Study protocol for ELIXIR: an evaluation of learning and exposure to the undergraduate Interventional Radiology curriculum

Background: Despite the initiation of a suggested undergraduate curriculum for Interventional Radiology (IR) by the British Society of Interventional Radiology, there is still a lack of exposure to IR amongst medical students and junior doctors. It is unclear how much of the proposed curriculum is implemented in the undergraduate curricula of the respective medical schools in the UK. Methods and Materials: This is a cross-sectional study that aims to evaluate the level of awareness of IR as a subspecialty amongst medical students in the UK. All final year students from the 34 UK medical universities that award primary medical qualifications are eligible for the study. A student representative from each university will be recruited through a social media drive to distribute a survey. The online questionnaire is divided into five different sections; (i) Particulars, (ii) Basic knowledge on IR, (iii) Medical School Curriculum and Exposure, (iv) Career Prospects and (v) Satisfaction with Medical School Curriculum, with the intent of gauging their exposure and understanding of IR throughout the years of medical school and assessing their perceptions of IR as a potential career choice

The Prognostic Value of Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio and Platelet-to-Lymphocyte Ratio for Small Renal Cell Carcinomas after Image-Guided Cryoablation or Radio-Frequency Ablation

There is a lack of cheap and effective biomarkers for the prediction of renal cancer outcomes post-image-guided ablation. This is a retrospective study of patients with localised small renal cell cancer (T1a or T1b) undergoing cryoablation or radiofrequency ablation (RFA) at our institution from 2003 to 2016. A total of 203 patients were included in the analysis. In the multivariable analysis, patients with raised neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) pre-operatively, post-operatively and peri-operatively are associated with significantly worsened cancer-specific survival, overall survival and metastasis-free survival. Furthermore, an increased PLR pre-operatively is also associated with increased odds of a larger than 25% drop in renal function post-operatively. In conclusion, NLR and PLR are effective prognostic factors in predicting oncological outcomes and peri-operative outcomes; however, larger external datasets should be used to validate the findings prior to clinical application

Effects of delayed radical prostatectomy and active surveillance on localised prostate cancer - A systematic review and meta-analysis

© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)External factors, such as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), can lead to cancellations and backlogs of cancer surgeries. The effects of these delays are unclear. This study summarised the evidence surrounding expectant management, delay radical prostatectomy (RP), and neoadjuvant hormone therapy (NHT) compared to immediate RP. MEDLINE and EMBASE was searched for randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and non-randomised controlled studies pertaining to the review question. Risks of biases (RoB) were evaluated using the RoB 2.0 tool and the Newcastle–Ottawa Scale. A total of 57 studies were included. Meta-analysis of four RCTs found overall survival and cancer-specific survival were significantly worsened amongst intermediate-risk patients undergoing active monitoring, observation, or watchful waiting but not in low- and high-risk patients. Evidence from 33 observational studies comparing delayed RP and immediate RP is contradictory. However, conservative estimates of delays over 5 months, 4 months, and 30 days for low-risk, intermediate-risk, and high-risk patients, respectively, have been associated with significantly worse pathological and oncological outcomes in individual studies. In 11 RCTs, a 3-month course of NHT has been shown to improve pathological outcomes in most patients, but its effect on oncological outcomes is apparently limitedPeer reviewe