Mortensenroberson1947

Information from the patient's point of view is essential in policy and clinical decisions. Prioritizing what patients value, need, and prefer in various aspects of a health program can be helpful in evaluating and designing hospital health care services.

To examine patients' preference for attributes related to health care services and to ascertain the relative impact of attributes at hospitals in Amhara Region, northern Ethiopia.

A stated-preference discrete choice experiment survey was performed in multistage, stratified, and systematic sampling of patients who visited the hospitals. Attributes were selected based on a literature review of the most important characteristics of hospital health care service and reviewed and validated with inputs from patients and researchers in the field. Attributes included in the study were waiting time, physician communication, nursing communication, drug availability, continuity of care, and diagnostic facilities. A random-effects probit model was used to perform tus on patient preferences and consider selected attributes when designating hospital services, and hence to maximize patient satisfaction.

Different hospital care attributes had a significant and different influence on patients' choice of hospital. The study informs about patients' preferences and the trade-offs among different possible process-related attributes. Decision makers should focus on patient preferences and consider selected attributes when designating hospital services, and hence to maximize patient satisfaction.To make an informed decision on renal replacement therapy, patients should receive education about dialysis options in a structured program covering all modalities. Many patients do not receive such education, and there is disparity in the information they receive. This review aims to compile evidence on effective components of predialysis education programs as related to modality choice and outcomes. PubMed MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, and Ovid searches (from January 1, 1995 to December 31, 2013) with the main search terms of "predialysis", "peritoneal dialysis", "home dialysis", "education", "information", and "decision" were performed. Of the 1,005 articles returned from the initial search, 110 were given full text reviews as they potentially met inclusion criteria (for example, they included adults or predialysis patients, or the details of an education program were reported). Only 29 out of the 110 studies met inclusion criteria. Ten out of 13 studies using a comparative design, showed an increase in home dialysis choice after predialysis education. Descriptions of the educational process varied and included individual and group education, multidisciplinary intervention, and varying duration and frequency of sessions. Problem-solving group sessions seem to be an effective component for enhancing the proportion of home dialysis choice. Evidence is lacking for many components, such as timing and staff competencies. There is a need for a standardized approach to evaluate the effect of predialysis educational interventions.

Opioids are the most frequently used drugs to treat pain in cancer patients. In some patients, however, opioids can cause adverse effects and drug-drug interactions. No advice concerning the combination of opioids and other drugs is given in the current European guidelines.

To identify studies that report clinically significant drug-drug interactions involving opioids used for pain treatment in adult cancer patients.

Systematic review with searches in Embase, MEDLINE, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials from the start of the databases (Embase from 1980) through January 2014. In addition, reference lists of relevant full-text papers were hand-searched.

Of 901 retrieved papers, 112 were considered as potentially eligible. After full-text reading, 17 were included in the final analysis, together with 15 papers identified through hand-searching of reference lists. All of the 32 included publications were case reports or case series. Clinical manifestations of drug-drug interactions involvine some important suggestions for clinical practice. Physicians prescribing opioids should recognize the risk of drug-drug interactions and if possible avoid polypharmacy.

This study investigated population pharmacokinetics of paroxetine, and then performed an integrated analysis of exposure and clinical outcome using population pharmacokinetic parameter estimates in depressed patients treated with paroxetine.

A total of 271 therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) data were retrospectively collected from 127 psychiatric outpatients. A population nonlinear mixed-effects modeling approach was used to describe serum concentrations of paroxetine. For 83 patients with major depressive disorder, the treatment response rate and the incidence of adverse drug reaction (ADR) were characterized by logistic regression using daily dose or area under the concentration-time curve (AUC) estimated from the final model as a potential exposure predictor.

One compartment model was developed. The apparent clearance of paroxetine was affected by age as well as daily dose administered at steady-state. Overall treatment response rate was 72%, and the incidence of ADR was 30%. The logistic regression showed that exposure predictors were not associated with treatment response or ADR in the range of dose commonly used in routine practice. However, the incidence of ADR increased with the increase of daily dose or AUC for the patients with multiple concentrations.

In depressed patients treated with paroxetine, TDM may be of limited value for individualization of treatment.

In depressed patients treated with paroxetine, TDM may be of limited value for individualization of treatment.Hepatic ischemia/reperfusion (ISCH/REP) is a major clinical problem that is considered to be the most common cause of postoperative liver failure. Recently, mast cells have been proposed to play an important role in the pathophysiology of ISCH/REP in many organs. In contrast, the role played by mast cells during ISCH/REP-induced liver damage has remained an issue of debate. This study aimed to investigate the protective role of mast cells in order to search for an effective therapeutic agent that could protect against fatal ISCH/REP-induced liver damage. A model of warm ISCH/REP was induced in the liver of rats. Four groups of rats were used in this study Group I SHAM (normal saline, intravenously [iv]); Group II ISCH/REP; Group III sodium cromoglycate + ISCH/REP (CROM + ISCH/REP), and Group IV ketotifen (KET) + ISCH/REP (KET + ISCH/REP). Liver damage was assessed both histopathologically and biochemically. Mast cell degranulation was assessed histochemically. Lipid peroxidation (malondialdehyde [MDA]) as welthrough mast cell stabilization, inhibition of TNF-α, IL-6, MDA, and iNOS and increased GSH. KET may maintain ISCH/REP-induced liver injury through the NO/iNOS pathway.

Accumulating studies reveal that aberrant microRNA (miRNA) expression can affect the development of chemotherapy drug resistance by modulating the expression of relevant target proteins. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of miR-133b in the development of drug resistance in ovarian cancer cells.

We examined the levels of miR-133b expression in ovarian carcinoma tissues and the human ovarian carcinoma cell lines (A2780, A2780/DDP and A2780/Taxol, respectively). We determined the cell viability of these cell lines treated with cisplatin or paclitaxel in the presence or absence of miR-133b or anti-miR-133b transfection using the MTT assay. https://www.selleckchem.com/products/L-Adrenaline-Epinephrine.html Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and Western blotting were used to assess the mRNA and protein expression levels of two drug-resistance-related genes glutathione S-transferase (GST)-π and multidrug resistance protein 1 (MDR1). The dual-luciferase reporter assay was used to detect the promoter activity of GST-π in the presence and absence of mient of drug resistance in ovarian cancers.

MicroRNA-133b may reduce ovarian cancer drug resistance by silencing the expression of the drug-resistance-related proteins, GST-π and MDR1. In future, the combination of miR-133b with chemotherapy agents may prevent the development of drug resistance in ovarian cancers.

The accurate diagnosis and classification of dry eye disease (DED) is challenging owing to wide variations in symptoms and lack of a single reliable clinical assessment. In addition, changes and severity of clinical signs often do not correspond to patient-reported symptoms. To better understand the inconsistencies observed between signs and symptoms, we conducted a systematic literature review to evaluate published studies reporting associations between patient-reported symptoms and clinical signs of DED.

PubMed and Embase were searched for English-language articles on the association between clinical signs and symptoms of DED up to February 2014 (no lower limit was set).

Thirty-four articles were identified that assessed associations between signs and symptoms, among which 33 unique studies were reported. These included 175 individual sign-symptom association analyses. Statistical significance was reported for associations between sign and symptom measures in 21 of 33 (64%) studies, but for only 42 ofciations between DED signs and symptoms are low and inconsistent, which may have implications for monitoring the response to treatment, both in the clinic and in clinical trials. Further studies to increase understanding of the etiopathogenesis of DED and to identify the most reliable and relevant measures of disease are needed to enhance clinical assessment of DED and the measurement of response to therapeutic interventions.

The purpose of this study was to determine if eyes with diabetic macular edema (DME) unresponsive to ranibizumab or bevacizumab would benefit from conversion to aflibercept.

This study was conducted as a retrospective chart review of subjects with DME unresponsive to ranibizumab and/or bevacizumab and subsequently converted to aflibercept.

In total, 21 eyes from 19 subjects of mean age 62±15 years were included. The majority of subjects were male (63%). The median number of ranibizumab or bevacizumab injections before switching to aflibercept was six, and the median number of aflibercept injections after switching was three. Median follow-up was 5 months after the switch. Mean central foveal thickness (CFT) was 453.52±143.39 mm immediately prior to the switch. Morphologically, intraretinal cysts were present in all cases. Mean CFT after the first injection decreased significantly to 362.57±92.82 mm (Wilcoxon signed-rank test; P<0.001). At the end of follow-up, the mean CFT was 324.17±98.76 mm (P<0.001). Mean visual acuity was 0.42±0.23 logMAR just prior to the switch, 0.39±0.31 logMAR after one aflibercept injection, and 0.37±0.22 log-MAR at the end of follow-up. The final visual acuity was significantly better than visual acuity before the switch (P=0.04).

Eyes with DME unresponsive to multiple ranibizumab/bevacizumab injections demonstrate anatomical and visual improvement on conversion to aflibercept.

Eyes with DME unresponsive to multiple ranibizumab/bevacizumab injections demonstrate anatomical and visual improvement on conversion to aflibercept.