Trending News Today: Medicaid Expansion Linked to Lower Cardiovascular Mortality Rates

A recent study showed that counties in states that expanded Medicaid had significantly smaller increases in cardiovascular mortality rates compared with nonexpansion states, MD Magazine reported. According to the article, the researchers examined cardiovascular mortality rates among adults between ages 45 and 64 in expansion and nonexpansion states. Overall, the study showed that counties in expansion states had a median of 4.3 fewer deaths per 100,000 than nonexpansion states, the article reported.

CVS Health announced plans to open expanded health services that will provide dieticians, chronic disease management, diabetes and blood pressure screening, and more, STAT reported. According to the article, last year CVS began testing HealthHub stores in Houston, Texas, as an initiative to provide more health care help to customers. The company said it will open 1500 HealthHub stores nationally by the end of 2021, the article reported.

AstraZeneca’s blood cancer drug acalabrutinib (Calquence) met the primary goal of a final stage trial, Reuters reported. According to the article, acalabrutinib showed meaningful improvement in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) compared with chemotherapy-based treatment. Acalabrutinib is currently approved for treating adults with relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma and is being developed for the treatment of CLL and other blood cancers, the article reported.