Concurrent analysis: validation of the domains within the Birth Satisfaction Scale

Background and aim: Measuring women’s satisfaction with their birth experience has been problematic. Recently, an attempt has been made to capture birth satisfaction’s generalised meaning and incorporate it into an evidenced-based tool. Standard procedures for validation have limitations. Qualitative techniques such as domain analysis offer an alternative and assist in better understanding the importance of each item. This article examines the parsimony of the Birth Satisfaction Scale (BSS), which is a 30-item questionnaire designed to measure satisfaction with childbirth, with women’s actual experience of childbirth. Methods: Primary free text data collected from 207 women who originally tested the BSS was concurrently analysed with first-hand accounts of birth satisfaction collected from 19 qualitative papers. Results: The domain analysis confirmed three explanatory items within the BSS: ‘being in control’, ‘things going as planned’, and ‘being supported’. Conclusions: The BSS accounts for all the analysed data, suggesting it is a robust measure of satisfaction in childbirth. Strengths and limitations of the method are discussed, as are implications for practice. With further development, the instrument could be used to establish correlates with other psychometric measures, i.e. self-efficacy, anxiety, depression, locus of control and bonding; and evaluate models or care systems as a standalone instrument, or as a screening test prior to detailed qualitative work.     

Can patients with head and neck cancers invading carotid artery gain survival benefit from surgery?

Conclusion. Surgical treatment of carotid invasion may give an improved 2-year survival in selected patients without significant morbidity. Objective. To evaluate survival outcomes in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinomas invading the carotid artery. Patients and methods. At the time of carotid invasion, 23 patients underwent surgery (n=11), chemoradiotherapy (n=6), or palliation (n=6). Surgical methods included carotid resection and ligation (n=5), carotid resection and reconstruction with saphenous vein (n=4), and peeling (n=2). Survival outcomes among different treatments were compared. Results. None of the 11 surgical patients experienced perioperative mortality or major neurologic complications. Three of these patients survived, but two had recurrent disease at last follow-up; their 2-year overall survival and disease-free survival rates were 24.5% and 18.2%, respectively. In contrast, all patients treated with chemoradiation or palliation died within 15 months. Median survival time was 16.5 months in the surgery group, 11.5 months in the chemoradiation group, and 3 months in the palliation group (p=0.025).     

‘It’s not good to eat a candy in a wrapper’: male students’ perspectives on condom use and concurrent sexual partnerships in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

This paper reports on fieldwork carried out in 2011 with aim to investigate young men’s perspectives about condoms use, concurrent sexual partnerships and sex in the context of HIV/AIDS. This study employed a qualitative approach to collect data from 28 boys aged 16–20 from two urban and two rural high schools in South Kivu province. Four focus group discussions and 20 individual interviews were conducted among them. The findings showed that most students identified condoms as unsafe and untrustworthy. Reasons given for the mistrust of condoms were related to the belief that condoms do not give enough protection from Sexually Transmitted Infections, HIV and pregnancies. Most participants believe that condoms have a ‘small hole’ or are unreliable and are therefore not effective in prevention. They also mentioned that condoms encourage inappropriate sexual activity. They prefer flesh-to-flesh sex rather than protected sex using a condom. However, a few participants acknowledged the importance of condom use. Despite the risk of HIV transmission, boys believe that it is appropriate for them to have concurrent sexual partnerships. They justified the concurrent sexual partnerships as a way of ensuring that they cannot miss a girl to satisfy their sexual desire. Given the boys’ failure to use condoms and their strong inclination to concurrent sexual partnerships, there is a need for heath groups and stakeholders within the area to increase awareness about condoms’ effectiveness and improve knowledge dissemination on Sexually Transmitted Diseases and how they are prevented.     

Pharmacoeconomics of cisplatin-based chemoradiation in cervical cancer: a review

Staphylococcus aureus is a bacterial pathogen responsible for a variety of serious infections and is a frequent cause of nosocomial disease. During the last 60 years, S. aureus has developed increasing in vitro resistance to virtually all antimicrobials. In contrast, vancomycin has maintained a high degree of activity in vitro against this pathogen, although slight changes with in vitro activity could vastly change clinical activity. As a result, vancomycin has become the mainstay of therapy for invasive infections due to methicillin-resistant strains. However, clinical strains of S. aureus with intermediate resistance to vancomycin were reported in 1996, followed in 2002 with reports of isolates that were fully resistant. Although many authorities believe vancomycin remains the drug of choice for most staphylococcal-resistant infections, important issues surrounding its clinical application remain. These include the need for multiple daily dosing, intravenous administration, requirements for serum concentration monitoring, increasing resistance in vitro, modest efficacy rates and (less frequently) treatment-limiting adverse effects. This review addresses these important topics.     

T-level downstaging and complete pathologic response after preoperative chemoradiation for advanced rectal cancer result in decreased recurrence and improved disease-free survival

PURPOSE: Preoperative chemoradiation therapy is used widely in the treatment of rectal cancer. The predictive value of response to neoadjuvant remains uncertain. We retrospectively evaluated the impact of response to preoperative and, specifically, of T-level downstaging, nodal downstaging, and complete pathologic response after chemoradiation therapy on oncologic outcome of patients with locally advanced rectal cancer. METHODS: There were 88 patients with ultrasound Stage T3/T4 midrectal (n = 37) and low rectal (n = 51) cancers (63 males; mean age 62.6 years). All patients were treated by preoperative 5-fluorouracil-based chemotherapy and pelvic radiation followed by surgical resection in six weeks or longer (56 sphincter-preserving resections). RESULTS: T-level downstaging after neoadjuvant treatment was demonstrated in 36 (41 percent) of 88 patients, and complete pathologic response was observed in 16 (18 percent) of the 88. Of the 42 patients with ultrasound-positive nodes, 27 had no evidence of nodal involvement on pathologic evaluation (64 percent). The overall response rate (T-level downstaging or nodal downstaging) was 51 percent. At a median follow-up of 33 months, 86.4 percent of patients were alive. The overall recurrence rate was 10.2 percent (three patients had local and six had metastatic recurrences). Patients with T-level downstaging and complete pathologic response were characterized by significantly better disease-free survival (P = 0.03, P = 0.04) and better overall survival (P = 0.07, P = 0.08), according to Wilcoxons test comparing Kaplan-Meier survival curves. None of the patients with complete pathologic response developed recurrence or died during the follow-up period. CONCLUSION: T-level downstaging and complete pathologic response after preoperative chemoradiation therapy followed by definitive surgical resection for advanced rectal cancer resulted in decreased recurrence and improved disease-free survival. Advanced rectal cancers that undergo T-level downstaging and complete pathologic response after chemoradiation therapy may represent subgroups that are characterized by better biologic behavior.     

Persistent infection of Strongyloides venezuelensis and normal expulsion of Nippostrongylus brasiliensis in Mongolian gerbils, Meriones unguiculatus, with reference to the cellular responses in the intestinal mucosa

The kinetics of daily faecal egg count, worm burdens, and intestinal cellular responses were examined in Mongolian gerbils after infection with either Strongyloides venezuelensis or Nippostrongylus brasiliensis alone, or concurrently with both parasites. The results show that, both in individual and concurrent infections, S. venezuelensis infection persisted for over 10 weeks and elicited a gradual increase in number of mast cells in the jejunal mucosa. On the other hand, N. brasiliensis worms were expelled by 3 weeks in association with goblet cell hyperplasia. These results suggest that effector/regulator cells involved in worm expulsion are different and highly selective depending on the genus of intestinal helminths.     

预防性使用聚乙二醇化重组人粒细胞集落刺激因子在肺癌患者同步放化疗中的作用

目的 评价预防性使用聚乙二醇化重组人粒细胞集落刺激因子(PEG-rhG-CSF)在肺癌同步放化疗期间预防中性粒细胞减少症的作用。方法 回顾性分析2020年4月至2021年4月于北京大学肿瘤医院接受同步放化疗的149例肺癌患者的临床资料,其中预防组79例,包括初级预防组(全程同步放化疗中预防使用PEG-rhG-CSF)48例,次级预防组(出现粒细胞减少后的化疗周期中预防使用PEG-rhG-CSF)31例;未预防组70例。对比预防组和未预防组之间3~4级中性粒细胞减少症的发生率、同步放化疗完成率、放化疗剂量减量和治疗时间延迟发生率。结果 全组患者在放化疗中出现3~4级中性粒细胞减少症的发生率为32.2%(48/149)。其中,初级预防组的发生率为6.3%(3/48),次级预防组的发生率为9.7%(3/31),未预防组的发生率为35.7%(25/70)。预防组(初级预防+次级预防)与未预防组中性粒细胞减少症的发生率差异有统计学意义(χ²=17.81,P＜0.001)。全组粒细胞缺乏伴发热的发生率为3.4%(5/149),未在初级预防组出现。同步放化疗足量完成率在预防组为96.2%(76/79),明显高于未预防组的82.9%(58/70),差异有统计学意义(χ²=7.30,P=0.007)。预防组放化疗剂量减量和治疗时间延迟发生率为19.0%(15/79),未预防组为40.0%(28/70),差异有统计学意义(χ²=7.98,P=0.005)。结论 PEG-rhG-CSF的预防使用可以有效降低3~4级中性粒细胞减少症的发生,更好地保证肺癌患者同步放化疗按计划完成。     

What's new in pancreatic cancer treatment?

Pancreatic cancer represents a major challenge to oncologists because of its high chemoresistant nature and dismal outcomes. Conventional therapy for advanced disease relied for a long time on palliative 5‐fluorouracil (5‐FU)‐based chemotherapy, but with unsatisfactory results. The introduction of the novel antimetabolite gemcitabine provides new optimism for patients with advanced pancreatic cancer, as multiple clinical trials have demonstrated the superiority of gemcitabine over 5‐FU and other agents for these patients. The benefits of gemcitabine over conventional therapies include improved response rate and enhanced survival, as well as improvement in disease‐related symptoms and quality of life in these patients. With these data, gemcitabine is widely accepted worldwide as the therapy of choice by many oncologists for advanced pancreatic cancer. The current review presents an overview of the clinical studies of gemcitabine over the past decade for the treatment of patients with advanced pancreatic cancer. Other investigational regimens or uses (e.g., fixed dose‐rate infusion, intraarterial infusion, adjuvant use, chemo‐radiation, etc) are also reviewed.