Papillary thyroid carcinoma with a high tumor mutation burden has a poor prognosis

BackgroundTumor mutation burden (TMB) as a prognostic marker for immunotherapy has shown prognostic value in many cancers. However, there is no systematic investigation on TMB in papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC).MethodsBased on the somatic mutation data of 487 PTC patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), TMB was calculated, and we classified the samples into high-TMB (H-TMB) and low-TMB (L-TMB) groups. Bioinformatics methods were used to explore the characteristics and potential mechanism of TMB in PTC.ResultsHigh TMB predicts shorter progression-free survival (PFS) (P < 0.001). TMB was positively correlated with age, stage, tumor size, metastasis, the male sex and tall cell PTC. Compared to the L-TMB group, the H-TMB group presented with lower immune cell infiltration, a higher proportion of tumor-promoting immune cells (M0 macrophages, activated dendritic cells and monocytes) and a lower proportion of antitumor immune cells (M1 macrophages, CD8⁺ T cells and B cells). Additionally, the characteristics displayed by different TMB groups were not driven by critical driver mutations such as BRAF and RAS.ConclusionsPTC patients with high TMB have a worse prognosis. By stratifying PTC patients according to their TMB, advanced PTC patients who are candidates for immunotherapy could be selected.     

Cured Today,Ill Tomorrow: A Method for Including Future Unrelated Medical Costs in Economic Evaluation in England and Wales

ObjectivesIn many countries, future unrelated medical costs occurring during life-years gained are excluded from economic evaluation, and benefits of unrelated medical care are implicitly included, leading to life-extending interventions being disproportionately favored over quality of life-improving interventions. This article provides a standardized framework for the inclusion of future unrelated medical costs and demonstrates how this framework can be applied in England and Wales.MethodsData sources are combined to construct estimates of per-capita National Health Service spending by age, sex, and time to death, and a framework is developed for adjusting these estimates for costs of related diseases. Using survival curves from 3 empirical examples illustrates how our estimates for unrelated National Health Service spending can be used to include unrelated medical costs in cost-effectiveness analysis and the impact depending on age, life-years gained, and baseline costs of the target group.ResultsOur results show that including future unrelated medical costs is feasible and standardizable. Empirical examples show that this inclusion leads to an increase in the ICER of between 7% and 13%.ConclusionsThis article contributes to the methodology debate over unrelated costs and how to systematically include them in economic evaluation. Results show that it is both important and possible to include future unrelated medical costs.     

Challenges with Forecasting Budget Impact: A Case Study of Six ICER Reports

Background

Payers frequently rely on budget impact model (BIM) results to help determine drug coverage policy and its effect on their bottom line. It is unclear whether BIMs typically overestimate or underestimate real-world budget impact.

Tedium vitae in stroke survivors: a comparative cross-sectional study

Objectives: Suicide is best studied by deconstructing the psychological experiences preceding suicidal death. We assessed the characteristics of tedium vitae (feeling tired of life) after first ever stroke in Nigerian survivors.

Methods: Using the Schedule for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry, tedium vitae was assessed in 130 stroke survivors attending rehabilitation in a large Nigerian university hospital. Global cognitive and executive dysfunctions were evaluated, respectively, using the Mini Mental State Examination and the modi?ed Indiana University Token test. All participants had their index stroke 3 to 24 months before recruitment into the study. We also examined a comparative group of 130 age, gender, and education matched apparently normal persons who were unrelated to the stroke survivors. Associations were explored using univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses.

Results: Tedium vitae was experienced by 16 (12.3%) stroke survivors compared with 5 (3.9%) in the comparative group (O. R = 3.5, 95% C. I = 1.3–9.9, p = 0.018). Among stroke survivors, those who were retired were more likely to experience tedium vitae (56.2%, p = 0.045). In analyses adjusting for the effect of systemic hypertension, cognitive dysfunction, retirement and marital separation, there was a 3.5-fold increase in the odds of experiencing tedium vitae after surviving a stroke (O. R = 3.5, 95% C. I = 1.1–11.6, p = 0.042).

Conclusions: Tedium vitae is a common suicidal experience after stroke and may be among the earliest perceptible pointer to impending poststroke suicide. It is easy to assess and may be less costly to obtain an adequate sample size in studies aiming to understand the phenomenon of suicide in the stroke population.     

2019年重庆市30岁及以上人群归因于被动吸烟的肺癌疾病负担研究

目的 分析重庆市肺癌发病死亡和疾病负担归因于被动吸烟的情况,为开展肺癌防治提供建议。 方法 肺癌死亡个案数据来源于2019年重庆市肿瘤登记报告系统,被动吸烟率来自2013年重庆市慢性病及危险因素监测。计算人群归因危险度百分比(population attributable risk percent, PAR%)、被动吸烟导致的肺癌发病、死亡和疾病负担。采用Excel 2010与SPSS 25.0进行统计分析,率的比较采用χ²检验。 结果 2013年30岁及以上成年人被动吸烟率为52.37%。2019年重庆市30岁及以上人群肺癌发病率与标化发病率分别为118.44/10万与80.83/10万,死亡率与标化死亡率分别为96.51/10万、63.58/10万。肺癌发病率和死亡率归因于被动吸烟的PAR%分别为19.76和19.04,归因发病率与归因标化发病率分别为23.41/10万和16.34/10万,归因死亡率与归因标化死亡率分别为18.38/10万和12.40/10万。2019年重庆市30岁及以上肺癌早死所致寿命损失年率(years of life lost,YLL)、残疾所致寿命损失年率(years lived with disability,YLD)、调整伤残寿命损失年率(disability adjusted life year,DALY)分别为21.16‰、0.31‰、21.47‰,YLL率、YLD率、DALY率归因于被动吸烟的PAR%分别为21.16、19.76和20.49,归因YLL率为4.34‰,归因YLD率为0.06‰,归因DALY率为4.40‰。 结论 2019年重庆市30岁及以上人群肺癌发病率、死亡率、YLL率、DALY率高,被动吸烟率高,肺癌归因于被动吸烟的疾病负担重,应加强落实控烟工作。     

Disease burdens from environmental tobacco smoke in Korean adults

In this study, we estimated the disease burdens attributable to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure in Korean adults in 2010 and analyzed the trend of that from 2005 to 2010. We obtained information on the study population from the 2010 Cause of Death Statistic and estimated the ETS-attributable fraction using data from the Korean Community Health Survey and the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The numbers of ETS-attributable deaths in female and male non-smokers were estimated to be 4.1 and 69.6?% of the numbers of deaths attributable to current smoke, respectively. The deaths attributable to ETS were larger in female than in male non-smokers (710 vs. 420). The ETS-attributable deaths increased slightly in 2005–2008 but decreased in 2009–2010. The number of potential years of life lost from ETS was 9077.24?years in 2010. If there were no exposure to ETS in adult non-smokers, we would expect to see 1130 fewer deaths (9.9?% of the deaths from current smoke). The results suggest that ETS poses considerable disease burdens for non-smokers, especially women, in Korea.