76 research outputs found
Sociodemographic factors and delays in the diagnosis of six cancers: analysis of data from the âNational Survey of NHS Patients: Cancer'
This paper aims to explore the relationship between sociodemographic factors and the components of diagnostic delay (total, patient and primary care, referral, secondary care) for these six cancers (breast, colorectal, lung, ovarian, prostate, or non-Hodgkin's lymphoma). Secondary analysis of patient-reported data from the âNational Survey of NHS patients: Cancer' was undertaken (65â192 patients). Data were analysed using univariate analysis and Generalised Linear Modelling. With regard to total delay, the findings from the GLM showed that for colorectal cancer, the significant factors were marital status and age, for lung and ovarian cancer none of the factors were significant, for prostate cancer the only significant factor was social class, for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma the only significant factor was age, and for breast cancer the significant factors were marital status and ethnic group. Where associations between any of the component delays were found, the direction of the association was always in the same direction (female subjects had longer delays than male subjects, younger people had longer delays than older people, single and separated/divorced people had longer delays than married people, lower social class groups had longer delays than higher social class groups, and Black and south Asian people had longer delays than white people). These findings should influence the design of interventions aimed at reducing diagnostic delays with the aim of improving morbidity, mortality, and psychological outcomes through earlier stage diagnosis
Conducting Molecular Epidemiological Research in the Age of HIPAA: A Multi-Institutional Case-Control Study of Breast Cancer in African-American and European-American Women
Breast cancer in African-American (AA) women occurs at an earlier age than in European-American (EA) women and is more likely to have aggressive features associated with poorer prognosis, such as high-grade and negative estrogen receptor (ER) status. The mechanisms underlying these differences are unknown. To address this, we conducted a case-control study to evaluate risk factors for high-grade ER- disease in both AA and EA women.
With the onset of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, creative measures were needed to adapt case ascertainment and contact procedures to this new environment of patient privacy. In this paper, we report on our approach to establishing a multicenter study of breast cancer in New York and New Jersey, provide preliminary distributions of demographic and pathologic characteristics among case and control participants by race, and contrast participation rates by approaches to case ascertainment, with discussion of strengths and weaknesses
Early postoperative complications in patients with Crohn's disease given and not given preoperative total parenteral nutrition
Image-guided focused ultrasound ablation of breast cancer: current status, challenges, and future directions
Image-guided focussed ultrasound (FUS) ablation is a non-invasive procedure that has been used for treatment of benign or malignant breast tumours. Image-guidance during ablation is achieved either by using real-time ultrasound (US) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The past decade phase I studies have proven MRI-guided and US-guided FUS ablation of breast cancer to be technically feasible and safe. We provide an overview of studies assessing the efficacy of FUS for breast tumour ablation as measured by percentages of complete tumour necrosis. Successful ablation ranged from 20% to 100%, depending on FUS system type, imaging technique, ablation protocol, and patient selection. Specific issues related to FUS ablation of breast cancer, such as increased treatment time for larger tumours, size of ablation margins, methods used for margin assessment and residual tumour detection after FUS ablation, and impact of FUS ablation on sentinel node procedure are presented. Finally, potential future applications of FUS for breast cancer treatment such as FUS-induced anti-tumour immune response, FUS-mediated gene transfer, and enhanced drug delivery are discussed. Currently, breast-conserving surgery remains the gold standard for breast cancer treatment
DAVID: An open-source platform for real-time transformation of infra-segmental emotional cues in running speech
Fricative perception by cochlear implant users
Three implant users were tested with 45 syllables consisting of[v, f, ïżœ, ?, z, s, ?, ?, d?, t ?, ?, , d, n, 1] before the vowels [I ,a,u] with three wearable speech processors. The WSP3 processor coded first and second formant frequencies and amplitudes. The MSP1 processor used a similar scheme with improved measurement and coding of the formants. The MSP2 processor added amplitude information from three higher frequency bands. Average scores were 42% for WSP3, 54% for MSP1, and 57% for MSP2. Perception of voicing, manner, and place of articulation of the consonants was significantly greater for the MSP processors than the WSP3 processor. Place perception was slightly higher for MSP2 than MSP1. The listeners used three perceptual dimensions which were highly correlated with the frequencies and amplitudes of peaks in the low frequency region of the frication spectrum, amplitudes of high frequency peaks, and duration of the frication noise
A Linguistically Motivated Model for Speed and Pausing in Animations of American Sign Language
Changes in platelet serotonin concentration after four weeks of alcohol abstinence depending on the genotype of the serotonin transporter
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