Assessing the Efficacy of a 28-Day Comprehensive Online Prostate Cancer Patient Empowerment Program (PC-PEP) in Facilitating Engagement of Prostate Cancer Patients in Their Survivorship Care: A Qualitative Study

A 28-day Prostate Cancer-Patient Empowerment Program (PC-PEP) developed through patient engagement was successful at promoting mental and physical health. Thirty prostate cancer patients from Halifax, Canada participated in the 28-day PC-PEP intervention in early 2019. PC-PEP encompassed daily patient education and empowerment videos, prescribed physical activities (including pelvic floor exercises), a mostly plant-based diet, stress reduction techniques, intimacy education, social connection, and support. Quantitative exit surveys and semi-structured interviews (conducted in focus groups of ten) were used to assess perceived factors that facilitated or impeded adherence to the program. The program received high praise from the patients and was deemed extremely useful by the participating men, who rated it 9 out of 10. Patients expressed that the multifaceted, online, home-based nature of the program helped them adhere to it better than they would have had to a single or less comprehensive intervention. Feedback from the participants indicated that the program, when viewed as a whole, was perceived as greater than the sum of its individual parts. Furthermore, the program addressed various issues, including emotional vulnerability and distress, physical fitness, urinary incontinence, challenges in expressing emotions, perceived lack of control over healthcare decisions, emotional fragility, and hesitancy to discuss prostate cancer-related matters in social settings. Patients highly (9.6/10) endorsed integrating the program into the standard care regimen from the very beginning of diagnosis. However, challenges such as work commitments were noted. Patients’ high endorsement of PC-PEP suggests that its implementation into the standard of care from day one of diagnosis may be warranted

Six-month prostate cancer empowerment program (PC-PEP) improves urinary function : a randomized trial

Purpose: This is a secondary analysis examining a six-month home-based Prostate Cancer-Patient Empowerment Program (PC-PEP) on patient-reported urinary, bowel, sexual, and hormonal function in men with curative prostate cancer (PC) against standard of care. Methods: In a crossover clinical trial, 128 men scheduled for PC surgery (n = 62) or radiotherapy with/without hormones (n = 66) were randomized to PC-PEP (n = 66) or waitlist-control and received the standard of care for 6 months, and then PC-PEP to the end of the year. PC-PEP included daily emails with video instructions, aerobic and strength training, dietary guidance, stress management, and social support, with an initial PFMT nurse consultation. Over 6 months, participants in the PC-PEP received optional text alerts (up to three times daily) reminding them to follow the PFMT video program, encompassing relaxation, quick-twitch, and endurance exercises; compliance was assessed weekly. Participants completed baseline, 6, and 12-month International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS) and Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite (EPIC) questionnaires. Results: At 6 months, men in the PC-PEP reported improved urinary bother (IPSS, p = 0.004), continence (EPIC, p < 0.001), and irritation/obstruction function (p = 0.008) compared to controls, with sustained urinary continence benefits at 12 months (p = 0.002). Surgery patients in the waitlist-control group had 3.5 (95% CI: 1.2, 10, p = 0.024) times and 2.3 (95% CI: 0.82, 6.7, p = 0.11) times higher odds of moderate to severe urinary problems compared to PC-PEP at 6 and 12 months, respectively. Conclusions: PC-PEP significantly improves lower urinary tract symptoms, affirming its suitability for clinical integration alongside established mental health benefits in men with curative prostate cancer

Six-Month Prostate Cancer Empowerment Program (PC-PEP) Improves Urinary Function: A Randomized Trial

Purpose: This is a secondary analysis examining a six-month home-based Prostate Cancer-Patient Empowerment Program (PC-PEP) on patient-reported urinary, bowel, sexual, and hormonal function in men with curative prostate cancer (PC) against standard of care. Methods: In a crossover clinical trial, 128 men scheduled for PC surgery (n = 62) or radiotherapy with/without hormones (n = 66) were randomized to PC-PEP (n = 66) or waitlist-control and received the standard of care for 6 months, and then PC-PEP to the end of the year. PC-PEP included daily emails with video instructions, aerobic and strength training, dietary guidance, stress management, and social support, with an initial PFMT nurse consultation. Over 6 months, participants in the PC-PEP received optional text alerts (up to three times daily) reminding them to follow the PFMT video program, encompassing relaxation, quick-twitch, and endurance exercises; compliance was assessed weekly. Participants completed baseline, 6, and 12-month International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS) and Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite (EPIC) questionnaires. Results: At 6 months, men in the PC-PEP reported improved urinary bother (IPSS, p = 0.004), continence (EPIC, p p = 0.008) compared to controls, with sustained urinary continence benefits at 12 months (p = 0.002). Surgery patients in the waitlist-control group had 3.5 (95% CI: 1.2, 10, p = 0.024) times and 2.3 (95% CI: 0.82, 6.7, p = 0.11) times higher odds of moderate to severe urinary problems compared to PC-PEP at 6 and 12 months, respectively. Conclusions: PC-PEP significantly improves lower urinary tract symptoms, affirming its suitability for clinical integration alongside established mental health benefits in men with curative prostate cancer

Six-month prostate cancer empowerment program (PC-PEP) improves urinary function : a randomized trial

Purpose: This is a secondary analysis examining a six-month home-based Prostate Cancer-Patient Empowerment Program (PC-PEP) on patient-reported urinary, bowel, sexual, and hormonal function in men with curative prostate cancer (PC) against standard of care. Methods: In a crossover clinical trial, 128 men scheduled for PC surgery (n = 62) or radiotherapy with/without hormones (n = 66) were randomized to PC-PEP (n = 66) or waitlist-control and received the standard of care for 6 months, and then PC-PEP to the end of the year. PC-PEP included daily emails with video instructions, aerobic and strength training, dietary guidance, stress management, and social support, with an initial PFMT nurse consultation. Over 6 months, participants in the PC-PEP received optional text alerts (up to three times daily) reminding them to follow the PFMT video program, encompassing relaxation, quick-twitch, and endurance exercises; compliance was assessed weekly. Participants completed baseline, 6, and 12-month International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS) and Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite (EPIC) questionnaires. Results: At 6 months, men in the PC-PEP reported improved urinary bother (IPSS, p = 0.004), continence (EPIC, p < 0.001), and irritation/obstruction function (p = 0.008) compared to controls, with sustained urinary continence benefits at 12 months (p = 0.002). Surgery patients in the waitlist-control group had 3.5 (95% CI: 1.2, 10, p = 0.024) times and 2.3 (95% CI: 0.82, 6.7, p = 0.11) times higher odds of moderate to severe urinary problems compared to PC-PEP at 6 and 12 months, respectively. Conclusions: PC-PEP significantly improves lower urinary tract symptoms, affirming its suitability for clinical integration alongside established mental health benefits in men with curative prostate cancer

Assessing the root of bilaterian animals with scalable phylogenomic methods

A clear picture of animal relationships is a prerequisite to understand how the morphological and ecological diversity of animals evolved over time. Among others, the placement of the acoelomorph flatworms, Acoela and Nemertodermatida, has fundamental implications for the origin and evolution of various animal organ systems. Their position, however, has been inconsistent in phylogenetic studies using one or several genes. Furthermore, Acoela has been among the least stable taxa in recent animal phylogenomic analyses, which simultaneously examine many genes from many species, while Nemertodermatida has not been sampled in any phylogenomic study. New sequence data are presented here from organisms targeted for their instability or lack of representation in prior analyses, and are analysed in combination with other publicly available data. We also designed new automated explicit methods for identifying and selecting common genes across different species, and developed highly optimized supercomputing tools to reconstruct relationships from gene sequences. The results of the work corroborate several recently established findings about animal relationships and provide new support for the placement of other groups. These new data and methods strongly uphold previous suggestions that Acoelomorpha is sister clade to all other bilaterian animals, find diminishing evidence for the placement of the enigmatic Xenoturbella within Deuterostomia, and place Cycliophora with Entoprocta and Ectoprocta. The work highlights the implications that these arrangements have for metazoan evolution and permits a clearer picture of ancestral morphologies and life histories in the deep past

acados/acados: v0.2.5

<h2>What's Changed</h2> <ul> <li>update BLASFEO and HPIPM by @FreyJo in https://github.com/acados/acados/pull/969</li> <li>Fix typo in minimal_example_closed_loop.py by @Federico-PizarroBejarano in https://github.com/acados/acados/pull/970</li> <li>Fix dependency handling in CMake config file by @Hs293Go in https://github.com/acados/acados/pull/971</li> <li>Fix sfun sources if hessian is not exact by @asparc in https://github.com/acados/acados/pull/974</li> <li>update ROADMAP by @sandmaennchen in https://github.com/acados/acados/pull/964</li> <li>Work on solution sensitivities by @FreyJo in https://github.com/acados/acados/pull/975</li> <li>Implement cost integration via IRK for Convex-over-nonlinear cost by @FreyJo in https://github.com/acados/acados/pull/976</li> <li>Add time in IRK, allow to cost integration with time dependent function by @FreyJo in https://github.com/acados/acados/pull/977</li> <li>Documentation fixes by @FreyJo in https://github.com/acados/acados/pull/979</li> <li>Formulate constraints as L2 and Huber penalties in Python by @FreyJo in https://github.com/acados/acados/pull/980</li> </ul> <h2>New Contributors</h2> <ul> <li>@Federico-PizarroBejarano made their first contribution in https://github.com/acados/acados/pull/970</li> <li>@Hs293Go made their first contribution in https://github.com/acados/acados/pull/971</li> </ul> <p><strong>Full Changelog</strong>: https://github.com/acados/acados/compare/v0.2.4...v0.2.5</p&gt

acados/acados: v0.2.6

<h2>What's Changed</h2> <ul> <li>fix CodeQL warnings by @FreyJo in https://github.com/acados/acados/pull/984</li> <li>fix condition for checking number of stages in detect_dims_ocp.m by @Ajin2305 in https://github.com/acados/acados/pull/989</li> <li>Codeql review by @FreyJo in https://github.com/acados/acados/pull/988</li> <li>Rework CasADi requirements in MEX interface by @FreyJo in https://github.com/acados/acados/pull/991</li> <li>Fix get_optimal_value_gradient, add getter for p from HPIPM by @FreyJo in https://github.com/acados/acados/pull/993</li> <li>Windows python interface by @asparc in https://github.com/acados/acados/pull/968</li> </ul> <h2>New Contributors</h2> <ul> <li>@Ajin2305 made their first contribution in https://github.com/acados/acados/pull/989</li> </ul> <p><strong>Full Changelog</strong>: https://github.com/acados/acados/compare/v0.2.5...v0.2.6</p&gt