Study protocol of KLIMOP: a cohort study on the wellbeing of older cancer patients in Belgium and the Netherlands

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Cancer is mainly a disease of older patients. In older cancer patients, additional endpoints such as quality of survival and daily functioning might be considered equally relevant as overall or disease free survival. However, these factors have been understudied using prospective designs focussing on older cancer patients. Therefore, this study will focus on the impact of cancer, ageing, and their interaction on the long-term wellbeing of older cancer patients.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>This study is an observational cohort study. We aim to recruit 720 cancer patients above 70 years with a new diagnosis of breast, prostate, lung or gastrointestinal cancer and two control groups: one control group of 720 patients above 70 years without a previous diagnosis of cancer and one control group of 720 cancer patients between 50 - 69 years newly diagnosed with breast, prostate, lung or gastrointestinal cancer. Data collection will take place at inclusion, after six months, after one year and every subsequent year until death or end of the study. Data will be collected through personal interviews (consisting of socio-demographic information, general health information, a comprehensive geriatric assessment, quality of life, health locus of control and a loneliness scale), a handgrip test, assessment of medical records, two buccal swabs and a blood sample from cancer patients (at baseline). As an annex study, caregivers of the participants will be recruited as well. Data collection for caregivers will consist of a self-administered questionnaire examining depression, coping, and burden.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>This extensive data collection will increase insight on how wellbeing of older cancer patients is affected by cancer (diagnosis and treatment), ageing, and their interaction. Results may provide new insights, which might contribute to the improvement of care for older cancer patients.</p

Year in review in Intensive Care Medicine 2010: I. Acute renal failure, outcome, risk assessment and ICU performance, sepsis, neuro intensive care and experimentals

SCOPUS: re.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Rheological and Microscopic Properties of Fat Blends with Similar Solid Fat Content but Different Trans Composition

In this study, two different groups of fat samples were prepared in a way that samples of each group had different trans fatty acid (TFA) composition but similar solid fat content (SFC). Samples of the first group (named group A) had TFA between 0.0 and 56.23 %, while the samples of the second group (group B) contained trans isomers ranging from 0.0 to 44.4 %. A polarized microscope was used to monitor the differences between the samples in terms of crystal size and crystal number during isothermal crystallization. In general, increasing TFA resulted in formation of larger crystals in a shorter time. Similar findings were also observed when small deformation time and frequency sweep experiments were conducted. A higher TFA content led to higher complex modulus values during isothermal crystallization. On the other hand, when the samples were stored at 4 degrees C for 48 h, the samples with the lower trans isomer had higher hardness values