Top 5 Most-Read Conference Content of 2022

The American Journal of Managed Care® (AJMC®) covered thousands of miles in 2022, virtually and in person, criss-crossing the country and the world to deliver the latest clinical data, trial results, and drug developments. Three of the top conference items focused on the heart and cardiac space, with the remaining zeroing in on therapies in the ophthalmology and respiratory arenas.

Here are the top 5 most-viewed conference articles and videos from the tail end of 2021 and all of 2022.

5. Understanding Evolving Variants, Vaccines, and Treatment for COVID-19

In this piece from the 2021 CHEST Annual Meeting, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and disease variants on vaccines and at-risk populations were discussed. In the panel discussion, “Viruses, Variants, Vaccines, and Virulence: The Present and Future of COVID-19,” a pulmonary medicine specialist and an infectious disease expert retraced the history of 4 variants—Alpha, Beta, Lamda, and Delta—noting the increasing mutation and survival efficiency of SARS-CoV-2. At the time, close to 1500 Americans still were dying each day from the virus.

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4. New HF Definition, Stage Updates Outlined in 2022 ACC/AHA/HFSA Guidelines

Fresh off the approval of empagliflozin (Jardiance, Eli Lilly/Boehringer Ingelheim) for a wider range of heart failure types, including the notoriously difficult-to-treat heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, this session from the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology in April covered timely developments in the heart failure space. These newest guidelines updated recommendations for medications and treatment for patients with advanced disease, redefined stages of heart failure to account for risk factors, and reducing health disparities in vulnerable patient populations.

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3. Cardiologists Must “Get Into the Game” With Novel Agents in Patients With Diabetes

In August, the American Society for Preventive Cardiology held its annual meeting, and this article covered an intense discussion of incorporating medications with cardiovascular benefits into the treatment armamentarium for persons living with diabetes. A pair of experts from Johns Hopkins and UC San Diego Health noted that treatment of the metabolic disease should extend beyond lowering blood glucose levels. Specific topics covered included women with diabetes and how their cardiovascular risk differs from that of men and novel therapy development, in particular GLP-1 receptor agonists and SGLT2 inhibitors.

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2. Dr Sabin Dang Outlines the Additional Practice Burdens of Prior Authorizations

An ophthalmologist from The Retina Institute, Sabin Dang, MD, sat with AJMC® for an interview as part of our coverage of the Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Society of Retina Specialists. In this clip, he addresses the touchy subject of prior authorizations, which are meant to reduce unnecessary medication use but often are accompanied by substantial burdens on the part of clinicians and patients—most notably in relation to time and delayed patient care.

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1. Dr Elli Papaemmanuil Explains Novel Prognostication, Molecular Classification System for MDS

For our first internationally attended conference since before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Elli Papaemmanuil, PhD, assistant professor in computational oncology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, talked with AJMC® at the European Hematology Association’s annual meeting. This segment that focused on myelodyplastic syndromes covered the important subject of prognostic and molecular classification of the hematologic cancer, and in this interview, Papaemmanuil addresses the novel utility of the Molecular International Prognosis Scoring System to improve and refine patient risk estimation.

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