Effects of Music Therapy on Pain and Anxiety in Patients Undergoing Bone Marrow Biopsy and Aspiration

Bone marrow biopsy and aspiration are commonly used for diagnosing, treating, and following up after treatment for blood disorders and solid tumors. For adults, the infiltration of local anesthesia at the biopsy site has been used as the principal form of analgesia for bone marrow biopsy and aspiration. Pain relief during these procedures is often incomplete, especially during aspiration of the bone marrow, and pain is likely to contribute to patient anxiety. Researchers at the Tabriz Hematology and Oncology Center in Iran conducted a study to quantify and evaluate the effectiveness of music therapy interventions on pain and anxiety control for 100 patients undergoing bone marrow biopsy and aspiration. Participants in the study were randomly assigned to one of two groups: one group listened to music during the procedure, and the other did not. Patients completed the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory both before and after the procedure and reported pain severity by using a visual analog scale. Results showed that participants who listened to music had lower state anxiety and pain levels than those who did not listen to music

Association of clinicopathologic characteristics and outcomes with EZH2 expression in patients with breast cancer in East Azerbaijan, Iran

Farnaz Boostani,1 Roya Dolatkhah,1 Ashraf Fakhrjou,2 Faris Farassati,3 Zohreh Sanaat1 1Hematology and Oncology Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran; 2Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran; 3Midwest Biomedical Research Foundation, Kansas City, MO, USA Background: Recently, it was found that the overexpression and mutation status of EZH2 affect cancer progression and patient outcome in several human tumors. We aimed to evaluate the clinicopathologic significance of EZH2 in patients with breast cancer.Methods: This was an analytical descriptive study of surgical specimens of primary breast tumors. Specimens were analyzed immunohistochemically for EZH2, estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, Ki-67, P53, and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) expressions. Regression analysis was performed to calculate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% CIs. Kaplan–Meier and Cox regression models were used to estimate the overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS).Results: We included 100 patients with breast cancer (mean age 51.05±9.54 years). The multivariate regression analysis showed that HER2-positive patients had approximately twice the levels of EZH2 expression compared with HER2-negative patients (HR 2.16, 95% CI 0.48–11.49). The likelihood of EZH2 expression was significantly higher in patients with lymph node involvement than in those without (HR 8.44, 95% CI 3.06–23.33; P≤0.05). EZH2 expression did not have any significant effect on the OS, although the mean OS in high EZH2 expression was shorter than for those with low EZH2 expression (655 vs 787 days; log-rank P=0.336). The mean DFS was 487 days for patients with high EZH2 expression compared with 908 days for those with low EZH2 expression (log-rank P=0.188).Conclusion: There was no association found between EZH2 expression and OS and DFS in our patients. Further studies involving larger sample sizes, and conducted in different populations, are needed to validate this hypothesis. Keywords: breast cancer, tumor markers, enhancer of zeste homolog 2 protein, survival analysi