News
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In the News section you will find our most recent publications: newsletter, project-reports etc. Previous reports you might find via Research areas, Research projects and Repository.
Project / Rehabilitation and occupational therapy
Robotics and functional electrical stimulation for stroke rehabilitation
Project leaders: Gregor Goetz
Project team: Gregor Goetz
Duration: April 2020 – April 2021
Language: English (with German summary)
Publication: LBI-HTA Project Report No.: 128: https://eprints.aihta.at/1302
Newsletter
Announcement
Covid-19: HSS/ Horizon Scanning Living Document (v01 April 2020), Report & Appendix
The establishment of a HSS/ Horizon Scanning System for Covid19 interventions has the intentions of informing health policy makers at an early stage which interventions (vaccinations and drugs) are currently undergoing clinical trials and to monitor them over the next few months in order to support evidence-based purchasing if necessary.
Based on international sources (information gathered by the WHO, preliminary work by other international institutions, publications) first selective searches by means of searches in study registries are carried out for information on clinical studies in humans and the state of research. Thereafter “vignettes” (short descriptions) are developed for those products that are already in an "advanced" stage. Subsequently, the products are monitored with regard to the status of the clinical studies up to approval and finally evaluated for their benefit and harm.
All work steps are conducted in close international (European) cooperation.
Publication: Policy Brief No. 002: http://eprints.aihta.at/1234/
Contact: Claudia Wild
Announcement
Health Services Research in Oncology Part I: End-of-Life Care
Real-world data can provide information on the quality of health care and can inform health care system decisions. The present data analysis was focusing on the health care at the end of life of cancer patients, based on Austrian data (2012 to 2016) from all nine federal states. In the period under review, 283,228 persons with cancer diagnoses were admitted to a publicly financed hospital. Of these, about 29% (80,818) persons died. The proportion of patients who died in the inpatient sector was homogeneous across Austria (~61%) with the exception of Vienna. About 13% of deceased patients were admitted to the hospital two days before their death. With regard to the analysis of special oncological treatments (radiotherapy, chemotherapy and monoclonal antibodies) within 30 days before death, slight variabilities could be observed across the Austrian federal states.
Publication: LBI-HTA Project report No. 127: http://eprints.aihta.at/1233
Contact: Nicole Grössmann
Project / High tech medicine
HSS/ Horizon Scanning for Covid19
Project leaders: Claudia Wild
Project team: All employees of the AIHTA
Coordination (vaccinations): Gregor Götz
Coordination (drugs): Sarah Wolf
Duration: March 2020 – open
Language: English and German
Publication: Policy Brief No. 002: http://eprints.aihta.at/1234/
Announcement
Update 12 months follow-up: Nusinersen in spinal muscular atrophy ("late onset") in children and adolescents aged 6 years and more
In June 2017, Nusinersen (Spinraza®) was approved broadly – for all SMA Typologies (despite lack of evidence) – by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for the treatment of chromosome 5q13 (5q)-associated SMA. The question of the update presented here is which scientific evidence from clinical intervention or observational studies for the medium (or long-term) benefit of Nusinersen (Spinraza®) in children and adolescents > 6 years with SMA "late onset" (SMA 2 + 3) is available. Three publications on the question (SMA 2 + 3 with a total of 40 patients) were identified. The available evidence for medium-term (> 12 months) follow-up data comes from a single prospective sponsor-funded ISIS CS12 study, as well as from a small retrospective study (of poor quality). Even after more than two years after the approval of Nusinersen, the evidence for this patient population is of extremely low quality, lacking validity.
Publication: Policy Brief No. 1: http://eprints.aihta.at/1228/
Contact: Claudia Wild
Newsletter
Announcement
Health Services Research in Oncology: Patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Treated with Anti-PD-1/PD-L1 Therapy in Real-World Practice. A Pilot Project in Cooperation with Tirol Kliniken GmbH & KAGes
Experience in routine clinical practice may differ from that seen in a controlled clinical trial. Although randomised clinical trials (RCTs) are considered to be the standard for generating clinical evidence, they lack generalisability to real-world evidence due to selected patient populations (strict and complex enrolment criteria). Therefore, the use of real-world evidence (RWE) to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of medical interventions is gaining interest. As there is limited evidence regarding the real-world effectiveness of immunotherapy in Austria, we conducted a retrospective pilot study in six Austrian hospitals to present data on patient characteristics, effectiveness and safety from real-world practice in an NSCLC population treated with anti-PD-1/PD-L1 monotherapy.
Publication: LBI-HTA Projektbericht Nr. 126: to be published soon
Contact: Claudia Wild