Evaluation of chemiluminescence, toluidine blue and histopathology for detection of high risk oral precancerous lesions: A cross-sectional study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Early detection holds the key to an effective control of cancers in general and of oral cancers in particular. However, screening procedures for oral cancer are not straightforward due to procedural requirements as well as feasibility issues, especially in resource-limited countries.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We conducted a cross-sectional study to compare the performance of chemiluminescence, toluidine blue and histopathology for detection of high-risk precancerous oral lesions. We evaluated 99 lesions from 55 patients who underwent chemiluminescence and toluidine blue tests along with biopsy and histopathological examination. We studied inter-as well as intra-rater agreement in the histopathological evaluation and then using latent class modeling, we estimated the operating characteristics of these tests in the absence of a reference standard test.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There was a weak inter-rater agreement (kappa < 0.15) as well as a weak intra-rater reproducibility (Pearson's r = 0.28, intra-class correlation rho = 0.03) in the histopathological evaluation of potentially high-risk precancerous lesions. When compared to histopathology, chemiluminescence and toluidine blue retention had a sensitivity of 1.00 and 0.59, respectively and a specificity of 0.01 and 0.79, respectively. However, latent class analysis indicated a low sensitivity (0.37) and high specificity (0.90) of histopathological evaluation. Toluidine blue had a near perfect high sensitivity and specificity for detection of high-risk lesions.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In our study, there was variability in the histopathological evaluation of oral precancerous lesions. Our results indicate that toluidine blue retention test may be better suited than chemiluminescence to detect high-risk oral precancerous lesions in a high-prevalence and low-resource setting like India.</p

Symptom experience of multiple myeloma (syMMex) patients treated with autologous stem cell transplantation following high-dose melphalan: a descriptive longitudinal study

PURPOSE: High-dose melphalan and autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) are associated with high symptom burden. This study aimed to explore multiple myeloma (MM) patients' experience of symptom frequency, intensity, and distress during therapy. METHODS: This descriptive longitudinal study enrolled 29 MM patients who completed the 43-item PROVIVO questionnaire, measuring symptom experience across the dimensions of frequency, intensity, and distress at four assessment points: hospital admission (T0), leucocyte nadir (T1), discharge (T2), and 30 days post discharge (T3). Symptom assessment covered five categories: (1) physical, (2) emotional, (3) cognitive, (4) male/female urogenital symptoms, and (5) follow-up care planning (e.g., financial problems). Results were displayed as heat maps and bubble graphs for each patient, differences between T0 and T4 individually assessed, and intensity (IMS) and mean distress scores (DMS) calculated on a scale from 0 to 4. RESULTS: The most frequent, intense, and distressing physical symptoms were fatigue, diarrhea, and decreased appetite. As expected, peak symptom intensity (decreased appetite 2.79) and distress (diarrhea 2.11) were reported during high-dose melphalan and the leucocyte nadir (T1). Thereafter, most symptoms' intensity and distress improved. Items on urogenital symptoms remained predominantly unanswered or patients were sexually inactive. CONCLUSIONS: PROVIVO enabled exploration of various dimensions of MM patients' symptom experiences, which differed substantially before and after ASCT. Our results suggest that high-dose melphalan, ASCT, and other intensive novel agent therapies warrant targeted symptom management programs that include focused patient support.status: publishe