Ethical issues in autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) in advanced breast cancer: A systematic literature review

BACKGROUND: An effectiveness assessment on ASCT in locally advanced and metastatic breast cancer identified serious ethical issues associated with this intervention. Our objective was to systematically review these aspects by means of a literature analysis. METHODS: We chose the reflexive Socratic approach as the review method using Hofmann's question list, conducted a comprehensive literature search in biomedical, psychological and ethics bibliographic databases and screened the resulting hits in a 2-step selection process. Relevant arguments were assembled from the included articles, and were assessed and assigned to the question list. Hofmann's questions were addressed by synthesizing these arguments. RESULTS: Of the identified 879 documents 102 included arguments related to one or more questions from Hofmann's question list. The most important ethical issues were the implementation of ASCT in clinical practice on the basis of phase-II trials in the 1990s and the publication of falsified data in the first randomized controlled trials (Bezwoda fraud), which caused significant negative effects on recruiting patients for further clinical trials and the doctor-patient relationship. Recent meta-analyses report a marginal effect in prolonging disease-free survival, accompanied by severe harms, including death. ASCT in breast cancer remains a stigmatized technology. Reported health-related-quality-of-life data are often at high risk of bias in favor of the survivors. Furthermore little attention has been paid to those patients who were dying. CONCLUSIONS: The questions were addressed in different degrees of completeness. All arguments were assignable to the questions. The central ethical dimensions of ASCT could be discussed by reviewing the published literature

Reporting bias in medical research - a narrative review

Reporting bias represents a major problem in the assessment of health care interventions. Several prominent cases have been described in the literature, for example, in the reporting of trials of antidepressants, Class I anti-arrhythmic drugs, and selective COX-2 inhibitors. The aim of this narrative review is to gain an overview of reporting bias in the medical literature, focussing on publication bias and selective outcome reporting. We explore whether these types of bias have been shown in areas beyond the well-known cases noted above, in order to gain an impression of how widespread the problem is. For this purpose, we screened relevant articles on reporting bias that had previously been obtained by the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care in the context of its health technology assessment reports and other research work, together with the reference lists of these articles

MRI of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumours.

Neuroendocrine tumours of the pancreas are rare and are frequently difficult to demonstrate. Several imaging modalities have been used to demonstrate these tumours, but recent reports have suggested that MRI may have an important role in their localization. We review the spectrum of MRI appearances of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumours

Primary hyperaldosteronism (Conn syndrome): MR imaging findings.

PURPOSE: To describe the magnetic resonance (MR) imaging features of the adrenal glands in primary hyperaldosteronism and assess MR imaging in the detection and characterization of aldosterone-producing adenoma (APA). MATERIALS AND METHODS: The authors retrospectively reviewed the cases of 20 patients (13 female and seven male patients; age range, 14-67 years; median age, 46 years) with primary hyperaldosteronism who underwent 1.5-T MR imaging between 1995 and 1998. All patients underwent transverse T1- and T2-weighted imaging, and chemical shift imaging was performed in 17 patients. Imaging results were correlated with findings at biochemical testing, venous sampling, or surgery. RESULTS: Among the 20 patients, 10 (50%) had APA and 10 (50%) bilateral adrenal hyperplasia (BAH). In the detection of APA, MR imaging had a sensitivity of 70%, specificity of 100%, and accuracy of 85%. APAs (mean size, 20 x 16 mm) were iso- or hypointense relative to the liver on T1-weighted images and slightly hyperintense on T2-weighted images. With chemical shift imaging, the signal intensity decreased on the out-of-phase images in six of seven (86%) patients with APA and in eight of nine (89%) patients with BAH. CONCLUSION: MR imaging has a high specificity in the detection of APA. As with nonhyperfunctioning adenoma, APA and BAH show evidence of intracellular lipid at chemical shift imaging

Pheochromocytoma: effect of nonionic contrast medium in CT on circulating catecholamine levels.

PURPOSE: To study the catecholamine-releasing effect of peripheral intravenous administration of the nonionic contrast medium iohexol in patients with pheochromocytomas. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Ten patients (eight women, two men; mean age, 44 years; age range, 25-70 years) with pheochromocytomas and related tumors and six healthy volunteers (five men, one woman; mean age, 31 years; age range, 27-35 years) were examined. Plasma catecholamine levels were measured at intervals for 60 minutes after the injection of 0.9% saline or iohexol on 2 separate days. All 10 patients intravenously received the specific alpha-adrenergic blocker phenoxybenzamine hydrochloride (0.5 mg/kg in 250 mL of 5% dextrose infused over 2 hours) 24 hours before iohexol-enhanced computed tomography. RESULTS: There was no statistically significant increase in epinephrine or norepinephrine levels in the patients or the control subjects. CONCLUSION: While it may be prudent to administer oral alpha- and beta-adrenoceptor antagonists in all patients with a biochemically proved pheochromocytoma to control their symptoms and to prevent a spontaneous adrenergic crisis, specific blockade may not be required before contrast medium-enhanced scanning with iohexol. Although the sample size of this study is relatively small, the results do suggest that in an incidentally detected, clinically silent adrenal mass that may or may not be hypersecreting, the nonionic contrast medium iohexol may be used for scanning without blockade