360º Communication and social advertising in «Pills for other persons’ pain»: case study

La campaña «Pastillas contra el dolor ajeno» está considerada una de las cinco mejores campañas españolas de los últimos cincuenta años, ello viene avalado, entre otras razones, por la obtención de prestigiosos galardones en festivales de publicidad, más de quince en un año. La campaña ha marcado un punto de inflexión en la publicidad social. Consideramos que la estrategia 360º empleada es la base del éxito de la campaña, más allá de la utilización de personajes públicos de gran notoriedad o de la propia organización a la que representa, Médicos sin Fronteras. Realizamos una exploración teórica y mediática de la campaña, con el objetivo de profundizar en la estrategia integral de “Pastillas…”, así como de comprobar el respaldo mediático obtenido e identificar los discursos emitidos por la prensa.The campaign «Pills for other persons’ pain» is considered one of best five Spanish campaigns of the past fifty years, a fact confirmed by the large number of prizes obtained in several advertising festivals, altogether more that fifteen per year. This campaign has marked a new starting point for social advertising. We consider that the 360 degree strategy is one of the bases for the success of the campaign, more than the use of public personalities of great visibility and personnel of the organizations represented; Doctors without Borders. We have carried out a theoretical and media exploration of the campaign, with the objective of getting a deeper look at the integrated strategy of the campaign “Pills...”, as well as exploring the media cover received by the campaign in order to identify the press discourses

Computed tomographic coronary angiography for patients with heart failure (CTA-HF): A randomized controlled trial (IMAGE HF Project 1-C)

© 2013 Chow et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Background: The prevalence of heart failure (HF) is rising in industrialized and developing countries. Though invasive coronary angiography (ICA) remains the gold standard for anatomical assessment of coronary artery disease in HF patients, alternatives are being sought. Computed tomographic coronary angiography (CTA) has emerged as an accurate non-invasive diagnostic tool for coronary artery disease (CAD) and has been demonstrated to have prognostic value. Whether or not CTA can be used in HF patients is unknown. Acknowledging the aging population, the growing prevalence of HF and the increasing financial burden of healthcare, we need to identify non-invasive diagnostic tests that are available, safe, accurate and cost-effective. Methods/Design: The proposed study aims to provide insight into the efficacy of CTA in HF patients. A multicenter randomized controlled trial will enroll 250 HF patients requiring coronary anatomical definition. Enrolled patients will be randomized to either CTA or ICA (n = 125 per group) as the first test to define coronary anatomy. The primary outcomes will be collected to determine downstream resource utilization. Secondary outcomes will include the composite clinical events and major adverse cardiac events. In addition, the accuracy of CTA for detecting coronary anatomy and obstruction will be assessed in patients who subsequently undergo both CTA and ICA. It is expected that CTA will be a more cost-effective strategy for diagnosis: yielding similar outcomes with fewer procedural risks and improved resource utilization.Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01283659 Team grant #CIF 9947

Association analyses identify 31 new risk loci for colorectal cancer susceptibility

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide, and has a strong heritable basis. We report a genome-wide association analysis of 34,627 CRC cases and 71,379 controls of European ancestry that identifies SNPs at 31 new CRC risk loci. We also identify eight independent risk SNPs at the new and previously reported European CRC loci, and a further nine CRC SNPs at loci previously only identified in Asian populations. We use in situ promoter capture Hi-C (CHi-C), gene expression, and in silico annotation methods to identify likely target genes of CRC SNPs. Whilst these new SNP associations implicate target genes that are enriched for known CRC pathways such as Wnt and BMP, they also highlight novel pathways with no prior links to colorectal tumourigenesis. These findings provide further insight into CRC susceptibility and enhance the prospects of applying genetic risk scores to personalised screening and prevention.Peer reviewe