ProCare Odessa Heart Institute

Olmesartan-induced enteropathy (OIE) typically presents with a constellation of signs and symptoms including chronic diarrhoea, weight loss and villous atrophy on biopsy. We describe a 68-year-old Caucasian woman with a history of hypothyroidism and hypertension who presented to our hospital with recurrent episodes of acute intermittent diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting, renal failure and 15 lbs weight loss. After an extensive workup, she was diagnosed with possible OIE. Cessation of the offending drug resulted in improvement of clinical symptoms and also hospital admissions for severe diarrhoea reinforcing the diagnosis of OIE. Among the adverse effects of drug therapy, diarrhoea is a relatively frequent adverse event accounting for about 7%. This report serves as an addition to existing literature and to increase the awareness of olmesartan-induced sprue-like enteropathy among the primary care physicians and gastroenterologists.

Value-based insurance design (VBID) is a strategy that reduces cost sharing for high-value services and increases consumers' out-of-pocket spending for low-value care. VBID has increasingly been implemented by private and public payers and has inspired demonstration programs in Medicare Advantage and TRICARE. Given the recent publication of several studies, we performed an updated systematic review that evaluated the effects of reducing consumer cost sharing on medication adherence and other relevant outcomes. Searches were conducted in key online databases, and the screening of citations yielded twenty-one unique studies, of which eight had not been included in previous reviews. Using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) system, we found moderate-quality evidence showing improvement (range: 0.1-14.3percent) in medication adherence with VBID. This increase in adherence was associated with no effect on total health care spending, which suggests that the incremental drug spending was offset by decreases in spending for other health care services.

Left coronary artery arising from the right sinus of Valsalva is a rare congenital coronary anomaly. This anomaly is either benign or serious, depending on the relation of the anomalous left coronary artery to the aorta and pulmonary artery. Potentially serious anomaly is associated with sudden cardiac death and warrants prophylactic coronary bypass surgery. A rare case of anomalous left coronary artery arising from the right sinus of Valsalva is reported, documented by coronary angiography; however, it took a safer course between the aorta and pulmonary artery. Prophylactic surgery was not performed, for this benign anomaly may not carry the same risk of sudden cardiac death.