Building consensus about eHealth in Slovene primary health care: Delphi study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Slovenia's national eHealth strategy aims to develop an efficient, flexible and modern health care informatics framework that would be comparable to the most successful EU countries. To achieve this goal, the gap between availability and usage of information and communication technology by primary care physicians needs to be reduced.</p> <p>As recent efforts show, consensus on information and communication technology purpose and usage in primary care needs to be established before any national information and communication technology solutions are developed.</p> <p>The aim of this study was to identify the most appropriate measures in implementation of Slovene national eHealth strategy and to suggest an appropriate model for success by using the three round Delphi study.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>An e-mail based, three-round Delphi study was undertaken to achieve consensus from a selected sample of nationally recognized experts from the fields of primary health care and medical informatics. The aim of this study was to identify the most appropriate measures and key obstacles in implementation of eHealth in Slovene primary health care by using the Delphi study.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>High levels of consensus on the majority of suggested measures were achieved among all study participants, as well as between the subgroups of experts from primary health care and medical informatics. All aims of the three-round Delphi study on eHealth implementation in Slovenian primary health care were achieved.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The three round decision Delphi process has proven to be effective for developing outcomes, ranking key priorities in primary care eHealth development, and achieving consensus among the most influential experts in that field. This consensus is an important contribution to future national eHealth strategies in the field of primary health care.</p

A randomised, phase II study of intetumumab, an anti-α v-integrin mAb, alone and with dacarbazine in stage IV melanoma

BACKGROUND: α(v) integrins are involved in angiogenesis and melanoma tumourigenesis. Intetumumab (CNTO 95) is a fully human anti-α(v)-integrin monoclonal antibody. METHODS: In a multicentre, randomised, phase II study, stage IV melanoma patients were randomised 1 : 1 : 1 : 1 to 1000 mg m(−2) dacarbazine+placebo (n=32), 1000 mg m(−2) dacarbazine+10 mg kg(−1) intetumumab (n=32), 10 mg kg(−1) intetumumab (n=33), or 5 mg kg(−1) intetumumab (n=32) q3w. The primary endpoint was progression-free survival (PFS). Secondary endpoints included overall survival (OS), objective response rate (ORR), adverse events, and pharmacokinetics. RESULTS: No statistically significant differences in efficacy were observed between groups. In the dacarbazine+placebo, dacarbazine+intetumumab, 10 mg kg(−1) intetumumab, and 5 mg kg(−1) intetumumab groups, median PFS was 1.8, 2.5, 1.4, and 1.4 months; median OS was 8, 11, 15, and 9.8 months; and ORR of complete+partial response was 10, 3, 6, and 0%. Nonlinear intetumumab pharmacokinetics and potential intetumumab–dacarbazine interactions were observed. Transient, asymptomatic, nonrecurring, grade 1–2, uveitic reactions that resolved spontaneously or with topical steroids were seen in 22–30% of intetumumab-treated patients. Low-grade infusion-reaction symptoms (headache, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, fever, chills) were observed, as expected, in 16–73% of dacarbazine-treated patients. No intetumumab-related myelosuppression, laboratory/electrocardiogram abnormalities, or deaths occurred. CONCLUSION: With its favourable safety profile and a nonsignificant trend towards improved OS, intetumumab merits further investigation in advanced melanoma

Customized corneal cross-linking

3nononePersonalized accelerated crosslinking nomograms for the management of corneal ectasia were conceived after comparative analysis of demarcation lines and cell viability observed after customized accelerated epithelium-off crosslinking CXL treatments by spectral domain corneal OCT and scanning laser in vivo confocal microscopy matching all the clinical and instrumental data with mathematical models. Accelerated high-fluence Topography-guided CXL at 30 mW/cm2 UV-Power and Accelerated epithelium-off CXL with 9 and 15 mW/cm2 UV-A power with standardized Fluence of 5.4 J/cm2 were safe and effective demostrating a keratocytes apoptosis and demarcation line depth between 280 and 340 μm. The 30 mW ACXL showed a penetration with continuous and pulsed light between 150 and 200 μm. No endothelial damage was reported in any case. In vivo morphological studies demonstrated that Accelerated CXL allow a pachymetry-guided cutomization of CXL maintainig the standard Fluence of 5.4 J/cm2 and a total treatment time under 20 min. Moreover a pachymetry-guided ACXL nomogram (M nomogram) developed by Mazzotta C and Friedman M matching the physical and mathematical calculations with the miscostructural IVCM and OCT observations of demarcation lines depths allow an efficacous CXL management of primary and iatrogenic ectatic corneas also allowing a safe management of thin ectatic corneas.noneMazzotta C.; Rechichi M.; Ferrise M.Mazzotta, C.; Rechichi, M.; Ferrise, M

No association between coding polymorphism within Exon 4 of the human surfactant protein B gene and pulmonary function in healthy men

The coding polymorphism (rs1130866) within the surfactant protein B gene is known to associate with certain respiratory abnormalities. We investigated, using spirometry and fluorescence-based PCR, whether this variant influenced pulmonary function in healthy, nonsmoking men. We found no association of pulmonary function with genotype at the rs1130866 locus