ABSTRACT
[Objective] For six consecutive years, we investigated 83 cases of the effect of acupuncture therapy on children with night terrors.[Subjects and Methods] The number of subjects was 83 (38 boys and 45 girls, mean age: 2.2 ± 2.8 years old). Acupuncture therapy for infants was defined as pattern identification/syndrome differentiation and treatment. The acupuncture therapy used spoon needles and moxibustion; skin stimulation was applied to the acupuncture point. Infant needles in the Daishi style and moxibustion of the incense stick were used as a method to approach the hole. Therapeutic effect was judged by a self-written evaluation form certified by the Japan Society of Pediatric Acupuncture. One major item, "sleep disorder (broad sense of night terrors)," three minor items ('night terror' in a narrower sense), 'difficulty in falling asleep,' 'nocturnal awakening,' number of nocturnal awakenings at night, and satisfaction with acupuncture therapy in infants were investigated. Evaluations were made at the time of the first treatment and before the fifth treatment. In the statistical analysis, the change in the score of the evaluation slip and the number of partial awakenings were tested by the Wilcoxon signed-rank-sum test. The level of significance was set at 5%.[Results] Significant improvement was observed in the score for the major item, minor items, and number of partial awakenings. The degree of satisfaction was 90.4%.[Conclusion] It was suggested that acupuncture therapy in infants is effective for ameliorating symptoms of "sleep disorder."
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To compare the survival outcomes of patients with cervical squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and adenocarcinoma/adenosquamous carcinoma (AC/ASC) among patients with locally advanced cervical cancer that were treated with definitive radiotherapy. METHODS: The baseline characteristics and outcome data of patients with locally advanced cervical cancer who were treated with definitive radiotherapy between November 1993 and February 2014 were collected and retrospectively reviewed. A Cox proportional hazards regression model was used to investigate the prognostic significance of AC/ASC histology. RESULTS: The patients with AC/ASC of the cervix exhibited significantly shorter overall survival (OS) (p=0.004) and progression-free survival (PFS) (p=0.002) than the patients with SCC of the cervix. Multivariate analysis showed that AC/ASC histology was an independent negative prognostic factor for PFS. Among the patients who displayed AC/ASC histology, larger tumor size, older age, and incomplete response to radiotherapy were found to be independent prognostic factors. PFS was inversely associated with the number of poor prognostic factors the patients exhibited (the estimated 1-year PFS rates; 100.0%, 77.8%, 42.8%, 0.0% for 0, 1, 2, 3 factors, respectively). CONCLUSION: Locally advanced cervical cancer patients with AC/ASC histology experience significantly worse survival outcomes than those with SCC. Further clinical studies are warranted to develop a concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) protocol that is specifically tailored to locally advanced cervical AC/ASC.