Optimizing psma radioligand therapy for patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. A systematic review and meta-analysis

The aim of the review was to evaluate patient and treatment characteristics for patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) treated with PSMA radioligand therapy (PRLT) associated with above-average outcome. The systematic review and meta-analysis followed recommendations by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA). We searched for publications in PubMed, Embase, and ClinicalTrials.gov up to 31 September 2020. Thirty-six publications and four duplicates reported 2346 patients. Nearly two-thirds of the patients had bone metastases. Median overall survival (OS) was 16 months. Asymptomatic patients and patients with only lymph node metastases lived longer than symptomatic patients and patients with more extensive metastases. Patients treated with an intensified schedule of177Lu PRLT lived longer than those treated with a conventional schedule. Half of the patients obtained a PSA decline ≥ 50% and these patients lived longer than those with less PSA decline. Approximately 10% of the patients developed hematologic toxicity with anemia grade 3 as the most severe adverse effect. Characteristics for patients, cancer, restaging, and PRLT predict above average overall survival following treatment with PRLT

Hiding Relations

The present vogue of ‘managing for development results’ is an expression of a historically dominant mode of thought in international aid – ‘substantialism’ – which sees the world primarily in terms of ‘entities’ such as ‘poverty’, ‘basic needs’, ‘rights’, ‘women’, or ‘results’. Another important mode of thought, ‘relationalism’ – in association more generally with ideas of process and complexity – appears to be absent in the thinking of aid institutions. Drawing on my own experiences of working with the UK Department for International Development (DFID), I illustrate how despite formally subscribing to the institution’s substantialist view of the world, some staff are ‘closet relationists’, behaving according to one mode of thought while officially framing their action in terms of the other, more orthodox mode. In so doing, they may be unwittingly keeping international aid sufficiently viable - by the apparent proof of the efficacy of results-based management - to enable the institution as a whole to maintain its substantialist imaginary

The rise of policy coherence for development: a multi-causal approach

In recent years policy coherence for development (PCD) has become a key principle in international development debates, and it is likely to become even more relevant in the discussions on the post-2015 sustainable development goals. This article addresses the rise of PCD on the Western donors’ aid agenda. While the concept already appeared in the work of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in the early 1990s, it took until 2007 before PCD became one of the Organisation’s key priorities. We adopt a complexity-sensitive perspective, involving a process-tracing analysis and a multi-causal explanatory framework. We argue that the rise of PCD is not as contingent as it looks. While actors such as the EU, the DAC and OECD Secretariat were the ‘active causes’ of the rise of PCD, it is equally important to look at the underlying ‘constitutive causes’ which enabled policy coherence to thrive well

Rethinking Research Partnerships: Evidence and the politics of participation in research partnerships for international development

This article responds to the drive for research partnerships between academics and practitioners, arguing that while potential benefits are clear, these are frequently not actualized resulting in partnerships that are ineffectual or worse, exacerbate damaging or inequitable assumptions and practices. In order to understand/improve partnerships, a systematic analysis of the interrelationship between what counts as evidence and dynamics of participation is proposed. Drawing on data from a seminar series and iterative analysis of seven case studies of partnerships between Higher Education Institutions and International Non-Governmental Organisations the article concludes by suggesting substantial shifts in the theory and practice of partnerships

The road not taken: international aid’s choice of Copenhagen over Beijing

A decade after the United Nations conferences on gender equality and social development, this paper explores their policy origins and discusses their differential impact on international aid since 1995. The author draws on her direct experience to consider why Copenhagen led to Poverty Reduction Strategies and the first Millennium Development Goal whereas Beijing has become largely invisible in the mainstream world of aid. She argues that the powerful influence of economic rational choice theory associated with bureaucratic modes of thought has meant that the central debate in development policy has remained that of growth versus equity. Beijing's agenda of societal transformation offered another paradigm of development that has remained marginal. The paper concludes with a proposal. If international aid policy could handle more than one paradigm and thus be more open to different ways of thinking about economy, society and politics, aid agencies would be better able to support transformative processes for social justice

Practicing Politics: technical project templates and political practice in a DFID country office

Development agencies including the UK Department for International Development (DFID) increasingly agree that if aid is to be effective, it should be politically smart and locally led. However, both the critical and the reformist literature have argued that development agencies persist with technical, template-driven programming: political analysis and practice have not been widely institutionalized. This study aims to identify why development representations are persistently technical in their form, and what blockages have existed for developing locally grounded and politically aware programmes. The article presents an ethnography of the process of developing the core elements of the governance portfolio in an (anonymized) DFID country office. Focusing on a key design workshop, the study is situated within a wider organizational ethnography. The persistently technical justifications for programmes are a result of the bureaucratic form itself, its accountability and approval processes. Political analyses represent countries in such a way that officials can prioritize selection from a repertoire of technical models. However, scepticism about the tractability of governance problems to such analyses and programming has led to an emerging understanding of politics that creates space within the bureaucratic form for politically aware practice. Politically aware programming should emphasize good operational practice over explicit analysis and should continue to emphasize technical models like the adaptive management models which create room for such practice