ABSTRACT
<b>Purpose</b>: Although case reports on the use of octreotide for malignant ascites are occasionally seen, it remains unclear whether or not octreotide is effective in such cases. The aim of this study was to clarify the utility of octreotide for malignant ascites. <b>Methods</b>: This study was a retrospective study based on a survey of medical records. The subjects were taken from among cancer patients at our hospital who were given octreotide between April 1, 2008 and October 31, 2011 with the aim of reducing gastrointestinal symptoms accompanying gastrointestinal obstruction. These subjects were patients who had malignant ascites during the time octreotide was used and whose ascites could be evaluated by computed tomography before and after octreotide was started. Evaluation of ascites was classified into five levels of obviously decreasing, slightly decreasing, no change, slightly increasing, and obviously increasing. <b>Results</b>: Forty-nine patients used octreotide during the same period. Seven of these 49 patients met the eligibility criteria. The level of ascites was not classified as obviously decreasing or slightly decreasing in any of the patients. One patient was classified as no change. The other six were all slightly increasing or obviously increasing. <b>Conclusion</b>: In this study octreotide was not shown to be usuful for malignant ascites.
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the validity and reliability of the Seattle Angina Questionnaire, Japanese version (SAQ-J) as a disease-specific health outcome scale in patients with coronary artery disease. METHODS: Patients with coronary artery disease were recruited from a university hospital in Tokyo. The patients completed self-administered questionnaires, and medical information was obtained from the subjects' medical records. Face validity, concurrent validity evaluated using Short Form 36 (SF-36), known group differences, internal consistency, and test-retest reliability were statistically analyzed. RESULTS: A total of 354 patients gave informed consent, and 331 of them responded (93.5%). The concurrent validity was mostly supported by the pattern of association between SAQ-J and SF-36. The patients without chest symptoms showed significantly higher SAQ-J scores than did the patients with chest symptoms in 4 domains. Cronbach's alpha ranged from .51 to .96, meaning that internal consistency was confirmed to a certain extent. The intraclass correlation coefficient of most domains was higher than the recommended value of 0.70. The weighted kappa ranged from .24 to .57, and it was greater than .4 for 14 of the 19 items. CONCLUSIONS: The SAQ-J could be a valid and reliable disease-specific scale in some part for measuring health outcomes in patients with coronary artery disease, and requires cautious use.