Systematic review of antiepileptic drugs’ safety and effectiveness in feline epilepsy

Understanding the efficacy and safety profile of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) in feline epilepsy is a crucial consideration for managing this important brain disease. However, there is a lack of information about the treatment of feline epilepsy and therefore a systematic review was constructed to assess current evidence for the AEDs’ efficacy and tolerability in cats. The methods and materials of our former systematic reviews in canine epilepsy were mostly mirrored for the current systematic review in cats. Databases of PubMed, CAB Direct and Google scholar were searched to detect peer-reviewed studies reporting efficacy and/or adverse effects of AEDs in cats. The studies were assessed with regards to their quality of evidence, i.e. study design, study population, diagnostic criteria and overall risk of bias and the outcome measures reported, i.e. prevalence and 95% confidence interval of the successful and affected population in each study and in total

Clinical development of new drug-radiotherapy combinations.

In countries with the best cancer outcomes, approximately 60% of patients receive radiotherapy as part of their treatment, which is one of the most cost-effective cancer treatments. Notably, around 40% of cancer cures include the use of radiotherapy, either as a single modality or combined with other treatments. Radiotherapy can provide enormous benefit to patients with cancer. In the past decade, significant technical advances, such as image-guided radiotherapy, intensity-modulated radiotherapy, stereotactic radiotherapy, and proton therapy enable higher doses of radiotherapy to be delivered to the tumour with significantly lower doses to normal surrounding tissues. However, apart from the combination of traditional cytotoxic chemotherapy with radiotherapy, little progress has been made in identifying and defining optimal targeted therapy and radiotherapy combinations to improve the efficacy of cancer treatment. The National Cancer Research Institute Clinical and Translational Radiotherapy Research Working Group (CTRad) formed a Joint Working Group with representatives from academia, industry, patient groups and regulatory bodies to address this lack of progress and to publish recommendations for future clinical research. Herein, we highlight the Working Group's consensus recommendations to increase the number of novel drugs being successfully registered in combination with radiotherapy to improve clinical outcomes for patients with cancer.National Institute for Health ResearchThis is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Nature Publishing Group via http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nrclinonc.2016.7

Proximity to overhead power lines and childhood leukaemia: an international pooled analysis

© 2018, Cancer Research UK. Background: Although studies have consistently found an association between childhood leukaemia risk and magnetic fields, the associations between childhood leukaemia and distance to overhead power lines have been inconsistent. We pooled data from multiple studies to assess the association with distance and evaluate whether it is due to magnetic fields or other factors associated with distance from lines. Methods: We present a pooled analysis combining individual-level data (29,049 cases and 68,231 controls) from 11 record-based studies. Results: There was no material association between childhood leukaemia and distance to nearest overhead power line of any voltage. Among children living < 50 m from 200 + kV power lines, the adjusted odds ratio for childhood leukaemia was 1.33 (95% CI: 0.92–1.93). The odds ratio was higher among children diagnosed before age 5 years. There was no association with calculated magnetic fields. Odds ratios remained unchanged with adjustment for potential confounders. Conclusions: In this first comprehensive pooled analysis of childhood leukaemia and distance to power lines, we found a small and imprecise risk for residences < 50 m of 200 + kV lines that was not explained by high magnetic fields. Reasons for the increased risk, found in this and many other studies, remains to be elucidated