CDM Projects

There is low compliance to the isotretinoin pregnancy prevention program in Canada.

We illustrate the practical implementation of a newly proposed double robust estimator “Targeted Maximum Likelihood Estimation” (TMLE) and demonstrated its application in common pharmacoepidemiological settings. A real-word example using the clinical practice research datalink is used with a high-dimensional covariate space.

We review some methodological challenges facing drug safety networks such as CNODES and Sentinel.

We illustrate the confounding that can occur due to drug formulary restrictions using the example of fluticasone/salmeterol combination therapy, whose use is restricted in the province of Quebec, Canada. We found that formulary restrictions can result in substantial and unexpected confounding and should be considered during the design and analysis of pharmacoepidemiologic studies.

Likelihood ratio meta-analysis (LRMA) provides an alternative technique for comparing alternative hypotheses, and the results of a LRMA can be presented in a format that is familiar to meta-analytic audience. We explain the LRMA method and illustrate its application to an existing meta-analysis of observation studies on the association between high potency statins and acute kidney injury.

Patients with type 2 diabetes using incretin-based drugs to lower their blood sugar levels do not have an increased risk of heart failure, compared to those using combinations of other oral antidiabetic drugs.