Latest Conference Articles

Study results presented at the 2014 APA annual meeting show patients treated with vortioxetine significant improvement in composite cognition scores compared to patients treated with placebo, independent of the drug's effect on their depression symptoms.

Results from a six-week study show patients with major depressive disorder treated with brexpiprazole had significantly reduced risk of akathisia and other side effects.

Fecal microbiota transplants appear safe and patients tolerate them well in trials, but the evidence isn't there yet to establish overall benefit for treating ulcerative colitis.

An all-oral, ribavirin-free, interferon-free combination of three direct-acting antiviral agents that had achieved sustained virologic response in 92% of patients with chronic HCV genotype 1 infection has demonstrated even greater response in patients with genotype 4 infection.

Treatment with an 8-week regimen of combination sofosbuvir plus ledipasvir with or without ribavirin produced sustained virologic response rates (SVR) similar to those achieved with a 12-week regimen in non-cirrhotic, previously untreated, genotype 1 hepatitis C patients, according to results from the ION-3 trial.

By paralyzing the facial muscles involved in producing frown lines, onabotulinumtoxinA injection seems to alleviate depression, especially among patients who exhibit a high degree of hyperactivity.

Small, "naturalistic" study shows treatment with desvenlafaxine produces high rates of symptom improvement and remission with low rates of adverse events in patients with major depressive disorder.

The opioid overdose epidemic and resulting focus on preventing opioid abuse and diversion could threaten access to effective medications for patients with legitimate medical needs.

Patients in the Hepatitis C Antiviral Long-term Treatment Against Cirrhosis trial who were also treated with statins experienced a significant decrease in time to histological disease progression compared to patients who did not receive statin treatment.

Within the next two years, treatments for hepatitis C with 95% cure rates that are all-oral, interferon-free, and effective within 12 weeks or less with negligible side effects will be readily available.

Phase 2 study results show patients with ulcerative colitis treated with an investigational oral compound achieved higher rates of remission, reduced rectal bleeding, and increased mucosal healing compared to patients who received placebo.

Despite rampant opioid misuse, abuse, and diversion self-reported by chronic pain patients in a study presented at the American Pain Society 33rd Annual Scientific Meeting, primary care providers tended to downgrade the patients' risk for engaging in those drug-related aberrant behaviors, indicating a gap between physicians' objective risk assessment for opioid abuse and the actual extent of the problem.

Among adult patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), pain severity can impact performance on cognitive tests, suggesting that pain independently contributes to impaired brain function in MS.

Medical and nursing schools that reported extensively incorporating the topic of pain care into prelicensure curricula do not offer more robust pain management education programs than those indicating minimal or moderate pain course integration.

Patients who are hospitalized for pain related to acute pancreatitis pose unique challenges for achieving adequate analgesia, which is particularly true for those admitted with preexisting chronic pain and prior opioid use.

Though constipation as a side effect of opioid therapy is generally considered a tolerability issue that can be treated with over-the-counter laxatives, opioid-induced constipation may still lead to serious gastrointestinal complications.

Teasing out relevant the relationship among risk factors, comorbidities, and migraine is challenging but critical for optimal migraine treatment.

For many migraine sufferers, current strategies to treat headaches, or to prevent their occurrence, are insufficient to ward off the near-daily occurrence of head pain, prompting researchers to investigate methods of pre-emptive migraine treatment.

The clinical challenge of accurate headache diagnosis in the office can be overcome by taking a broad view of the various diagnostic categories of headache.

Although the concept of delivering chronic pain care through multidisciplinary clinics is less than half a century old, John Loeser, MD, believes the model has already surpassed its peak in the United States, mainly due to financial reasons.

With the co-occurrence of chronic pain and cancer amassing from improved cancer survival rates, it is increasingly important for healthcare professionals to understand how the conditions interrelate and influence patients' quality of life.

Expanding upon previous investigations of the associations among low vitamin D levels, chronic pain, and poor sleep within the general and non-pain populations, a research poster presented at the American Pain Society 33rd Annual Scientific Meeting suggests correcting inadequate vitamin D levels in middle-aged to older patients with knee osteoarthritis may reduce their clinical pain and improve sleep quality.

Boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy saw continued and significant clinical improvement in motor function tests after 96 weeks of administration of investigational drug eteplirsen.

Although the benefit of Botox (onabotulinumtoxinA) for preventing headaches in adults with chronic migraine has been extensively established in clinical trials, limited data exists on the injections' effectiveness for the indication beyond 5 treatment cycles.

Patient characteristics and preferences and clinician risk tolerance are critically important guideposts in selecting among the various treatment choices for relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis.

With several clinical trials already underway, real hope for modifying the disease course of multiple sclerosis may come from strategies to remyelinate damaged neurons and brain cells.

Session at the 2014 AAN annual meeting contrasts a "tiered" treatment strategy that focuses on safety with a "maximal efficacy" approach and offers an in-depth review of the clinical benefits and potential side effects of the current array of treatments for multiple sclerosis.

Study data from two phase 3 clinical trials announced at AAN 2014 show sustained effects one year after two years of treatment with alemtuzumab in patient with MS.

Phase 2 study results also show infants and children with spinal muscular atrophy treated with ISIS-SMNRx experienced improvements in muscle function scores, setting stage for phase 3 studies later this year.

Two-year data from the phase 3 ADVANCE study of peginterferon beta-1a in patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis show that more frequent dosing yields greater improvements, and that treatment with the drug is associated with a reduction in relapse rates, slower disease progression, and fewer T2 lesions compared to placebo.