Measuring treatment outcome in patients with anxiety disorders: A comparison of the responsiveness of generic and disorder-specific instruments.

BACKGROUND: For routine outcome monitoring, generic (i.e., broad-based) and disorder-specific instruments are used to monitor patient progress. While disorder-specific instruments may be more sensitive to therapeutic change, generic measures can be applied more broadly and allow for an assessment of therapeutic change, irrespective of a specific anxiety disorder. Our goal was to investigate whether disorder-specific instruments for anxiety disorders are a valuable (or even necessary) addition to generic instruments for an appropriate assessment of treatment outcome in groups of patients. METHODS: Data were collected from 2002 to 2013 from psychiatric outpatients in treatment for Social Phobia (SP; n = 834), Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD; n = 661), Panic Disorder (PD; n = 944), Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD; n = 460), and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD; n = 691). Instruments used were the generic Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), The Mood and Anxiety Symptoms Questionnaire (MASQ), and several disorder-specific instruments (e.g., Social Interaction Anxiety Scale, Social Phobia Scale, Panic Appraisal Inventory, etc.). Responsiveness (i.e., sensitivity to therapeutic change) was examined through correlational analyses, effect sizes (ES), and analysis of variance for repeated measures. RESULTS: The MASQ appeared generally more responsive than the BSI, except for the BSI Anxiety subscale for PD. Disorder-specific measures equaled the MASQ and BSI in responsiveness. When statistically significant differences occurred, the ES was small. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSIONS: For most anxiety disorder groups (i.e., SP, PD and OCD), the MASQ or BSI was equally suited as disorder-specific instruments to detect change at group level. Exceptions are GAD and PTSD. These findings suggest limited incremental information value of disorder-specific instruments over the MASQ and BSI for measuring change.

The search for relevant outcome measures for cost-utility analysis of systemic family interventions in adolescents with substance use disorder and delinquent behavior: a systematic literature review.

PURPOSE: Systemic family interventions have shown to be effective in adolescents with substance use disorder and delinquent behavior. The interventions target interactions between the adolescent and involved systems (i.e. youth, family, peers, neighbors, school, work, and society). Next to effectiveness considerations, economic aspects have gained attention. However, conventional generic quality of life measures used in health economic evaluations may not be able to capture the broad effects of systemic interventions. This study aims to identify existing outcome measures, which capture the broad effects of systemic family interventions, and allow use in a health economic framework. METHODS: We based our systematic review on clinical studies in the field. Our goal was to identify effectiveness studies of psychosocial interventions for adolescents with substance use disorder and delinquent behavior and to distill the instruments used in these studies to measure effects. Searched databases were PubMed, Education Resource Information Center (ERIC), Cochrane and Psychnet (PsycBOOKSc, PsycCRITIQUES, print). Identified instruments were ranked according to the number of systems covered (comprehensiveness). In addition, their use for health economic analyses was evaluated according to suitability characteristics such as brevity, accessibility, psychometric properties, etc. RESULTS: One thousand three hundred seventy-eight articles were found and screened for eligibility. Eighty articles were selected, 8 instruments were identified covering 5 or more systems. CONCLUSIONS: The systematic review identified instruments from the clinical field suitable to evaluate systemic family interventions in a health economic framework. None of them had preference-weights available. Hence, a next step could be to attach preference-weights to one of the identified instruments to allow health economic evaluations of systemic family interventions.

Efficacy and safety of percutaneous transhepatic portal embolization before right liver resection using an ethibloc/lipiodol mixture: a single-center experience.

AIM: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the safety and efficacy of percutaneous transhepatic portal vein embolization of the right portal vein with an Ethibloc/Lipiodol mixture to induce hypertrophy of the left liver lobe in patients with primarily unresectable liver tumor. METHODS: 15 patients (8 primary liver tumors, 7 liver metastases) underwent portal vein embolization. Liver volumetry, duration of hospitalization, complication rates, relevant laboratory values were documented. RESULTS: In 13/15 patients (84.6%) embolization could be performed with a median of 8.8 ml (range 1.5-28 ml) Ethibloc/Lipiodol. One minor procedure-related complication (subcapsular hematoma) occurred, which did not affect the two-step liver resection. No patient developed acute liver failure after embolization or liver resection. The volume of the left liver lobe increased significantly (p = 0.0015) by 25% from a median of 750 ml (587-1,114 ml) to 967 ml (597-1,249 ml). 11/13 (81.8%) of the embolized patients underwent liver resection at a median of 49 days after embolization. Median hospitalization time was 4 days after embolization and 7 days after liver resection. Median overall survival of the 11 operated patients was 376 days. CONCLUSION: Percutaneous transhepatic portal vein embolization using an Ethibloc/Lipiodol mixture is a safe, feasible, and efficient interventional procedure.

[Advances in the staging of renal cell carcinoma with high-resolution imaging]. / Fortschritte im Staging des Nierenzellkarzinoms mittels hochauflösender Bildgebung.

Modern imaging modalities such as computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) allow high-resolution imaging of the abdomen. Modern scanners made high temporal as well as high spatial resolution available. Therapeutic approaches to the treatment of renal cell carcinoma have been improved over the recent years. Besides conventional and open laparoscopic tumor nephrectomy and nephron sparing, surgical approaches such as local tumor cryotherapy and radiofrequency ablation (RF) are ablative modalities and are used increasingly. Improved anesthesiological methods and new surgical approaches also allow curative treatment in extended tumors. Prerequisites for preoperative imaging modalities include visualization of the kidney tumor as well as its staging. Tumor-related infiltration of the renal pelvis or invasion of the perinephric fat and the renal hilus has to be excluded prior to nephron sparing surgery. In cases with extended tumors with infiltration of the inferior vena cava, it is necessary to visualize the exact extension of the tumor growth towards the right atrium in the vena cava. The radiologist should be informed about the diagnostic possibilities and limitations of the imaging modalities of CT and MRI in order to support the urologist in the planning and performance of surgical therapeutical approaches.