Social hobbies can increase self-esteem and quality of life in female breast cancer patients with type A personality trait: KRATOS study.

Self-esteem is a way of coping with stress for cancer patients and this improves their quality of life. It was aimed to determine the relationship between type A personality traits and self-esteem and quality of life in women with breast cancer and to determine the effective factors. 154 women with breast cancer and 78 healthy women were included. Bortner's Rating scale, Rosenberg's Self-Esteem scale, and EORTC QOL-C30 scale were used. The relationship between the presence of hobbies, self-esteem, quality of life, and personality type was examined. Mann-Whitney U, Kruskal-Wallis, Fisher's Exact, and Spearman Rank correlation tests were performed. Independent factors affecting personality type, self-esteem, and quality of life were determined by multivariate logistic (binary) regression analysis. The p < 0.05 value was significant in the SPSS v19 program. There was no age difference between the patients (54 ± 11 years) and the control group (42 ± 8 years) (p = 0.108). The rate of type A personality was 69% in patients and 58% in controls (p = 0.093). Similarly, the rate of high self-esteem was 93% in patients and 96% in controls (p = 0.098). Besides personality type and self-esteem, there was no relationship between personality type and quality of life in cancer patients (p = 0.960 and p = 0.946, respectively). A relationship was established between self-esteem and quality of life (p = 0.018) in patients. In patients with type A personality, hobbies providing socially active communication were common (p = 0.039), and had more than two hobbies (p = 0.015). Type A personality trait was independently effective on self-esteem (p = 0.046). Hobby orientation and the number of hobbies had independent effects on self-esteem (p = 0.032, p = 0.041), quality of life (respectively, p = 0.004, p = 0.007), and personality type (respectively, p = 0.014, p = 0.027). Hobbies that provide active social communication may have important effects on changes in personality traits, self-esteem, and quality of life in patients with breast cancer.

Medium Cut-Off Membrane Can Be a New Treatment Tool in Amanita phalloides Poisoning.

Mushroom poisoning is a common health problem that can be seen seasonally and geographically. Most mushroom poisoning requiring treatment worldwide is due to Amanita phalloides. Although liver failure and kidney injury are frequent, poisoning can also lead to more serious clinical situations, such as shock, pancreatitis, encephalopathic coma, cardiac failure, disseminated intravascular coagulation, and multiple organ dysfunction syndrome, and may cause death. In addition, when standard treatment approaches fail, extracorporeal treatment methods are often used. We report 2 cases in which hemodialysis with medium cut-off membrane was performed. We observed an improvement in liver and kidney function in both of our cases. The first case recovered, but the second case proved fatal owing to Acinetobacter sepsis, despite an improvement in renal function. Medium cut-off membrane hemodialysis may be an alternative option in the treatment of Amanita phalloides poisoning.