Oral prednisone use and risk of keratinocyte carcinoma in non-transplant population. The VATTC trial.

BACKGROUND: Glucorticosteroids (GC) are potent anti-inflammatory medications with immunosuppressive property. Few retrospective studies have reported the increased risk of development of basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) associated with GC use. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to assess the effect of oral GC use on the risk of BCC and SCC using prospective data. METHODS: We analysed data from the Veterans Affairs Topical Tretinoin Chemoprevention Trial, which followed up patients from 1998 to 2004. Exposure to oral GCs was defined as (1) use of any oral GCs at any point during follow-up and (2) use of GCs for a month or longer. Outcome was occurrence of new BCC or SCC. Cox proportional hazard models were used to estimate adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). RESULTS: Among the 1051 study participants, 148 patients (14%) had prednisone prescription filled during study period, and 63 (6%) used prednisone for over a month. A total of 472 patients (45%) developed at least one BCC during study: 394 (44%) among non-users of prednisone and 78 (53%) among any time users. The total number of new SCC was 309 (29%): 258 (29%) among non-users of prednisone and 51 (34%) among users. Among any time prednisone users, the adjusted HR was 1.11 (95% CI, 0.87-1.42) for BCC, and 1.05 (95% CI, 0.76-1.45) for SCC. Among those who used prednisone for 30 or more days, the HR was 1.26 (95% CI, 0.90-1.78) for BCC, and 1.03 (95% CI, 0.66-1.60) for SCC. CONCLUSION: This study does not support the existence of association between use of oral GCs and risk of BCC or SCC.

Hospital volume and stroke outcome: does it matter?

BACKGROUND: Although hospital-outcome relationships have been explored for a variety of procedures and interventions, little is known about the association between annual stroke admission volumes and stroke mortality. Our aim was to determine whether facility type and hospital volume was associated with stroke mortality. METHODS: All hospital admissions for ischemic stroke were identified from the Hospital Morbidity database (HMDB) from April 2003 to March 2004. The HMDB is a national database that contains patient-level sociodemographic, diagnostic, procedural, and administrative information across Canada. Ischemic stroke was identified through patient's principal diagnosis recorded using the International Classification of Diseases (9 and 10). Multivariable analysis was performed with generalized estimating equations with adjustment for demographic characteristics, provider specialty, facility type, hospital volume, and clustering of observations at institutions. RESULTS: Overall, 26,676 patients with ischemic stroke were admitted to 606 hospitals. Seven-day stroke mortality was 7.6% and mortality at discharge was 15.6%. Adverse outcomes were more frequent in patients treated in low-volume facilities (<50 strokes/year) than in those treated in high volume facilities (100 to 199 and >200 strokes patients/year) (for 7-day mortality: 9.5 vs 7.3%, p < 0.001; 9.5 vs 6.0%, p < 0.001; for discharge mortality: 18.2 vs 15.2%, p < 0.001; 18.2 vs 12.8%, p < 0.001). The difference persisted after multivariable adjustment or when hospital volume was divided into quartiles. CONCLUSIONS: High annual hospital volume was consistently associated with lower stroke mortality. Our study encourages further research to determine whether this is due to differences in case mix, more organized care in high-volume facilities, or differences in the performance or in the processes of care among facilities.

Early prediction of poor outcome in extremely low birth weight infants by classification tree analysis.

OBJECTIVE: To predict death or neurodevelopmental impairment (NDI) in extremely low birth weight infants by classification trees with recursive partitioning and automatic selection of optimal cut points of variables. STUDY DESIGN: Data from the Trial of Indomethacin Prophylaxis in Preterms were randomly divided into development (n=784) and validation sets (n=262). Three models were developed for the combined outcome of death (8 days to 18 months) or NDI (cerebral palsy, cognitive delay, deafness, or blindness at 18 months corrected age): antenatal: antenatal data; early neonatal: antenatal+first 3 days data; and first week: antenatal, first 3 days, and 4th to 8th days data. Decision trees were tested on the validation set. RESULTS: Variables associated with death/NDI in each model were: Antenatal: Gestation01 mL/kg/d. First week: Birth weight3 mL/kg/d. Birth weight>787 g: cranial echodense intraparenchymal lesion and transfusion>1 mL/kg/d. Correct classification rates were 61% to 62% for all models. CONCLUSIONS: The ability to predict long-term morbidity/death in extremely low birth weight infants does not improve significantly over the first week of life. Effects of different variables depend on age.