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Different Therapeutic Strategies (different + therapeutic_strategy)
Selected AbstractsTwo Different Therapeutic Strategies in ICD Lead Defects: Additional Combined LeadVersus Replacement of the LeadJOURNAL OF CARDIOVASCULAR ELECTROPHYSIOLOGY, Issue 11 2007CHRISTIAN G. WOLLMANN M.D. Objectives: Implantation of an additional HV-P/S lead versus extraction of the defective HV-P/S lead and implantation of a new one is one possible therapeutic approach in cases of a defective high-voltage pace/sense lead (HV-P/S). No information is available on potential differences in clinical outcome in these different approaches. Methods: Between January 2000 and February 2006, 86 patients with HV-P/S lead defect received either an additional transvenous HV-P/S lead (n = 33, group 1) or the HV-P/S lead was replaced (n = 53, group 2). The duration of the initially implanted leads was significantly different in the two groups (7.4 ± 2.9; group 1 and 4.1 ± 3.4 years; group 2). The outcome of these two groups of patients was retrospectively analyzed. Results: Seventy-three patients [85%] survived until the end of follow-up of 29 ± 15 (group 1) and 33 ± 21 (group 2) months (P = ns), respectively. Thirteen patients died: six in group 1 and seven in group 2 (P = ns). Fourteen patients experienced perioperative complications (group 1: six; group 2: eight; P = ns). ICD system-related complications occurred in 22 patients (group 1: seven; group two: 15; P = ns). The event-free cumulative survival of patients with additional and replaced HV-P/S lead for postoperative events (including death) after 1, 2, and 3 years was 82%, 70%, 70%, and 86%, 81%, 66%, respectively (P = 0.93). Conclusions: Implantation of an additional HV-P/S lead or replacement of the HV-P/S lead in case of HV-P/S lead failure is statistically not different concerning mortality and morbidity. There are no predictors for further lead defects. Implantation of an additional HV-P/S lead should not be recommended in young patients or patients with greater likelihood of living many years. Predictors for death were an age over 70 years and renal insufficiency. [source] Mucinous but not clear cell histology is associated with inferior survival in patients with advanced stage ovarian carcinoma treated with platinum-paclitaxel chemotherapy,CANCER, Issue 6 2010Aristotle Bamias MD Abstract BACKGROUND: Mucinous and clear cell histology have been associated with adverse prognosis in ovarian carcinomas. The authors compared the outcome of these subtypes with that of serous tumors in patients who were treated with combination paclitaxel/platinum at their center. METHODS: Four hundred twenty patients with histologically confirmed, serous (n = 367), mucinous (n = 24), or clear cell (n = 29) ovarian carcinomas, International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics stage III or IV disease, and who were treated with paclitaxel/platinum after cytoreductive surgery were included in this analysis. RESULTS: The median overall survival for each histological subtype was 47.7 months (95% confidence interval [CI], 37.7-57.7 months) for serous, 15.4 months (95% CI, 4.2-26.6 months) for mucinous, and 36.6 months (95% CI, 22.7-50.5 months) for clear cell carcinomas. Cox regression analysis showed that mucinous histology was an independent predictor of poor prognosis compared with serous tumors (hazard ratio, 0.360; 95% CI, 0.215-0.603; P = .001). In contrast, such a difference between clear cell and serous carcinomas was not found (P = .337). Median survival of patients with mucinous tumors and residual disease >2 cm was poor, averaging 7.1 months (95% CI, 4.6-9.6 months). CONCLUSIONS: Mucinous but not clear cell histology is associated with significantly worse prognosis in advanced ovarian cancer treated with combination platinum/paclitaxel. Different therapeutic strategies should be studied in this entity. Cancer 2010. © 2010 American Cancer Society. [source] Treatment of psychosis: 30 years of progressJOURNAL OF CLINICAL PHARMACY & THERAPEUTICS, Issue 6 2006I. R. De Oliveira MD PhD Summary Background:, Thirty years ago, psychiatrists had only a few choices of old neuroleptics available to them, currently defined as conventional or typical antipsychotics, as a result schizophrenics had to suffer the severe extra pyramidal side effects. Nowadays, new treatments are more ambitious, aiming not only to improve psychotic symptoms, but also quality of life and social reinsertion. Our objective is to briefly but critically review the advances in the treatment of schizophrenia with antipsychotics in the past 30 years. We conclude that conventional antipsychotics still have a place when just the cost of treatment, a key factor in poor regions, is considered. The atypical antipsychotic drugs are a class of agents that have become the most widely used to treat a variety of psychoses because of their superiority with regard to extra pyramidal symptoms. We can envisage different therapeutic strategies in the future, each uniquely targeting a different dimension of schizophrenia, be it positive, negative, cognitive or affective symptoms. [source] Pretherapy quantitative measurement of circulating Epstein,Barr virus DNA is predictive of posttherapy distant failure in patients with early-stage nasopharyngeal carcinoma of undifferentiated typeCANCER, Issue 2 2003Sing-fai Leung M.D. Abstract BACKGROUND Patients with International Union Against Cancer (UICC) Stage I,II nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) appear to have a relatively favorable prognosis and generally are excluded from trials of combined modality treatment. More recently, plasma/serum cell-free Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) DNA has been shown to be measurable in the majority of NPC patients at the time of diagnosis, and appears to have prognostic significance. However, within Stage I-II disease, in which failure events are infrequent, the prognostic impact of the pretreatment EBV DNA level has not been addressed to our knowledge. This issue has management implications because different therapeutic strategies currently are employed for patients with good-risk and those with poor-risk NPC. METHODS A cohort of 90 patients with UICC Stage I-II NPC (World Health Organization Grade 2/3 histology) had their pretherapy plasma/serum EBV DNA levels determined by a quantitative polymerase chain reaction assay and correlated with the probability of posttherapy failure. All patients received radiation therapy only, except for three patients who also received concurrent chemotherapy. Kaplan,Meier plots of the probability of locoregional failure, distant failure, and cancer-specific survival were compared with reference to clinical stage and EBV DNA levels. RESULTS With a median follow-up time of 45 months, 12 patients and 7 patients, respectively, had developed locoregional and distant failures, including 2 patients with both local and distant failures. Patients with distant failure had significantly higher pretherapy EBV DNA levels than those without failure (a median of 13,219 copies/mL [interquatile-range, 274,635 copies/mL] vs. a median of 423 copies/mL [interquatile-range, 2753 copies/mL]). The probability of distant failure was significantly higher in patients with high (> 4000 copies/mL plasma) compared with low EBV DNA levels (P = 0.0001, log-rank test) and for Stage IIB disease compared with Stage I and Stage IIA disease combined (P = 0.0149, log-rank test), but was not significantly different between patients with Stage II and those with Stage I disease. The risks of locoregional failure were not significantly different between patients with high and those with low EBV DNA levels, and also was not significantly different between clinical substages. Approximately 35% of patients with Stage IIB disease were in the at-risk group for distant failure, as identified by high EBV DNA levels. CONCLUSIONS Within a group of patients with UICC Stage I-II NPC, the pretherapy plasma EBV DNA level was found to identify a poor-risk group with a probability of distant failure similar to that of patients with advanced stage disease. This group of patients may warrant management considerations currently applicable only to cases of Stage III-IV disease. The prognostic significance of designating Stage IIB disease as per the 1997 UICC staging was confirmed, although the pretherapy EBV DNA level appears to be a more powerful prognostic discriminator in patients with early-stage NPC. Cancer 2003;98:288,91. © 2003 American Cancer Society. DOI 10.1002/cncr.11496 [source] | ||||||||||