MedPage Today (8/7, Henderson) reports, “For young people with opioid use disorder (OUD), buprenorphine costs have declined overall but with drastic variation by payer type,” researchers concluded in findingspublished online Aug. 7 in a research letter in JAMA Pediatrics. After “examining buprenorphine prescriptions dispensed for U.S. youth ages 12 to 19,” investigators found that “mean daily out-of-pocket costs declined 57.6% from 2015 through 2020 (from $4.03 to $1.71), with an increasing percentage of prescriptions paid by Medicaid.” Nevertheless, “those costs were approximately 24 times higher with commercial payers and 119 times higher for self-pay than with Medicaid in 2020,” the study team concluded.

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

HealthDay (8/4, Solomon) reported, “Approximately one-third of patients 50 years or younger with sudden cardiac death (SCD) have positive toxicology for illicit drugs,” investigators concluded in findings published online ahead of print in the journal Heart Rhythm. The study, which “identified rates of illicit drug use in younger patients with SCD using data from 523 patients with confirmed out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (ages 18 to 50 years) with a toxicological assessment (April 2019 to April 2021),” revealed that “32.5% of patients had either positive toxicology for illicit drugs (138 patients) or negative toxicology but reported regular drug use (32 patients).”

Related Links:

— “Illicit Drug Use Seen in One-Third of Sudden Cardiac Deaths in Younger Adults,”Lori Solomon, HealthDay, August 4, 2023

The New York Times (8/4, A1, Belluck) reported the FDA has approved Zurzuvae (zuranolone), “the first pill for postpartum depression, a milestone considered likely to increase recognition and treatment of” the condition. According to the Times, “Clinical trial data show the pill works quickly, beginning to ease depression in as little as three days, significantly faster than general antidepressants, which can take two weeks or longer to have an effect.”

NBC News (8/4, Bendix, Kopf) reported, “The medication…is taken daily for two weeks.” Researchers found, “in a pair of clinical trials involving women who experienced severe depression after having a baby, the drug improved symptoms – such as anxiety, difficulty sleeping, loss of pleasure, low energy, guilt or social withdrawal – as early as three days after taking the first pill.”

Also covering the story were CNN (8/4, Howard), Reuters (8/5), The Hill (8/4, Robertson), the AP (8/4, Perrone), HealthDay (8/5, Mann), MedPage Today (8/4, Monaco), and Medscape (8/4, Marcus, Subscription Publication).

Related Links:

— “FDA approves first pill for postpartum depression,”Aria Bendix and Marina Kopf, NBC News, August 4, 2023

According to Healio (8/3, Herpen), “rates of new-onset mental health conditions were higher in U.S. soldiers with a history of military-related traumatic brain injury” (TBI), “while increased risk for suicide was both directly and indirectly associated with TBI history.” Investigators arrived at this conclusion after having examined data on “more than 860,000 U.S. soldiers, including more than 108,000 with history of” TBI. The findings were published online July 31 in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “Rates of new-onset mental health conditions higher in US soldiers with history of TBI,”Robert Herpen, Healio, August 3, 2023

Psychiatric News (8/4) reported, “Suicide is the most common cause of death in patients who have schizophrenia spectrum disorders,” researchers concluded after having “analyzed data from the OPUS I study, a randomized controlled trial of 578 patients experiencing their first episode of psychosis.” The findingswere published online Aug. 1 in the Schizophrenia Bulletin.

Related Links:

— “Suicide Most Common Cause of Death in People With Schizophrenia, Study Finds, Psychiatric News, August 4, 2023