Drug effectiveness study Publications

• Clinical effectiveness of liraglutide vs basal insulin in a real-world setting: Evidence of improved glycaemic and weight control in obese people with type 2 diabetes.Abstract

  AIMS: To compare real-world antidiabetic treatment outcomes over 12 months in obese people with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) who previously received oral antidiabetic therapy and then initiated a first injectable therapy with liraglutide or basainsulin. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This was a retrospective, propensity score-matched, longitudinal cohort study using real-world data (January 2010 to December 2015) from the Dutch PHARMO Database Network

  Overbeek JA, Heintjes EM, Huisman EL, Tikkanen CK, van Diermen AW, Penning-van Beest FJA, Herings RMC. Diabetes Obes Metab. 2018 May 3; 20 2093-2102.

• Immortal time bias in pharmacoepidemiological studies on cancer patient survival: empirical illustration for beta-blocker use in four cancers with different prognosis.Abstract

  Immortal time bias (ITB) is still seen frequently in medical literature. However, not much is known about this bias in the field of cancer (pharmaco-)epidemiology. In context of a hypothetical beneficial beta-blocker use among cancer patients, we amed to demonstrate the magnitude of ITB among 9876 prostate, colorectal, lung and pancreatic cancer patients diagnosed between 1998 and 2011, which were selected from a database linkage of the Netherlands Cancer Registry and the PHARMO Database Network

  Weberpals J, Jansen L, van Herk-Sukel MPP, Kuiper JG, Aarts MJ, Vissers PAJ, Brenner H. Eur J Epidemiol. 2017 Sep 01; 1019 - 103.

• Exploring methods for comparing the real-world effectiveness of treatments for osteoporosis: adjusted direct comparisons versus using patients as their own control.Abstract

  Using Swedish and Dutch registry data for women initiating bisphosphonates, we evaluated two methods of comparing the real-world effectiveness of osteoporosis treatments that attempt to adjust for differences in patient baseline characteristics. Eah method has advantages and disadvantages; both are potential complements to clinical trial analyses

  Karlsson L, Mesterton J, Tepie MF, Intorcia M, Overbeek J, Strom O. Arch Osteoporos. 2017 Sep 21; 12 81.

• Statin Use After Diagnosis of Colon Cancer and Patient Survival.Abstract

  BACKGROUND & AIMS: Statin use has been associated with a reduced incidence of colorectal cancer and might also affect survival of patients diagnosed with colon cancer. Statins are believed to inhibit Ras signaling and may also activate the bone morhogenetic protein (BMP) signaling pathway in colorectal cancer cells

  Voorneveld PW, Reimers MS, Bastiaannet E, Jacobs RJ, van Eijk R, Zander s MMJ, Herings RMC, van Herk-Sukel MPP, Kodach LL, van Wezel T, Kuppen PJK, Morreau H, van deVelde CJH, Hardwick JCH, Liefers GJ. Gastroenterology. 2017 Aug; 153 470-479 e4.

• Pre- and post-diagnostic beta-blocker use and lung cancer survival: A population-based cohort study.Abstract

  Beta-blockers have been associated with decreased cancer mortality. However, evidence for lung cancer is sparse and reported beneficial effects might be based on biased analyses. In this so far largest study we investigated the association betweeneta-blocker use and lung cancer survival. Therefore, patients with a lung cancer diagnosis between April 1998 and December 2011 were selected from a database linkage of the Netherlands Cancer Registry and the PHARMO Database Network

  Weberpals J, Jansen L, Haefeli WE, Hoffmeister M, Wolkewitz M, Herk-Sukel Mppv, Vissers PAJ, Brenner H. Sci Rep. 2017 Jun 06; 7 2911.

• Pre- and post-diagnostic beta-blocker use and prognosis after colorectal cancer: Results from a population-based study.Abstract

  Recent experimental and epidemiological studies have suggested that beta blocker use might be associated with better cancer prognosis, but results were inconclusive and only few studies have investigated the association specifically for colorectalancer (CRC) patients. We investigated this hypothesis using a linked dataset of the Eindhoven area of the Netherlands Cancer Registry and the PHARMO record linkage, including patients diagnosed with CRC between 1998 and 2011

  Jansen L, Weberpals J, Kuiper JG, Vissers PA, Wolkewitz M, Hoffmeister M, Brenner H. Int J Cancer. 2017 Apr 01; 62-71.

• No decreased risk of gastrointestinal cancers in users of metformin in The Netherlands; a time-varying analysis of metformin exposure.Abstract

  Previous studies on metformin use and gastrointestinal (GI) cancer risk have yielded inconclusive results on metformin’s chemoprotective effects. We aimed to evaluate GI cancer risk in users of metformin in The Netherlands using a time-varying apprach in a large population-based database. A cohort study was performed using the NCR-PHARMO database

  deJong RG, Burden AM, deKort S, van Herk-Sukel M, Vissers PA, Janssen PK, Haak HR, Masclee AA, deVries F, Janssen-Heijnen ML. Cancer Prev Res (Phila). 2017 Mar 08;

• The difference in association between aspirin use and other thrombocyte aggregation inhibitors and survival in patients with colorectal cancer.Abstract

  BACKGROUND: Several studies have suggested that the association between aspirin and improved cancer survival is mediated through the mechanism of aspirin as thrombocyte aggregation inhibitors (TAI). The aim of this study was to provide epidemiologial evidence for this mechanism assessing the association between overall survival and the use of aspirin and non-aspirin TAI in patients with colorectal cancer

  Frouws MA, Rade maker E, Bastiaannet E, van Herk-Sukel MP, Lemmens VE, Vande Velde CJ, Portielje JE, Liefers GJ. Eur J Cancer. 2017 Mar 25; 77 24-30.

• Asthma-Related Outcomes in Patients Initiating Extrafine Ciclesonide or Fine-Particle Inhaled Corticosteroids.Abstract

  PURPOSE: Extrafine-particle inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) have greater small airway deposition than standard fine-particle ICS. We sought to compare asthma-related outcomes after patients initiated extrafine-particle ciclesonide or fine-particle IC(fluticasone propionate or non-extrafine beclomethasone)

  Postma DS, Dekhuijzen R, van der Molen T, Martin RJ, van Aalder en W, Roche N, Guilbert TW, Israel E, van Eickels D, Khalid JM, Herings RM, Overbeek JA, Miglio C, Thomas V, Hutton C, Hillyer EV, Price DB. Allergy Asthma Immunol Res. 2017 Mar; 9 (2): 116-125.

• Use of Lipid-Modifying Therapy and LDL-C Goal Attainment in a High-Cardiovascular-Risk Population in the Netherlands.Abstract

  PURPOSE: This study investigates lipid-modifying therapy (LMT) and LDL-C goal attainment in a real-world, high-cardiovascular-risk population in the Netherlands. METHODS: From the PHARMO Database Network, patients aged >/=18 years with an LDL-C meaurement in 2012 (index date) were selected and hierarchically classified into the following mutually exclusive high-cardiovascular-risk categories: familial hypercholesterolemia (FH), recent acute coronary syndrome (ACS), coronary heart disease, ischemicstroke, peripheral arterial disease, and diabetes mellitus

  Kuiper JG, Sanchez RJ, Houben E, Heintjes EM, Penning-van Beest FJ, Khan I, van Riemsdijk M, Herings RM. Clin Ther. 2017 Mar 24; 819 - 827.