Patient navigation across the cancer care continuum: An overview of systematic reviews and emerging literature

Patient navigation is a strategy for overcoming barriers to reduce disparities and to improve access and outcomes. The aim of this umbrella review was to identify, critically appraise, synthesize, and present the best available evidence to inform policy and planning regarding patient navigation across the cancer continuum. Systematic reviews examining navigation in cancer care were identified in the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), PubMed, Embase, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health (CINAHL), Epistemonikos, and Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) databases and in the gray literature from January 1, 2012, to April 19, 2022. Data were screened, extracted, and appraised independently by two authors. The JBI Critical Appraisal Checklist for Systematic Review and Research Syntheses was used for quality appraisal. Emerging literature up to May 25, 2022, was also explored to capture primary research published beyond the coverage of included systematic reviews. Of the 2062 unique records identified, 61 systematic reviews were included. Fifty-four reviews were quantitative or mixed-methods reviews, reporting on the effectiveness of cancer patient navigation, including 12 reviews reporting costs or cost-effectiveness outcomes. Seven qualitative reviews explored navigation needs, barriers, and experiences. In addition, 53 primary studies published since 2021 were included. Patient navigation is effective in improving participation in cancer screening and reducing the time from screening to diagnosis and from diagnosis to treatment initiation. Emerging evidence suggests that patient navigation improves quality of life and patient satisfaction with care in the survivorship phase and reduces hospital readmission in the active treatment and survivorship care phases. Palliative care data were extremely limited. Economic evaluations from the United States suggest the potential cost-effectiveness of navigation in screening programs.     

Abnormal liver function tests associated with severe rhabdomyolysis

Rhabdomyolysis is a syndrome of skeletal muscle injury with release of cellular constituents such as potassium,phosphate,urate and intracellular proteins such as myoglobin into the circulation,which may cause complications including acute kidney injury,electrolyte disturbance and cardiac instability.Abnormal liver function tests are frequently observed in cases of severe rhabdomyolysis.Typically,there is an increase in serum aminotransferases,namely aspartate aminotransferase and alanine aminotransferase.This raises the question of liver injury and often triggers a pathway of investigation which may lead to a liver biopsy.However,muscle can also be a source of the increased aminotransferase activity.This review discusses the dilemma of finding abnormal liver function tests in the setting of muscle injury and the potential implications of such an association.It delves into some of the clinical and experimental evidence for correlating muscle injury to raised aminotransferases,and discusses pathophysiological mechanisms such as oxidative stress which may cause actual liver injury.Serum aminotransferases lack tissue specificity to allow clinicians to distinguish primary liver injury from muscle injury.This review also explores potential approaches to improve the accuracy of our diagnostic tools,so that excessive or unnecessary liver investigations can be avoided.     

Patient preferences and predicted relative uptake for targeted therapies in metastatic colorectal cancer: a discrete choice experiment

Abstract

Objective

Ras wild-type metastatic colorectal cancers (mCRC) may be treated with anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) or anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) agents. We aim to estimate patients’ preferences for mCRC treatment and relative importance of cost, efficacy improvement, avoidance of side effects and therapy convenience, and relative uptake between profiles that resemble Bevacizumab (anti-VEGF) and Cetuximab (anti-EGFR), two commonly prescribed mCRC targeted therapies.