Ultrasonic and nonultrasonic instrumentation: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE: To compare the efficacy and safety of ultrasonic surgical instrumentation with nonultrasonic traditional surgical techniques in various types of surgery. DATA SOURCES: Electronic searches of MEDLINE, Current Contents, and the Cochrane Library were performed for the period of 1990 to June 1, 2005, using relevant search terms. A manual check of all references in accepted studies was also performed. STUDY SELECTION: Only comparative studies (including randomized and nonrandomized control trials) of ultrasonic surgical instrumentation with nonultrasonic instrumentation were accepted. Procedures of interest included the following: colorectal surgery, gynecologic surgery, head and neck surgery, solid organ surgery, vessel harvesting, cholecystectomy, hemorrhoidectomy, mastectomy, and Nissen fundoplication. DATA EXTRACTION: Two investigators reviewed each study: the first investigator extracted all relevant data, and consensus of each extraction was performed by a second investigator to verify the data. Data were then entered into a database and quality checked for accuracy. DATA SYNTHESIS: Fifty-one primary studies that examined 4902 patients were included in this systematic review, of which 24 were randomized trials and 27 were nonrandomized studies. Comparative meta-analyses for blood loss, surgery time, and hospital length of stay were performed using a random-effects model and stratified by surgery type. Heterogeneity was tested using Q statistics. Statistical significance was defined as P < .05. CONCLUSION: Meta-analysis of outcomes comparing ultrasonic with conventional nonultrasonic surgical instrumentation demonstrates significant improvement of several perioperative outcomes in procedure-specific settings when ultrasonic instrumentation is used.

Systematic review to establish the safety profiles for direct and indirect inhibitors of p38 Mitogen-activated protein kinases for treatment of cancer. A systematic review of the literature.

OBJECTIVE: To identify potential tolerability issues for a novel selective p38 Mitogen-activated Protein Kinases (p38MAPK) inhibitor, we performed a systematic review of published studies and abstracts reporting safety outcomes for indirect inhibitors of p38MAPK. METHODS: A systematic review was performed to identify articles and meeting abstracts published between January 1, 1990 and March 31, 2005 that reported safety outcomes in cancer patients. Study, patient, and treatment level data were summarized using descriptive statistics without meta-analyses. RESULTS: Of 2,408 studies identified in the search, only 174 met eligibility criteria. Most studies (90%) involved thalidomide (or analog); only 12 (8%) studied sorafenib and 5 studied anti-tumor necrosis factor antibodies. In 165 treatment arms, 32% involved thalidomide (or analog) monotherapy and 2.4% involved sorafenib. The tolerability profiles of the two agents differed markedly. The most common Grade 3/4 adverse events experienced on thalidomide monotherapy were venous thrombosis (3.1% of patients), weakness/asthenia/fatigue (3.0%), neutropenia (2.7%), peripheral neuropathy/tingling/numbness (2.4%), somnolence/drowsiness/lethargy (2.4%), constipation (2.1%), and infection (2.0%). In contrast, the most common Grade 3/4 toxicities with sorafenib were diarrhea (4.8%), weakness/asthenia/fatigue (4.0%), hand-foot syndrome (3.2%), and leukopenia (2.4%). For both types of inhibitors, abnormal liver function tests were reported in about 3% of patients. CONCLUSIONS: The present review summarizes clinical safety information of anti-cancer drugs with indirect or nonspecific p38MAPK inhibitory activity. Based on our analysis, a novel p38MAPK inhibitor should be monitored for similar neurological, gastrointestinal, and cardiovascular symptoms in Phase I clinical trials.

Adherence to guidelines for use of erythropoiesis-stimulating agents in patients with chemotherapy-induced anemia: results of a retrospective study of an electronic medical-records database in the United States, 2002-2006.

BACKGROUND: Chemotherapy-induced anemia (CIA) commonly occurs in cancer patients receiving conventional myelosuppressive chemotherapy. Two national guidelines regarding the use of erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs) in CIA were released in 2002. Because of poorer disease outcomes and increased risk of adverse events associated with ESAs in recent studies, the use of ESAs has been increasingly restricted in practice guidelines in the years 2007 and 2008. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to provide a baseline for adherence to national guidelines in the use of ESAs for CIA between 2002 and 2006. METHODS: This retrospective study used the Varian Medical Oncology database (Varian Medical Systems, Inc., Palo Alto, California) of electronic medical records, representing 17 outpatient oncology organizations at 71 clinic locations in the United States. Adults diagnosed with any malignant neoplasm who started conventional cytotoxic chemotherapy between January 1, 2002, and September 30, 2006, were included. The proportion of patients receiving an ESA was calculated by hemoglobin (Hb) level during each chemotherapy cycle, stratified by line of chemotherapy and year. Logistic regression modeling identified predictors of ESA use in anemic patients during the first chemotherapy cycle. RESULTS: The records of 17,731 cancer patients were evaluated. Median (SD) age was 61 (13) years, and 58.9% were female. Most patients (84.1%) had a solid tumor. Many patients (41.3%) received platinum containing chemotherapy and 74.4% received combination chemotherapy. During the first 5 cycles of first-line chemotherapy among patients with CIA (Hb <11 g/dL), ESAs were used by 55.8% of patients at cycle 1 and 68.9% at cycle 5. ESA use in CIA patients increased across lines of chemotherapy and time. Few patients (2.8%) received an ESA at Hb >13 g/dL. The statistically significant predictors of ESA use included age >65 years, eastern US residence, private health insurance, community-based care, and solid tumors, especially lung cancer. CONCLUSION: The patterns we observed were generally consistent with prevailing ESA labels and national guidelines during 2002 through 2006. Although ESA use in patients with CIA increased over chemotherapy cycles, lines of chemotherapy, and time, <70% of CIA episodes were treated with ESAs during the initial 5 chemotherapy cycles.

Very first impressions.

First impressions of people's personalities are often formed by using the visual appearance of their faces. Defining how quickly these impressions can be formed has critical implications for understanding social interactions and for determining the visual properties used to shape them. To study impression formation independent of emotional cues, threat judgments were made on faces with a neutral expression. Consequently, participants' judgments pertained to the personality rather than to a certain temporary emotional state (e.g., anger). The results demonstrate that consistent first impressions can be formed very quickly, based on whatever information is available within the first 39 ms. First impressions were less consistent under these conditions when the judgments were about intelligence, suggesting that survival-related traits are judged more quickly. The authors propose that low spatial frequencies mediate this swift formation of threat judgments and provide evidence that supports this hypothesis.

A comparison of the accuracy of two minimally invasive breast biopsy methods: a systematic literature review and meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE: The primary objective was to quantify and compare the accuracy and failure rates of directional vacuum assisted biopsy (DVAB) and core needle biopsy (CNB) when used under stereotactic (ST) guidance to biopsy suspicious breast lesions identified with screening mammography. METHODS: We performed a systematic review of the literature published from January 1996 to July 2004, reporting all-comers populations in Western-style health care systems (i.e., North America, Europe, Australia or New Zealand), referred after screening mammography for breast biopsy using DVAB or CNB under ST guidance. Meta-analyses were conducted for DVAB and CNB, using open surgical biopsy and/or long-term clinical and/or mammogram follow-up as the diagnostic reference standard. The main outcomes of interest were those of greatest clinical relevance, i.e., miss rates and underestimation rates for malignancy. Also, technical failure rate and non-diagnostic rate were assessed for each biopsy method. RESULTS: Thirty-five studies qualified for the review. There were 12 studies with a DVAB group (n=5,119 patients), and 25 studies with a CNB group (n=6,236). There were no studies including both a DVAB and a CNB group, thus precluding any direct, within-study comparisons of accuracy. Overall agreement rate between DVAB and the reference standard was 97.3%, and between CNB and the reference standard, 93.5%. The frequency of technical failures with CNB was slightly higher than DVAB (5.7 vs. 1.5%), as was the frequency of non-diagnostic samples (2.1 vs. 0%). Of the non-diagnostic CNB samples, 23% were subsequently found to be malignant on reference standard. In multivariate analyses using four covariates (procedure type, geographic location, reference standard, and patient position), there were no significant predictors of agreement rates, but some variables were significant predictors of miss rates. For benign to malignant upgrades, study location was a significant predictor, with more upgrades in non-NA locations. For atypia to malignant upgrades, the type of procedure was a significant predictor, with more underestimations in CNB studies. CONCLUSION: The best available evidence suggests that, in screening populations referred for minimally invasive breast biopsy biopsy requiring ST guidance, DVAB may provide lower miss and underestimation rates for clinically relevant diagnoses than does CNB.