World Workshop on Oral Medicine VIII: Development of a core outcome set for oral lichen planus: a systematic review of outcome domains

Objective: There is a lack of consensus regarding clinician- and patient-reported oral lichen planus (OLP) outcomes. The World Workshop on Oral Medicine Outcomes Initiative for the Direction of Research (WONDER) Project aims to develop a core outcome set (COS) for OLP, which would inform the design of clinical trials and, importantly, facilitate meta-analysis, leading to the establishment of more robust evidence for the management of this condition and hence improved patient care. Study Design: Ovid MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, CENTRAL, and Clinicaltrials.gov were searched for interventional studies (randomized controlled trials, controlled clinical trials, and case series including ≥5 participants) on OLP and oral lichenoid reactions published between January 2001 and March 2022 without language restriction. All reported primary and secondary outcomes were extracted. Results: The searches yielded 9,135 records, and 291 studies were included after applying the inclusion criteria. A total of 422 outcomes were identified. These were then grouped based on semantic similarity, condensing the list to 69 outcomes. The most frequently measured outcomes were pain (51.9%), clinical grading of the lesions (29.6%), lesion size/extension/area (27.5%), and adverse events (17.5%). Conclusion: As a first step in developing a COS for OLP, we summarized the outcomes that have been used in interventional studies over the past 2 decades, which are numerous and heterogeneous.S

World Workshop on Oral Medicine VIII: Development of a core outcome set for oral lichen planus: the patient perspective

Objective: This study aimed to explore the lived experience of patients with oral lichen planus (OLP) and investigate what treatment-related outcomes are the most important to them and should be included in a core outcome set (COS) for OLP. Study Design: A qualitative study involving focus group work with 10 participants was conducted. Interviews with each focus group were held twice: session 1 explored the lived experience of patients with OLP, and session 2 allowed patients to review a summary of the outcome domains used in the OLP literature to date. The discussions were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using framework analysis. Results: In session 1, 4 themes and 8 sub-themes emerged from the data analysis. An additional outcome, ‘knowledge of family and friends,’ was suggested in session 2. Conclusions: We have gained valuable insight into the lived experience of patients with OLP via this qualitative study. To our knowledge, this study is the first to explore the patient perspective on what should be measured in clinical trials on OLP, highlighting an important additional suggested outcome. This additional outcome will be voted upon in a consensus process to determine a minimum COS for OLPS

Evaluating the measurement properties of patient‐reported outcome measures in radiotherapy‐induced xerostomia

Objective: Radiotherapy‐induced xerostomia (RIX) is one of the most common adverse effects of radiotherapy to the head and neck, and a major determinant of survivors’ quality of life. A number of patient‐reported outcome measures (PROMs) have been used in clinical trials of therapeutic interventions for RIX; however, little is known regarding their measurement properties and methodological quality. / Methods: We conducted a systematic literature search in Embase, MEDLINE and PsycINFO for articles published up to May 2019 and evaluating at least one measurement property of PROMs relevant to RIX. The COSMIN guidelines were used to assess relevant measurement properties and methodological quality. / Results: Nine validations studies were identified reporting on four PROMs relevant to RIX. The Xerostomia Questionnaire (XQ) showed overall high‐quality evidence for structural validity and internal consistency, but low‐quality evidence supporting reliability. The methodological quality of the Groningen Radiotherapy‐Induced Xerostomia scale (GRIX), Xerostomia Inventory (XI) and the Xerostomia Quality of Life Scale (XeQoLS) was relatively low for all measurement properties. / Conclusions: The XQ was found to have the highest potential to capture changes in RIX according to COSMIN guidelines. Additional validation studies are required to further understand the methodological quality of the XI, GRIX and XeQoLS

Using Storm for scaleable sequential statistical inference.

This article describes Storm, an environment for doing streaming data analysis. Two examples of sequential data analysis — computation of a running summary statistic and sequential updating of a posterior distribution — are implemented and their performance is investigated

Transitions in Mathematics Education: the panel debate

International audienceThe Transitions in Mathematics Education panel during the ICME-13 conference consisted of two parts. In the first part, the panelists presented particular questions addressed and answered them according to their various perspectives (some of them cognitive, others more sociocultural). This first part was published as a survey before the conference (Gueudet et al. 2016). In the present text, we briefly review this first part but mainly focus on the second part of the panel. In the second part, the panelists answered questions about the survey concerning the arithmetic-algebra transition, the possible use of boundary objects to build links and bridges, the role of technical work in the continuity/discontinuity of the learning process, and the possible contributions of students in helping to ease transitions. These answers are developed and presented here