined its expectations for safety and efficacy to secure an EUA.
“Filing in the US represents a critical milestone in our journey to deliver a COVID-19 vaccine to the world, and we now have a more complete picture of both the efficacy and safety profile of our vaccine, giving us confidence in its potential,” said Albert Bourla, MD, Pfizer’s chairman and CEO, in its release.
The FDA is expected to hold a meeting of its Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee sometime in December to review the safety and efficacy data in the companies’ application. The committee will review:
- Efficacy data from a total 170 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the phase 3 study.
- Safety data from a randomly assigned subset of 8000 participants 18 years and older.
- Data on 19,000 enrollees who have been followed for a median of 2 months after the second and final dose.
- Data on the manufacturing processes.
According to Pfizer, the companies plan to submit the efficacy and safety data to a peer-reviewed journal once they have completed their analysis.
Vaccine logistics
The companies — which funded their own trials — signed an agreement with the US government’s Operation Warp Speed program in July to provide 100 million doses of its vaccine following FDA authorization or approval in exchange for $1.95 billion. The US government has the option to acquire up to 500 million more doses.
Pfizer and BioNTech said they will be able to supply 50 million doses globally in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021. The vaccine must be given in two doses, spaced 21 days apart. Pfizer expects to be ready to distribute the vaccine within hours after FDA authorization.
The US government is still on track to deliver the Pfizer vaccine within 24 hours of an FDA authorization, said Operation Warp Speed’s Chief Operating Officer Gen. Gustave F. Perna at yesterday’s White House briefing.
Vice President Mike Pence emphasized that point at the briefing: “The moment that the FDA concludes that that vaccine is safe and effective, we have a system in place to begin within 24 hours shipping that vaccine to hospitals, healthcare facilities and, 24 hours after that, literally injecting that vaccine into Americans,” he said.
The vaccine will be pushed out through 64 jurisdictions already part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccines for children distribution program, and will likely be divided up according to population, said Perna.
Pfizer’s vaccine must be shipped and stored at –70°C (–94°F), which has presented logistical and storage issues. The company is testing out delivery methods, including a pilot delivery program in New Mexico, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Texas that will be active after an FDA authorization. States, hospitals, and pharmacy chains are also buying special freezers.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine issued recommendations in October that healthcare workers, first responders, older Americans living in congregate settings (eg, nursing homes), and people with underlying health conditions be the first to receive a coronavirus vaccine. The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will also be issuing recommendations as soon as the FDA authorizes a vaccine.
Pfizer and BioNTech are also seeking approval for the vaccine with several regulatory agencies around the world, including the European Medicines Agency and the Medicines & Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in the United Kingdom.
This article first appeared on Medscape.com.
Aspirin and statins in chronic hepatitis B: It’s complicated
For patients with chronic hepatitis B, the protective effects of aspirin against hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) can vary with cirrhosis status and statin treatment, a pair of new studies finds.
One study showed that, although aspirin is linked to a reduction in risk for HCC in these patients, comedication with statins could explain some of that effect. The other showed that cirrhosis dampens the risk-reduction benefit of aspirin.
Currently, there is a link between a reduction in HCC risk and aspirin or statins in patients with chronic hepatitis B, said investigator Won-Mook Choi, MD, PhD, from the University of Ulsan College of Medicine, in Seoul, Republic of Korea.
In one of their analyses, Choi and his colleagues teased out the contribution of each drug and found that the decrease in HCC risk conferred by statins is similar whether or not patients also take aspirin.
“Only statins showed consistent and significant dose-dependent reductions in the risk of HCC, regardless of study design,” said Choi, who presented the findings at The Liver Meeting 2020.
The second study, which looked at the association between aspirin and the risk for HCC in patients with and without cirrhosis, was presented by Heejoon Jang, MD, from the Seoul National University College of Medicine.
Aspirin was shown to be associated with a reduced risk for HCC, but cirrhosis “had a substantial effect on this association,” erasing the benefit of aspirin, Jang reported.
Statins and aspirin
Statins and aspirin are more likely to be prescribed together for patients with chronic hepatitis B but no cirrhosis, said Choi. For that reason, he and his colleagues analyzed data from the Korean National Health Insurance Service database from 2005 to 2015.
In their nested case-control analysis, 17,150 patients with HCC were matched for sex, age, and other factors to 817,675 patients without HCC. All participants had chronic hepatitis B without cirrhosis and had never received antiviral treatment.
The team also analyzed the incidence of HCC in two historic cohorts of patients with chronic hepatitis B but no cirrhosis, one consisting of 673,107 people who took aspirin and the other with 588,045 who took statins.
The nested case-control analysis showed an 11% risk reduction with aspirin use (adjusted odds ratio [OR], 0.89; 95% CI, 0.85 - 0.94) and a 61% risk reduction with statin use (adjusted OR, 0.39; 95% CI, 0.36 - 0.40). There was a dose-response effect with statins, but not with aspirin.
The historic cohort analysis showed a 33% reduction in the risk for HCC with aspirin (adjusted hazard ratio [HR], 0.67; 95% CI, 0.63 - 0.72) and a 67% reduction with statins (adjusted HR, 0.33; 95% CI, 0.30 - 0.37). However, stratified analyses by drug showed a statin benefit with or without aspirin (P < .001 for both), but no aspirin benefit without statins.
Cirrhosis and aspirin
To assess the interaction between cirrhosis and aspirin, Jang and his colleagues identified 329,635 patients with chronic hepatitis B in the Korean National Health Insurance Service database.
A total of 20,200 had taken aspirin for at least 90 consecutive days, and the rest had never received antiplatelet therapy. Treated and untreated patients were matched for several factors, and HCC incidence was assessed after a median follow-up of 6.7 years.
Among the 2,697 patients who developed HCC during follow-up, the cumulative incidence of HCC was significantly lower for those who took aspirin than for those who did not (P < .001). There was a 15% reduction in the risk for HCC in the aspirin group (adjusted HR, 0.85; 95% CI, 0.78 - 0.92).
However, in patients with cirrhosis, the benefit of aspirin disappeared. Patients without cirrhosis still had a 13% reduction in risk for HCC (adjusted HR, 0.87: 95% CI, 0.79 - 0.95). This group also had a slightly elevated risk for major bleeding (adjusted HR, 1.1; 95% CI, 1.03 - 1.28).
The findings from these two studies add to a growing body of literature that shows the promise of statins and aspirin, which are both readily available and relatively safe, said Amit Singal, MD, from the UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, who was not involved with either study.
“The studies are relatively simple but really do tackle an area of immense need in the field,” he said. Short of having higher-quality data, however, statins and aspirin aren’t quite ready to become bespoke chemotherapies in the clinic, he added, although the results show promise for future randomized trials.
The subgroup analyses that looked at cirrhosis and the interplay of aspirin and statins can help with the planning of such trials, which “is really important for trial design,” Singal noted.
He also pointed to studies that, unlike these results, have found a benefit of aspirin in patients with cirrhosis, underscoring the need for randomized trials. However, “each study does provide a data point that can help to inform those trials,” he said.
Choi and Jang have disclosed no relevant financial relationships. Singal is a consultant for Genentech, Bayer, Eisai, Exelixis, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Roche, Glycotest, FujiFilm, GRAIL, and Exact Sciences, primarily in relation to HCC treatment and screening, not chemoprevention.
This article first appeared on Medscape.com.
For patients with chronic hepatitis B, the protective effects of aspirin against hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) can vary with cirrhosis status and statin treatment, a pair of new studies finds.
One study showed that, although aspirin is linked to a reduction in risk for HCC in these patients, comedication with statins could explain some of that effect. The other showed that cirrhosis dampens the risk-reduction benefit of aspirin.
Currently, there is a link between a reduction in HCC risk and aspirin or statins in patients with chronic hepatitis B, said investigator Won-Mook Choi, MD, PhD, from the University of Ulsan College of Medicine, in Seoul, Republic of Korea.
In one of their analyses, Choi and his colleagues teased out the contribution of each drug and found that the decrease in HCC risk conferred by statins is similar whether or not patients also take aspirin.
“Only statins showed consistent and significant dose-dependent reductions in the risk of HCC, regardless of study design,” said Choi, who presented the findings at The Liver Meeting 2020.
The second study, which looked at the association between aspirin and the risk for HCC in patients with and without cirrhosis, was presented by Heejoon Jang, MD, from the Seoul National University College of Medicine.
Aspirin was shown to be associated with a reduced risk for HCC, but cirrhosis “had a substantial effect on this association,” erasing the benefit of aspirin, Jang reported.
Statins and aspirin
Statins and aspirin are more likely to be prescribed together for patients with chronic hepatitis B but no cirrhosis, said Choi. For that reason, he and his colleagues analyzed data from the Korean National Health Insurance Service database from 2005 to 2015.
In their nested case-control analysis, 17,150 patients with HCC were matched for sex, age, and other factors to 817,675 patients without HCC. All participants had chronic hepatitis B without cirrhosis and had never received antiviral treatment.
The team also analyzed the incidence of HCC in two historic cohorts of patients with chronic hepatitis B but no cirrhosis, one consisting of 673,107 people who took aspirin and the other with 588,045 who took statins.
The nested case-control analysis showed an 11% risk reduction with aspirin use (adjusted odds ratio [OR], 0.89; 95% CI, 0.85 - 0.94) and a 61% risk reduction with statin use (adjusted OR, 0.39; 95% CI, 0.36 - 0.40). There was a dose-response effect with statins, but not with aspirin.
The historic cohort analysis showed a 33% reduction in the risk for HCC with aspirin (adjusted hazard ratio [HR], 0.67; 95% CI, 0.63 - 0.72) and a 67% reduction with statins (adjusted HR, 0.33; 95% CI, 0.30 - 0.37). However, stratified analyses by drug showed a statin benefit with or without aspirin (P < .001 for both), but no aspirin benefit without statins.
Cirrhosis and aspirin
To assess the interaction between cirrhosis and aspirin, Jang and his colleagues identified 329,635 patients with chronic hepatitis B in the Korean National Health Insurance Service database.
A total of 20,200 had taken aspirin for at least 90 consecutive days, and the rest had never received antiplatelet therapy. Treated and untreated patients were matched for several factors, and HCC incidence was assessed after a median follow-up of 6.7 years.
Among the 2,697 patients who developed HCC during follow-up, the cumulative incidence of HCC was significantly lower for those who took aspirin than for those who did not (P < .001). There was a 15% reduction in the risk for HCC in the aspirin group (adjusted HR, 0.85; 95% CI, 0.78 - 0.92).
However, in patients with cirrhosis, the benefit of aspirin disappeared. Patients without cirrhosis still had a 13% reduction in risk for HCC (adjusted HR, 0.87: 95% CI, 0.79 - 0.95). This group also had a slightly elevated risk for major bleeding (adjusted HR, 1.1; 95% CI, 1.03 - 1.28).
The findings from these two studies add to a growing body of literature that shows the promise of statins and aspirin, which are both readily available and relatively safe, said Amit Singal, MD, from the UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, who was not involved with either study.
“The studies are relatively simple but really do tackle an area of immense need in the field,” he said. Short of having higher-quality data, however, statins and aspirin aren’t quite ready to become bespoke chemotherapies in the clinic, he added, although the results show promise for future randomized trials.
The subgroup analyses that looked at cirrhosis and the interplay of aspirin and statins can help with the planning of such trials, which “is really important for trial design,” Singal noted.
He also pointed to studies that, unlike these results, have found a benefit of aspirin in patients with cirrhosis, underscoring the need for randomized trials. However, “each study does provide a data point that can help to inform those trials,” he said.
Choi and Jang have disclosed no relevant financial relationships. Singal is a consultant for Genentech, Bayer, Eisai, Exelixis, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Roche, Glycotest, FujiFilm, GRAIL, and Exact Sciences, primarily in relation to HCC treatment and screening, not chemoprevention.
This article first appeared on Medscape.com.
For patients with chronic hepatitis B, the protective effects of aspirin against hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) can vary with cirrhosis status and statin treatment, a pair of new studies finds.
One study showed that, although aspirin is linked to a reduction in risk for HCC in these patients, comedication with statins could explain some of that effect. The other showed that cirrhosis dampens the risk-reduction benefit of aspirin.
Currently, there is a link between a reduction in HCC risk and aspirin or statins in patients with chronic hepatitis B, said investigator Won-Mook Choi, MD, PhD, from the University of Ulsan College of Medicine, in Seoul, Republic of Korea.
In one of their analyses, Choi and his colleagues teased out the contribution of each drug and found that the decrease in HCC risk conferred by statins is similar whether or not patients also take aspirin.
“Only statins showed consistent and significant dose-dependent reductions in the risk of HCC, regardless of study design,” said Choi, who presented the findings at The Liver Meeting 2020.
The second study, which looked at the association between aspirin and the risk for HCC in patients with and without cirrhosis, was presented by Heejoon Jang, MD, from the Seoul National University College of Medicine.
Aspirin was shown to be associated with a reduced risk for HCC, but cirrhosis “had a substantial effect on this association,” erasing the benefit of aspirin, Jang reported.
Statins and aspirin
Statins and aspirin are more likely to be prescribed together for patients with chronic hepatitis B but no cirrhosis, said Choi. For that reason, he and his colleagues analyzed data from the Korean National Health Insurance Service database from 2005 to 2015.
In their nested case-control analysis, 17,150 patients with HCC were matched for sex, age, and other factors to 817,675 patients without HCC. All participants had chronic hepatitis B without cirrhosis and had never received antiviral treatment.
The team also analyzed the incidence of HCC in two historic cohorts of patients with chronic hepatitis B but no cirrhosis, one consisting of 673,107 people who took aspirin and the other with 588,045 who took statins.
The nested case-control analysis showed an 11% risk reduction with aspirin use (adjusted odds ratio [OR], 0.89; 95% CI, 0.85 - 0.94) and a 61% risk reduction with statin use (adjusted OR, 0.39; 95% CI, 0.36 - 0.40). There was a dose-response effect with statins, but not with aspirin.
The historic cohort analysis showed a 33% reduction in the risk for HCC with aspirin (adjusted hazard ratio [HR], 0.67; 95% CI, 0.63 - 0.72) and a 67% reduction with statins (adjusted HR, 0.33; 95% CI, 0.30 - 0.37). However, stratified analyses by drug showed a statin benefit with or without aspirin (P < .001 for both), but no aspirin benefit without statins.
Cirrhosis and aspirin
To assess the interaction between cirrhosis and aspirin, Jang and his colleagues identified 329,635 patients with chronic hepatitis B in the Korean National Health Insurance Service database.
A total of 20,200 had taken aspirin for at least 90 consecutive days, and the rest had never received antiplatelet therapy. Treated and untreated patients were matched for several factors, and HCC incidence was assessed after a median follow-up of 6.7 years.
Among the 2,697 patients who developed HCC during follow-up, the cumulative incidence of HCC was significantly lower for those who took aspirin than for those who did not (P < .001). There was a 15% reduction in the risk for HCC in the aspirin group (adjusted HR, 0.85; 95% CI, 0.78 - 0.92).
However, in patients with cirrhosis, the benefit of aspirin disappeared. Patients without cirrhosis still had a 13% reduction in risk for HCC (adjusted HR, 0.87: 95% CI, 0.79 - 0.95). This group also had a slightly elevated risk for major bleeding (adjusted HR, 1.1; 95% CI, 1.03 - 1.28).
The findings from these two studies add to a growing body of literature that shows the promise of statins and aspirin, which are both readily available and relatively safe, said Amit Singal, MD, from the UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, who was not involved with either study.
“The studies are relatively simple but really do tackle an area of immense need in the field,” he said. Short of having higher-quality data, however, statins and aspirin aren’t quite ready to become bespoke chemotherapies in the clinic, he added, although the results show promise for future randomized trials.
The subgroup analyses that looked at cirrhosis and the interplay of aspirin and statins can help with the planning of such trials, which “is really important for trial design,” Singal noted.
He also pointed to studies that, unlike these results, have found a benefit of aspirin in patients with cirrhosis, underscoring the need for randomized trials. However, “each study does provide a data point that can help to inform those trials,” he said.
Choi and Jang have disclosed no relevant financial relationships. Singal is a consultant for Genentech, Bayer, Eisai, Exelixis, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Roche, Glycotest, FujiFilm, GRAIL, and Exact Sciences, primarily in relation to HCC treatment and screening, not chemoprevention.
This article first appeared on Medscape.com.
Tips for physicians, patients to make the most of the holidays amid COVID
“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope,” Martin Luther King, Jr.
This holiday season will be like no other. We will remember it for the rest of our lives, and we will look back to see how we faced the holidays during a pandemic.
Like the rest of 2020, the holidays will need to be reimagined. Years and even decades of tradition will be broken as we place health above merriment.
Here are a few tips to help all of us and our patients make the most of this holiday season.
- Reprioritize: This holiday season will be about depth not breadth, quality not quantity, and less not more. Trips are canceled and gatherings have shrunk. We are not running from store to store or party to party. Instead, you will find yourself surrounded by fewer friends and family. Some will be alone to optimally protect their health and the health of others. Do your best to focus on the half-full portion.
- Embrace change: Don’t compare or try to make this year like previous years. Be creative and try to find ways to make a new format fun. Meeting during the day and limiting alcohol intake can assist in making sure everyone stays safe. It has been interesting to see how many of my patients have decreased their alcohol use during quarantine. I hope this pattern will continue over the next weeks and months.
- Practice self-care: As health care professionals, we must remember the old adage “physician, heal thyself.” This year has been so difficult for almost all of us. It was filled with unprecedented levels of personal and professional stress. Holidays are often about what we can do for others, but this year we may need to place self-care first. Do what brings you happiness.
Even though you aren’t traveling, you can still disconnect from work. Set up a schedule and stick to it making sure you take plenty of time to rest and enjoy. Many of us have been working extremely long hours and a break is so needed. Take it if you possibly can. Detox from your screen! Limit the news. Creativity and productivity will be enhanced in 2021 if we can come in recharged.
For those remaining on the front lines, be patient; the end is nearing. Take care of yourself when you are not working. We are all so grateful to those in our field who have sacrificed so much to care for others. Eat, drink, and rest well to keep your immune system strong.
- Acknowledge your negative emotions: As we all know, if you try to deny negative emotions, they continue to pop up. If we give them time and space to be felt, we will find they diminish in intensity. Long work hours may have prevented us from feeling our emotions, so don’t be surprised if they surface when we take a break.
Let yourself feel the sadness for what you have experienced this year. Be open about missing those who can’t be with you because of travel or other restrictions. Let yourself feel the disappointment about your holiday travel plans that you can’t embark upon.
You may elect to share these emotions with someone close to you or with a professional. To paraphrase Carl Jung, “what we resist, persists,” so don’t try to hide from your negative emotions. Most of us had lots of them in 2020, so don’t be shy about admitting it.
- Focus on growth: What have we learned from 2020 and how can we be better equipped in 2021 and beyond?
Trauma can bring growth not just disorder. This year has returned well-deserved prestige to our fields. We are being lauded as heroes as we have scarified our health and the health of our loved ones to serve others. Can we choose to celebrate our accomplishments?
We have become more resilient and learned to continue on in the face of great hardship. Many of us have gained confidence as we confronted this historic challenge. As we have been reminded of death daily, we learn to appreciate life more fully and not take any day for granted.
I am proud to be a physician during this pandemic, and I hope you are, too!
- Find joy: Often times, we find real happiness in smaller moments and experiences. For many, this time of year is filled with so much stress that it can be hard to carve out moments of joy. As we may be less busy socially this holiday season, might we find even more joy?
Joy can only be experienced in the present moment. Tap into all your senses. Eat slowly making sure to smell and taste every bite. Cherish those who can still gather at your table. If you find yourself alone, embrace that experience. Safety must continue to come first, and we can’t let down our guard now.
- Reflect: New Year’s Eve is always a time for reflection and hope for the future. Most of us will be glad to see 2020 in the rearview mirror. With multiple and very promising vaccines on the horizon, we can anticipate a brighter future. We must continue to work hard; remain patient; and be creative, resilient, and optimistic. Let’s try to fill our days with hope and purpose and work together to achieve a brighter future for all.
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow,” Albert Einstein
Wishing you health and happiness in this holiday season and beyond.
Dr. Ritvo, a psychiatrist with more than 25 years’ experience, practices in Miami Beach. She is the author of “Bekindr – The Transformative Power of Kindness” (Hellertown, Pa.: Momosa Publishing, 2018). She also is founder of the Bekindr Global Initiative, a movement aimed at cultivating kindness in the world.
“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope,” Martin Luther King, Jr.
This holiday season will be like no other. We will remember it for the rest of our lives, and we will look back to see how we faced the holidays during a pandemic.
Like the rest of 2020, the holidays will need to be reimagined. Years and even decades of tradition will be broken as we place health above merriment.
Here are a few tips to help all of us and our patients make the most of this holiday season.
- Reprioritize: This holiday season will be about depth not breadth, quality not quantity, and less not more. Trips are canceled and gatherings have shrunk. We are not running from store to store or party to party. Instead, you will find yourself surrounded by fewer friends and family. Some will be alone to optimally protect their health and the health of others. Do your best to focus on the half-full portion.
- Embrace change: Don’t compare or try to make this year like previous years. Be creative and try to find ways to make a new format fun. Meeting during the day and limiting alcohol intake can assist in making sure everyone stays safe. It has been interesting to see how many of my patients have decreased their alcohol use during quarantine. I hope this pattern will continue over the next weeks and months.
- Practice self-care: As health care professionals, we must remember the old adage “physician, heal thyself.” This year has been so difficult for almost all of us. It was filled with unprecedented levels of personal and professional stress. Holidays are often about what we can do for others, but this year we may need to place self-care first. Do what brings you happiness.
Even though you aren’t traveling, you can still disconnect from work. Set up a schedule and stick to it making sure you take plenty of time to rest and enjoy. Many of us have been working extremely long hours and a break is so needed. Take it if you possibly can. Detox from your screen! Limit the news. Creativity and productivity will be enhanced in 2021 if we can come in recharged.
For those remaining on the front lines, be patient; the end is nearing. Take care of yourself when you are not working. We are all so grateful to those in our field who have sacrificed so much to care for others. Eat, drink, and rest well to keep your immune system strong.
- Acknowledge your negative emotions: As we all know, if you try to deny negative emotions, they continue to pop up. If we give them time and space to be felt, we will find they diminish in intensity. Long work hours may have prevented us from feeling our emotions, so don’t be surprised if they surface when we take a break.
Let yourself feel the sadness for what you have experienced this year. Be open about missing those who can’t be with you because of travel or other restrictions. Let yourself feel the disappointment about your holiday travel plans that you can’t embark upon.
You may elect to share these emotions with someone close to you or with a professional. To paraphrase Carl Jung, “what we resist, persists,” so don’t try to hide from your negative emotions. Most of us had lots of them in 2020, so don’t be shy about admitting it.
- Focus on growth: What have we learned from 2020 and how can we be better equipped in 2021 and beyond?
Trauma can bring growth not just disorder. This year has returned well-deserved prestige to our fields. We are being lauded as heroes as we have scarified our health and the health of our loved ones to serve others. Can we choose to celebrate our accomplishments?
We have become more resilient and learned to continue on in the face of great hardship. Many of us have gained confidence as we confronted this historic challenge. As we have been reminded of death daily, we learn to appreciate life more fully and not take any day for granted.
I am proud to be a physician during this pandemic, and I hope you are, too!
- Find joy: Often times, we find real happiness in smaller moments and experiences. For many, this time of year is filled with so much stress that it can be hard to carve out moments of joy. As we may be less busy socially this holiday season, might we find even more joy?
Joy can only be experienced in the present moment. Tap into all your senses. Eat slowly making sure to smell and taste every bite. Cherish those who can still gather at your table. If you find yourself alone, embrace that experience. Safety must continue to come first, and we can’t let down our guard now.
- Reflect: New Year’s Eve is always a time for reflection and hope for the future. Most of us will be glad to see 2020 in the rearview mirror. With multiple and very promising vaccines on the horizon, we can anticipate a brighter future. We must continue to work hard; remain patient; and be creative, resilient, and optimistic. Let’s try to fill our days with hope and purpose and work together to achieve a brighter future for all.
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow,” Albert Einstein
Wishing you health and happiness in this holiday season and beyond.
Dr. Ritvo, a psychiatrist with more than 25 years’ experience, practices in Miami Beach. She is the author of “Bekindr – The Transformative Power of Kindness” (Hellertown, Pa.: Momosa Publishing, 2018). She also is founder of the Bekindr Global Initiative, a movement aimed at cultivating kindness in the world.
“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope,” Martin Luther King, Jr.
This holiday season will be like no other. We will remember it for the rest of our lives, and we will look back to see how we faced the holidays during a pandemic.
Like the rest of 2020, the holidays will need to be reimagined. Years and even decades of tradition will be broken as we place health above merriment.
Here are a few tips to help all of us and our patients make the most of this holiday season.
- Reprioritize: This holiday season will be about depth not breadth, quality not quantity, and less not more. Trips are canceled and gatherings have shrunk. We are not running from store to store or party to party. Instead, you will find yourself surrounded by fewer friends and family. Some will be alone to optimally protect their health and the health of others. Do your best to focus on the half-full portion.
- Embrace change: Don’t compare or try to make this year like previous years. Be creative and try to find ways to make a new format fun. Meeting during the day and limiting alcohol intake can assist in making sure everyone stays safe. It has been interesting to see how many of my patients have decreased their alcohol use during quarantine. I hope this pattern will continue over the next weeks and months.
- Practice self-care: As health care professionals, we must remember the old adage “physician, heal thyself.” This year has been so difficult for almost all of us. It was filled with unprecedented levels of personal and professional stress. Holidays are often about what we can do for others, but this year we may need to place self-care first. Do what brings you happiness.
Even though you aren’t traveling, you can still disconnect from work. Set up a schedule and stick to it making sure you take plenty of time to rest and enjoy. Many of us have been working extremely long hours and a break is so needed. Take it if you possibly can. Detox from your screen! Limit the news. Creativity and productivity will be enhanced in 2021 if we can come in recharged.
For those remaining on the front lines, be patient; the end is nearing. Take care of yourself when you are not working. We are all so grateful to those in our field who have sacrificed so much to care for others. Eat, drink, and rest well to keep your immune system strong.
- Acknowledge your negative emotions: As we all know, if you try to deny negative emotions, they continue to pop up. If we give them time and space to be felt, we will find they diminish in intensity. Long work hours may have prevented us from feeling our emotions, so don’t be surprised if they surface when we take a break.
Let yourself feel the sadness for what you have experienced this year. Be open about missing those who can’t be with you because of travel or other restrictions. Let yourself feel the disappointment about your holiday travel plans that you can’t embark upon.
You may elect to share these emotions with someone close to you or with a professional. To paraphrase Carl Jung, “what we resist, persists,” so don’t try to hide from your negative emotions. Most of us had lots of them in 2020, so don’t be shy about admitting it.
- Focus on growth: What have we learned from 2020 and how can we be better equipped in 2021 and beyond?
Trauma can bring growth not just disorder. This year has returned well-deserved prestige to our fields. We are being lauded as heroes as we have scarified our health and the health of our loved ones to serve others. Can we choose to celebrate our accomplishments?
We have become more resilient and learned to continue on in the face of great hardship. Many of us have gained confidence as we confronted this historic challenge. As we have been reminded of death daily, we learn to appreciate life more fully and not take any day for granted.
I am proud to be a physician during this pandemic, and I hope you are, too!
- Find joy: Often times, we find real happiness in smaller moments and experiences. For many, this time of year is filled with so much stress that it can be hard to carve out moments of joy. As we may be less busy socially this holiday season, might we find even more joy?
Joy can only be experienced in the present moment. Tap into all your senses. Eat slowly making sure to smell and taste every bite. Cherish those who can still gather at your table. If you find yourself alone, embrace that experience. Safety must continue to come first, and we can’t let down our guard now.
- Reflect: New Year’s Eve is always a time for reflection and hope for the future. Most of us will be glad to see 2020 in the rearview mirror. With multiple and very promising vaccines on the horizon, we can anticipate a brighter future. We must continue to work hard; remain patient; and be creative, resilient, and optimistic. Let’s try to fill our days with hope and purpose and work together to achieve a brighter future for all.
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow,” Albert Einstein
Wishing you health and happiness in this holiday season and beyond.
Dr. Ritvo, a psychiatrist with more than 25 years’ experience, practices in Miami Beach. She is the author of “Bekindr – The Transformative Power of Kindness” (Hellertown, Pa.: Momosa Publishing, 2018). She also is founder of the Bekindr Global Initiative, a movement aimed at cultivating kindness in the world.
COVID exposure risk outside of work increasing for clinicians
One-third of COVID-19 exposures among health care providers (HCPs) in Minnesota are caused by family or community exposure, not patient care, according to a study conducted by the Minnesota Department of Health and published online Oct. 30 in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. And nonwork exposures were more likely to lead to COVID-19 infections.
Between March 6 and July 11, 2020, researchers with the Minnesota Department of Health evaluated 21,406 incidences of HCP exposure to confirmed COVID-19 cases. Of those, 5,374 (25%) were classified as higher-risk exposures, meaning the provider had close contact for 15 minutes or more, or during an aerosol-generating procedure.
Two-thirds (66%) of the higher-risk exposures occurred during direct patient care and 34% were related to nonpatient care interactions (e.g., coworkers and social and household contacts). Overall, 6.9% (373) of the HCPs with a higher-risk exposure received a positive SARS-CoV-2 test result within 14 days of the exposure. Notably, HCPs with household or social exposure had the highest positivity rate across all exposure types at 13%.
“Since the time period covered in this report, we’ve seen a significant increase in the proportion of HCPs who have had higher-risk exposures outside of work due to household or social contacts,” said lead author Ashley Fell, MPH, from the Minnesota Department of Health.
“HCPs with household or social exposures are also more likely to test positive than HCPs with higher risk exposures within the healthcare setting, which is an important message for both HCPs and the community at large that more COVID-19 spreading in our communities poses a greater risk to our HCPs and health care system,” Ms. Fell said in an interview.
When evaluating personal protective equipment use among exposed HCPs, researchers found that 90% of providers in acute or ambulatory care were wearing a respirator or medical-grade face mask at time of exposure, compared with just 68% of HCPs working in congregate living or long-term care facilities.
Further, investigators found that an HCP with a positive SARS-CoV-2 test working in a congregate living or long-term care facility resulted in exposure of a median of three additional HCPs (interquartile range, 1-6), compared with a median of one additional HCP exposure in acute or ambulatory care (IQR, 1-3).
The researchers also found that, compared with HCPs in acute or ambulatory settings, HCPs working in long-term care or congregate living settings were more likely to return to work following a high-risk exposure (57% vs. 37%) and work while symptomatic (4.8% vs. 1.3%).
When asked whether these findings apply to HCPs in other states, Andrew T. Chan, MD, from Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, noted: “These data are not surprising and confirm what many of us have been seeing in our own areas.
“Clearly, the risk of contracting COVID-19 is particularly high for frontline health care workers in long-term care facilities and nursing homes,” Dr. Chan said.
“Furthermore, the infection control practices in these care settings are often not as rigorous, and together these factors are probably contributing to higher risks of infection,” he said.
The authors acknowledged potential study limitations including misclassification of HCP risk for exposure or misclassification of community exposure as workplace exposure.
“We also recognize that HCPs, like the rest of the community, are experiencing COVID fatigue and that facilities have to constantly be innovative and vigilant to help HCPs maintain rigorous safety precautions with their patients and around their colleagues,” Ms. Fell concluded.
The authors and Dr. Chan disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
For the latest clinical guidance, education, research and physician resources about coronavirus, visit the AGA COVID-19 Resource Center at www.gastro.org/COVID.
This article first appeared on Medscape.com.
One-third of COVID-19 exposures among health care providers (HCPs) in Minnesota are caused by family or community exposure, not patient care, according to a study conducted by the Minnesota Department of Health and published online Oct. 30 in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. And nonwork exposures were more likely to lead to COVID-19 infections.
Between March 6 and July 11, 2020, researchers with the Minnesota Department of Health evaluated 21,406 incidences of HCP exposure to confirmed COVID-19 cases. Of those, 5,374 (25%) were classified as higher-risk exposures, meaning the provider had close contact for 15 minutes or more, or during an aerosol-generating procedure.
Two-thirds (66%) of the higher-risk exposures occurred during direct patient care and 34% were related to nonpatient care interactions (e.g., coworkers and social and household contacts). Overall, 6.9% (373) of the HCPs with a higher-risk exposure received a positive SARS-CoV-2 test result within 14 days of the exposure. Notably, HCPs with household or social exposure had the highest positivity rate across all exposure types at 13%.
“Since the time period covered in this report, we’ve seen a significant increase in the proportion of HCPs who have had higher-risk exposures outside of work due to household or social contacts,” said lead author Ashley Fell, MPH, from the Minnesota Department of Health.
“HCPs with household or social exposures are also more likely to test positive than HCPs with higher risk exposures within the healthcare setting, which is an important message for both HCPs and the community at large that more COVID-19 spreading in our communities poses a greater risk to our HCPs and health care system,” Ms. Fell said in an interview.
When evaluating personal protective equipment use among exposed HCPs, researchers found that 90% of providers in acute or ambulatory care were wearing a respirator or medical-grade face mask at time of exposure, compared with just 68% of HCPs working in congregate living or long-term care facilities.
Further, investigators found that an HCP with a positive SARS-CoV-2 test working in a congregate living or long-term care facility resulted in exposure of a median of three additional HCPs (interquartile range, 1-6), compared with a median of one additional HCP exposure in acute or ambulatory care (IQR, 1-3).
The researchers also found that, compared with HCPs in acute or ambulatory settings, HCPs working in long-term care or congregate living settings were more likely to return to work following a high-risk exposure (57% vs. 37%) and work while symptomatic (4.8% vs. 1.3%).
When asked whether these findings apply to HCPs in other states, Andrew T. Chan, MD, from Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, noted: “These data are not surprising and confirm what many of us have been seeing in our own areas.
“Clearly, the risk of contracting COVID-19 is particularly high for frontline health care workers in long-term care facilities and nursing homes,” Dr. Chan said.
“Furthermore, the infection control practices in these care settings are often not as rigorous, and together these factors are probably contributing to higher risks of infection,” he said.
The authors acknowledged potential study limitations including misclassification of HCP risk for exposure or misclassification of community exposure as workplace exposure.
“We also recognize that HCPs, like the rest of the community, are experiencing COVID fatigue and that facilities have to constantly be innovative and vigilant to help HCPs maintain rigorous safety precautions with their patients and around their colleagues,” Ms. Fell concluded.
The authors and Dr. Chan disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
For the latest clinical guidance, education, research and physician resources about coronavirus, visit the AGA COVID-19 Resource Center at www.gastro.org/COVID.
This article first appeared on Medscape.com.
One-third of COVID-19 exposures among health care providers (HCPs) in Minnesota are caused by family or community exposure, not patient care, according to a study conducted by the Minnesota Department of Health and published online Oct. 30 in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. And nonwork exposures were more likely to lead to COVID-19 infections.
Between March 6 and July 11, 2020, researchers with the Minnesota Department of Health evaluated 21,406 incidences of HCP exposure to confirmed COVID-19 cases. Of those, 5,374 (25%) were classified as higher-risk exposures, meaning the provider had close contact for 15 minutes or more, or during an aerosol-generating procedure.
Two-thirds (66%) of the higher-risk exposures occurred during direct patient care and 34% were related to nonpatient care interactions (e.g., coworkers and social and household contacts). Overall, 6.9% (373) of the HCPs with a higher-risk exposure received a positive SARS-CoV-2 test result within 14 days of the exposure. Notably, HCPs with household or social exposure had the highest positivity rate across all exposure types at 13%.
“Since the time period covered in this report, we’ve seen a significant increase in the proportion of HCPs who have had higher-risk exposures outside of work due to household or social contacts,” said lead author Ashley Fell, MPH, from the Minnesota Department of Health.
“HCPs with household or social exposures are also more likely to test positive than HCPs with higher risk exposures within the healthcare setting, which is an important message for both HCPs and the community at large that more COVID-19 spreading in our communities poses a greater risk to our HCPs and health care system,” Ms. Fell said in an interview.
When evaluating personal protective equipment use among exposed HCPs, researchers found that 90% of providers in acute or ambulatory care were wearing a respirator or medical-grade face mask at time of exposure, compared with just 68% of HCPs working in congregate living or long-term care facilities.
Further, investigators found that an HCP with a positive SARS-CoV-2 test working in a congregate living or long-term care facility resulted in exposure of a median of three additional HCPs (interquartile range, 1-6), compared with a median of one additional HCP exposure in acute or ambulatory care (IQR, 1-3).
The researchers also found that, compared with HCPs in acute or ambulatory settings, HCPs working in long-term care or congregate living settings were more likely to return to work following a high-risk exposure (57% vs. 37%) and work while symptomatic (4.8% vs. 1.3%).
When asked whether these findings apply to HCPs in other states, Andrew T. Chan, MD, from Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, noted: “These data are not surprising and confirm what many of us have been seeing in our own areas.
“Clearly, the risk of contracting COVID-19 is particularly high for frontline health care workers in long-term care facilities and nursing homes,” Dr. Chan said.
“Furthermore, the infection control practices in these care settings are often not as rigorous, and together these factors are probably contributing to higher risks of infection,” he said.
The authors acknowledged potential study limitations including misclassification of HCP risk for exposure or misclassification of community exposure as workplace exposure.
“We also recognize that HCPs, like the rest of the community, are experiencing COVID fatigue and that facilities have to constantly be innovative and vigilant to help HCPs maintain rigorous safety precautions with their patients and around their colleagues,” Ms. Fell concluded.
The authors and Dr. Chan disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
For the latest clinical guidance, education, research and physician resources about coronavirus, visit the AGA COVID-19 Resource Center at www.gastro.org/COVID.
This article first appeared on Medscape.com.
FDA authorizes baricitinib combo for COVID-19
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Nov. 19 issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for the Janus kinase inhibitor baricitinib (Olumiant, Eli Lilly) in combination with remdesivir (Veklury, Gilead) for treating hospitalized adults and children at least 2 years old with suspected or confirmed COVID-19.
The combination treatment is meant for patients who need supplemental oxygen, mechanical ventilation, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO).
Baricitinib/remdesivir was shown in a clinical trial to reduce time to recovery within 29 days of starting the treatment compared with a control group who received placebo/remdesivir, according to the FDA press release.
The median time to recovery from COVID-19 was 7 days for the combination group vs. 8 days for those in the placebo/remdesivir group. Recovery was defined as either discharge from the hospital or “being hospitalized but not requiring supplemental oxygen and no longer requiring ongoing medical care,” the agency explained in the press release.
The odds of a patient dying or being ventilated at day 29 was lower in the combination group compared with those taking placebo/remdesivir, the press release said without providing specific data. “For all of these endpoints, the effects were statistically significant,” the agency stated.
The safety and efficacy continues to be evaluated. Baricitinib alone is not approved as a treatment for COVID-19.
“The FDA’s emergency authorization of this combination therapy represents an incremental step forward in the treatment of COVID-19 in hospitalized patients, and FDA’s first authorization of a drug that acts on the inflammation pathway,” said Patrizia Cavazzoni, MD, acting director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.
“Despite advances in the management of COVID-19 infection since the onset of the pandemic, we need more therapies to accelerate recovery and additional clinical research will be essential to identifying therapies that slow disease progression and lower mortality in the sicker patients,” she said.
As a JAK inhibitor, baricitinib interferes with a pathway that leads to inflammation. Baricitinib is already prescribed as an oral medication and is FDA-approved for treating moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis.
The data supporting the EUA for the combination treatment are based on a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial (ACTT-2), conducted by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
The trial followed patients for 29 days and included 1,033 patients with moderate to severe COVID-19; 515 patients received baricitinib/remdesivir, and 518 patients received placebo/remdesivir.
The FDA emphasizes that an EUA is not a full FDA approval.
In reviewing the combination, the FDA “determined that it is reasonable to believe that baricitinib, in combination with remdesivir, may be effective in treating COVID-19 for the authorized population” and the known benefits outweigh the known and potential risks. Additionally, there are no adequate, approved, and available alternatives for the treatment population.
“Today’s action demonstrates the FDA’s steadfast efforts to make potential COVID-19 treatments available in a timely manner, where appropriate, while continuing to support research to further evaluate whether they are safe and effective,” said FDA Commissioner Stephen M. Hahn, MD. “As part of our Coronavirus Treatment Acceleration Program, the FDA continues to use every possible avenue to facilitate new treatments for patients as quickly as possible to combat COVID-19.”
This article first appeared on Medscape.com.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Nov. 19 issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for the Janus kinase inhibitor baricitinib (Olumiant, Eli Lilly) in combination with remdesivir (Veklury, Gilead) for treating hospitalized adults and children at least 2 years old with suspected or confirmed COVID-19.
The combination treatment is meant for patients who need supplemental oxygen, mechanical ventilation, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO).
Baricitinib/remdesivir was shown in a clinical trial to reduce time to recovery within 29 days of starting the treatment compared with a control group who received placebo/remdesivir, according to the FDA press release.
The median time to recovery from COVID-19 was 7 days for the combination group vs. 8 days for those in the placebo/remdesivir group. Recovery was defined as either discharge from the hospital or “being hospitalized but not requiring supplemental oxygen and no longer requiring ongoing medical care,” the agency explained in the press release.
The odds of a patient dying or being ventilated at day 29 was lower in the combination group compared with those taking placebo/remdesivir, the press release said without providing specific data. “For all of these endpoints, the effects were statistically significant,” the agency stated.
The safety and efficacy continues to be evaluated. Baricitinib alone is not approved as a treatment for COVID-19.
“The FDA’s emergency authorization of this combination therapy represents an incremental step forward in the treatment of COVID-19 in hospitalized patients, and FDA’s first authorization of a drug that acts on the inflammation pathway,” said Patrizia Cavazzoni, MD, acting director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.
“Despite advances in the management of COVID-19 infection since the onset of the pandemic, we need more therapies to accelerate recovery and additional clinical research will be essential to identifying therapies that slow disease progression and lower mortality in the sicker patients,” she said.
As a JAK inhibitor, baricitinib interferes with a pathway that leads to inflammation. Baricitinib is already prescribed as an oral medication and is FDA-approved for treating moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis.
The data supporting the EUA for the combination treatment are based on a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial (ACTT-2), conducted by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
The trial followed patients for 29 days and included 1,033 patients with moderate to severe COVID-19; 515 patients received baricitinib/remdesivir, and 518 patients received placebo/remdesivir.
The FDA emphasizes that an EUA is not a full FDA approval.
In reviewing the combination, the FDA “determined that it is reasonable to believe that baricitinib, in combination with remdesivir, may be effective in treating COVID-19 for the authorized population” and the known benefits outweigh the known and potential risks. Additionally, there are no adequate, approved, and available alternatives for the treatment population.
“Today’s action demonstrates the FDA’s steadfast efforts to make potential COVID-19 treatments available in a timely manner, where appropriate, while continuing to support research to further evaluate whether they are safe and effective,” said FDA Commissioner Stephen M. Hahn, MD. “As part of our Coronavirus Treatment Acceleration Program, the FDA continues to use every possible avenue to facilitate new treatments for patients as quickly as possible to combat COVID-19.”
This article first appeared on Medscape.com.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Nov. 19 issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for the Janus kinase inhibitor baricitinib (Olumiant, Eli Lilly) in combination with remdesivir (Veklury, Gilead) for treating hospitalized adults and children at least 2 years old with suspected or confirmed COVID-19.
The combination treatment is meant for patients who need supplemental oxygen, mechanical ventilation, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO).
Baricitinib/remdesivir was shown in a clinical trial to reduce time to recovery within 29 days of starting the treatment compared with a control group who received placebo/remdesivir, according to the FDA press release.
The median time to recovery from COVID-19 was 7 days for the combination group vs. 8 days for those in the placebo/remdesivir group. Recovery was defined as either discharge from the hospital or “being hospitalized but not requiring supplemental oxygen and no longer requiring ongoing medical care,” the agency explained in the press release.
The odds of a patient dying or being ventilated at day 29 was lower in the combination group compared with those taking placebo/remdesivir, the press release said without providing specific data. “For all of these endpoints, the effects were statistically significant,” the agency stated.
The safety and efficacy continues to be evaluated. Baricitinib alone is not approved as a treatment for COVID-19.
“The FDA’s emergency authorization of this combination therapy represents an incremental step forward in the treatment of COVID-19 in hospitalized patients, and FDA’s first authorization of a drug that acts on the inflammation pathway,” said Patrizia Cavazzoni, MD, acting director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.
“Despite advances in the management of COVID-19 infection since the onset of the pandemic, we need more therapies to accelerate recovery and additional clinical research will be essential to identifying therapies that slow disease progression and lower mortality in the sicker patients,” she said.
As a JAK inhibitor, baricitinib interferes with a pathway that leads to inflammation. Baricitinib is already prescribed as an oral medication and is FDA-approved for treating moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis.
The data supporting the EUA for the combination treatment are based on a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial (ACTT-2), conducted by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
The trial followed patients for 29 days and included 1,033 patients with moderate to severe COVID-19; 515 patients received baricitinib/remdesivir, and 518 patients received placebo/remdesivir.
The FDA emphasizes that an EUA is not a full FDA approval.
In reviewing the combination, the FDA “determined that it is reasonable to believe that baricitinib, in combination with remdesivir, may be effective in treating COVID-19 for the authorized population” and the known benefits outweigh the known and potential risks. Additionally, there are no adequate, approved, and available alternatives for the treatment population.
“Today’s action demonstrates the FDA’s steadfast efforts to make potential COVID-19 treatments available in a timely manner, where appropriate, while continuing to support research to further evaluate whether they are safe and effective,” said FDA Commissioner Stephen M. Hahn, MD. “As part of our Coronavirus Treatment Acceleration Program, the FDA continues to use every possible avenue to facilitate new treatments for patients as quickly as possible to combat COVID-19.”
This article first appeared on Medscape.com.
Vaccine regimen boosts immune response in malignant melanoma
“[This] study supports the potential of combining [the] CDX-1401 vaccine and CDX-301 with checkpoint inhibitors, which are standard-of-care therapy,” study author Nina Bhardwaj, MD, PhD, of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, and colleagues wrote.
The team described their study in Nature Cancer.
The multicenter, open-label, randomized study included 60 patients with resected stage IIb-IV melanoma, all of whom had not received any prior treatment, including radiotherapy, biologics, and chemotherapy.
Patients randomized to the combination arm (cohort 1; n = 30) received the anti–DEC-205-NY-ESO-1 vaccine CDX-1401 and were pretreated with CDX-301, while those in the comparator arm (cohort 2; n = 30) received CDX-1401 alone.
Serial blood samples were collected to evaluate response to the vaccine antigen (NY-ESO-1) before each cycle, as well as 4 weeks and 12 weeks after the last vaccination. The primary endpoint was immune response prior to the third vaccination.
T-cell responses were detected in 76% of patients who received CDX-301 and 33% of patients who did not (P < .0011). In addition, the magnitude of response was significantly higher with the combination than with CDX-1401 alone (mean of 41 and 17 corrected spots per well, respectively; P = .032).
“All 30 (100%) cohort 1 participants had NY-ESO-1–specific T-cell responses for at least one time point, whereas 8 (27%) cohort 2 participants had no responses at any time point,” the researchers wrote.
Responses were maintained up to 12 weeks after the final vaccination, but there was no statistically significant difference between cohorts 1 and 2 at 12 weeks (54% and 38%, respectively; P = .2).
The researchers acknowledged that a key limitation of this trial was that it was not sized to evaluate relapse or overall survival.
“Given that ipilimumab, pembrolizumab, and nivolumab are approved as adjuvant therapy for high-risk stage III melanoma, vaccines incorporating CDX-301 and suitable antigen-containing platforms merit clinical investigation in the adjuvant setting in combination with immune checkpoint blockade,” the authors wrote.
“I am hopeful that highly immunogenic cancer vaccines can be added to currently approved immunotherapies, thus boosting an individual’s anticancer immune response even further,” Dr. Bhardwaj said in an interview.
This study was supported by grant funding from the National Cancer Institute. Some authors reported financial affiliations with Celldex Therapeutics, NanoString Technologies, and Oncovir. Dr. Bhardwaj disclosed relationships with Celldex and Oncovir.
SOURCE: Bhardwaj N et al. Nat Cancer. 2020 Nov 16. doi: 10.1038/s43018-020-00143-y.
“[This] study supports the potential of combining [the] CDX-1401 vaccine and CDX-301 with checkpoint inhibitors, which are standard-of-care therapy,” study author Nina Bhardwaj, MD, PhD, of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, and colleagues wrote.
The team described their study in Nature Cancer.
The multicenter, open-label, randomized study included 60 patients with resected stage IIb-IV melanoma, all of whom had not received any prior treatment, including radiotherapy, biologics, and chemotherapy.
Patients randomized to the combination arm (cohort 1; n = 30) received the anti–DEC-205-NY-ESO-1 vaccine CDX-1401 and were pretreated with CDX-301, while those in the comparator arm (cohort 2; n = 30) received CDX-1401 alone.
Serial blood samples were collected to evaluate response to the vaccine antigen (NY-ESO-1) before each cycle, as well as 4 weeks and 12 weeks after the last vaccination. The primary endpoint was immune response prior to the third vaccination.
T-cell responses were detected in 76% of patients who received CDX-301 and 33% of patients who did not (P < .0011). In addition, the magnitude of response was significantly higher with the combination than with CDX-1401 alone (mean of 41 and 17 corrected spots per well, respectively; P = .032).
“All 30 (100%) cohort 1 participants had NY-ESO-1–specific T-cell responses for at least one time point, whereas 8 (27%) cohort 2 participants had no responses at any time point,” the researchers wrote.
Responses were maintained up to 12 weeks after the final vaccination, but there was no statistically significant difference between cohorts 1 and 2 at 12 weeks (54% and 38%, respectively; P = .2).
The researchers acknowledged that a key limitation of this trial was that it was not sized to evaluate relapse or overall survival.
“Given that ipilimumab, pembrolizumab, and nivolumab are approved as adjuvant therapy for high-risk stage III melanoma, vaccines incorporating CDX-301 and suitable antigen-containing platforms merit clinical investigation in the adjuvant setting in combination with immune checkpoint blockade,” the authors wrote.
“I am hopeful that highly immunogenic cancer vaccines can be added to currently approved immunotherapies, thus boosting an individual’s anticancer immune response even further,” Dr. Bhardwaj said in an interview.
This study was supported by grant funding from the National Cancer Institute. Some authors reported financial affiliations with Celldex Therapeutics, NanoString Technologies, and Oncovir. Dr. Bhardwaj disclosed relationships with Celldex and Oncovir.
SOURCE: Bhardwaj N et al. Nat Cancer. 2020 Nov 16. doi: 10.1038/s43018-020-00143-y.
“[This] study supports the potential of combining [the] CDX-1401 vaccine and CDX-301 with checkpoint inhibitors, which are standard-of-care therapy,” study author Nina Bhardwaj, MD, PhD, of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, and colleagues wrote.
The team described their study in Nature Cancer.
The multicenter, open-label, randomized study included 60 patients with resected stage IIb-IV melanoma, all of whom had not received any prior treatment, including radiotherapy, biologics, and chemotherapy.
Patients randomized to the combination arm (cohort 1; n = 30) received the anti–DEC-205-NY-ESO-1 vaccine CDX-1401 and were pretreated with CDX-301, while those in the comparator arm (cohort 2; n = 30) received CDX-1401 alone.
Serial blood samples were collected to evaluate response to the vaccine antigen (NY-ESO-1) before each cycle, as well as 4 weeks and 12 weeks after the last vaccination. The primary endpoint was immune response prior to the third vaccination.
T-cell responses were detected in 76% of patients who received CDX-301 and 33% of patients who did not (P < .0011). In addition, the magnitude of response was significantly higher with the combination than with CDX-1401 alone (mean of 41 and 17 corrected spots per well, respectively; P = .032).
“All 30 (100%) cohort 1 participants had NY-ESO-1–specific T-cell responses for at least one time point, whereas 8 (27%) cohort 2 participants had no responses at any time point,” the researchers wrote.
Responses were maintained up to 12 weeks after the final vaccination, but there was no statistically significant difference between cohorts 1 and 2 at 12 weeks (54% and 38%, respectively; P = .2).
The researchers acknowledged that a key limitation of this trial was that it was not sized to evaluate relapse or overall survival.
“Given that ipilimumab, pembrolizumab, and nivolumab are approved as adjuvant therapy for high-risk stage III melanoma, vaccines incorporating CDX-301 and suitable antigen-containing platforms merit clinical investigation in the adjuvant setting in combination with immune checkpoint blockade,” the authors wrote.
“I am hopeful that highly immunogenic cancer vaccines can be added to currently approved immunotherapies, thus boosting an individual’s anticancer immune response even further,” Dr. Bhardwaj said in an interview.
This study was supported by grant funding from the National Cancer Institute. Some authors reported financial affiliations with Celldex Therapeutics, NanoString Technologies, and Oncovir. Dr. Bhardwaj disclosed relationships with Celldex and Oncovir.
SOURCE: Bhardwaj N et al. Nat Cancer. 2020 Nov 16. doi: 10.1038/s43018-020-00143-y.
FROM NATURE CANCER