Tag: statistics

Cancer Nurs. 2021 Aug 11. doi: 10.1097/NCC.0000000000000996. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Depressive symptoms in Arab women with breast cancer (AWBC) in Saudi Arabia can be influenced by spirituality, religiosity, social support, and breast cancer’s stigma. Understanding the role of these factors can raise awareness and help create policies to improve care for breast cancer patients. Yet, there is limited research addressing the impact of these factors on depressive symptoms in AWBC.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate factors influencing depressive symptoms in AWBC in Saudi Arabia.

METHODS: A cross-sectional design and convenience sampling were used to recruit 59 AWBC from oncology departments in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, who were receiving active treatment to participate in this study. Participants completed an online survey or paper-based survey including questions on sociodemographics, social support, spirituality, religiosity, depressive symptoms, and breast cancer’s stigma. Pearson correlation and multiple regression analysis were used to examine the influence of numerous factors on depressive symptoms in AWBC; Student t test statistic was used to distinguish the depressive symptom scores between online and paper-based survey.

RESULTS: The average age of participants was 49 years (SD = 8.31). The mean (SD) of depressive symptoms was 20.52 (12.36). Pearson correlation analyses indicated that cancer patients with high levels of depressive symptoms were associated with low levels of spiritualty and religiosity, and high levels of breast cancer stigma.

CONCLUSIONS: Religiosity and spirituality work as protective factors against depressive symptoms in AWBC.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Including religiosity and spirituality in the intervention plan should be considered when caring for AWBC.

PMID:34380962 | DOI:10.1097/NCC.0000000000000996

Nurs Res. 2021 Aug 9. doi: 10.1097/NNR.0000000000000548. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The gut microbiome is an important determinant of health and disease in preterm infants.

OBJECTIVES: The objective of this paper is to share our current protocol for other neonatal intensive care units to potentially expand their existing protocols aiming to characterize the relationship between the intestinal microbiome and health outcomes in preterm infants.

METHODS: This prospective, longitudinal study planned to recruit 160 preterm infants born <32 weeks’ gestational age or weighing <1,500 grams and admitted to one of two-level III/IV neonatal intensive care units. During the neonatal intensive care unit period, the primary measures included events of early life pain/stress, gut microbiome, host genetic variations, and neurobehavioral assessment. During follow-up visits, gut microbiome, pain sensitivity, and medical, growth, and developmental outcomes at 4-, 8-12-, and 18-24-month corrected age (CA) were measured.

DISCUSSION: As of February 14, 2020, 214 preterm infants have been recruited. We hypothesize that infants who experience greater levels of pain/stress will have altered gut microbiome, including potential adverse outcomes such as necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) and host genetic variations, feeding intolerance, and/or neurodevelopmental impairments. These will differ from the intestinal microbiome of preterm infants that do not develop these adverse outcomes. To test this hypothesis, we will determine how alterations in the intestinal microbiome affect the risk of developing NEC, feeding intolerance, and neurodevelopmental impairments in preterm infants. In addition, we will examine the interaction between the intestinal microbiome and host genetics in the regulation of intestinal health and neurodevelopmental outcomes.

PMID:34380978 | DOI:10.1097/NNR.0000000000000548

Proc Jpn Acad Ser B Phys Biol Sci. 2021;97(7):337-370. doi: 10.2183/pjab.97.019.

ABSTRACT

The Subaru Telescope^a) is an 8.2 m optical/infrared telescope constructed during 1991-1999 and has been operational since 2000 on the summit area of Maunakea, Hawaii, by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). This paper reviews the history, key engineering issues, and selected scientific achievements of the Subaru Telescope. The active optics for a thin primary mirror was the design backbone of the telescope to deliver a high-imaging performance. Adaptive optics with a laser-facility to generate an artificial guide-star improved the telescope vision to its diffraction limit by cancelling any atmospheric turbulence effect in real time. Various observational instruments, especially the wide-field camera, have enabled unique observational studies. Selected scientific topics include studies on cosmic reionization, weak/strong gravitational lensing, cosmological parameters, primordial black holes, the dynamical/chemical evolution/interactions of galaxies, neutron star mergers, supernovae, exoplanets, proto-planetary disks, and outliers of the solar system. The last described are operational statistics, plans and a note concerning the culture-and-science issues in Hawaii.

PMID:34380914 | DOI:10.2183/pjab.97.019

ASAIO J. 2021 Aug 10. doi: 10.1097/MAT.0000000000001548. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

This study presents an edge detection and speckle tracking (EDST) based algorithm to calculate distensibility as percentage of change of vessel diameter during cardiac cycles. Canny edge detector, Vandermonde matrix representation, Kanade Lucas Tomasi algorithm with pyramidal segmentation, and penalized least squares technique identifies the vessel lumen edge, track the vessel diameter, detrend the signal and find peaks and valleys when the vessel is fully distended or contracted. An upper extremity artery from 10 patients underwent an ultrasound examination as part of preoperative evaluation before arteriovenous fistula surgery. Three studies were performed to evaluate EDST with automatic peak and valley selection versus manual speckle selection of expert users using manual peak and valley selection. Results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology, to obtain comparable results as those obtained by expert-users, and considerably reducing the variability associated with external factors such as excessive motion, fluctuations in stroke volume, beat-to-beat blood pressure changes, breathing cycles, and arm-transducer pressure.

PMID:34380948 | DOI:10.1097/MAT.0000000000001548

Saudi J Gastroenterol. 2021 Aug 11. doi: 10.4103/sjg.sjg_673_20. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: There has been recent debate comparing the efficacy of gastric electrical stimulation (GES) with pyloric intervention, but medical literature lacks clear indications for when to perform GES or pyloric intervention. This study aims to assess the effect of sociodemographic factors and hospital characteristics on the surgical technique chosen for the treatment of gastroparesis.

METHODS: Data was extracted from the National Inpatient Sample between the years 2012 and 2014, using any discharge diagnosis of gastroparesis. For comparison of analysis between GES and pyloric surgical intervention, pyloroplasty, endoscopic pyloric dilation, and pyloromyotomy were considered to be pyloric interventions. The study population was divided into two groups, one which received GES and the other receiving pyloric intervention, to compare socioeconomic factors and hospital characteristics.

RESULTS: In total, 737,930 hospitalizations had a discharge diagnosis of gastroparesis between 2012 and 2014. On weighted multivariant analysis of patients undergoing GES or pyloric intervention for gastroparesis, being female (odds ratio (OR) 1.49, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.25-1.78; P < 0.001), being Hispanic (OR 1.75, 95%CI; P < 0.001), being in urban teaching (OR 1.41, 95%CI 1.15-1.72; P < 0.001), and nonteaching hospitals (OR 2.93, 95%CI 2.4-3.58; P < 0.001), early satiety (OR 6.70, 95%CI 1.54-31.25; P = 0.01), and diabetes mellitus (OR 2.14, 95%CI 1.78-2.56; P < 0.001) were each statistically significantly correlated with receiving GES intervention compared to pyloric intervention.

CONCLUSION: The racial difference, payer source, and hospital location affected the surgical intervention (GES or pyloric intervention) that patients with gastroparesis would receive.

PMID:34380871 | DOI:10.4103/sjg.sjg_673_20

Neural Regen Res. 2022 Mar;17(3):557-558. doi: 10.4103/1673-5374.320984.

NO ABSTRACT

PMID:34380888 | DOI:10.4103/1673-5374.320984

Indian J Cancer. 2021 Jul 16. doi: 10.4103/ijc.IJC_741_18. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Following a diagnosis of cancer, distress is a common reaction. For Iranian women with endometrial cancer, treatment and survivorship can result in disabling symptoms of depression, anxiety, social, and spiritual crises. The aim of this study was to determine whether a combination of education and support intervention as a comprehensive program focusing on education, coping, and support had better short- and long-term effects on anxiety of these patients.

METHODS: The current randomized clinical trial was performed on a sample of 140 women with endometrial cancer. A two-part instrument was used – a demographic information form and “Beck’s Anxiety” questionnaire. The intervention was an educational-supportive program in 3 weekly sessions in experimental group (N = 70), whereas control group (N = 70) received routine care. Descriptive statistics, Chi-square test, t-tests, and repeated measure analysis of variance were used to analyze data. P value less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant.

RESULTS: The total scores of anxiety (mean± standard deviation) was significantly lower in the experimental group immediately after intervention (8.46 ± 5.17, P < 0.001), 1 month (7.78 ± 4.59, P < 0.001) and 2 months (7.55 ± 4.55, P < 0.001) after intervention to compare with before intervention (16.82 ± 10.19).

CONCLUSION: In this study, this program could decrease the anxiety in women with endometrial cancer.

PMID:34380854 | DOI:10.4103/ijc.IJC_741_18

Indian J Cancer. 2021 Jul 16. doi: 10.4103/ijc.IJC_765_19. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: At present, the diagnosis and efficacy evaluation of acute leukemia (AL) are assessed by bone marrow aspiration, which is invasive and subject to sampling errors. Therefore, there is a pressing need to develop a noninvasive and accurate imaging method to evaluate bone marrow changes in patients with AL. This study aimed to compare the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values obtained from fluid-attenuated inversion recovery diffusion-weighted imaging (FLAIR-DWI) and conventional DWI in the lumbar bone marrow of patients with AL and to investigate their performance for evaluating response to induction chemotherapy.

METHODS: A total of 28 patients with newly diagnosed AL and 25 patients with AL after induction chemotherapy underwent MRI scans at 1.5 Tesla using a conventional DWI and a FLAIR-DWI sequence on sagittal planes covering the lumbar bone marrow. Further, the ADC values from these two sequences, denoted as ADC_CON and ADC_FLAIR, were measured on multiple vertebrae. The percentage of leukemia cells in bone marrow was recorded, and bone marrow aspiration was performed on treated patients to determine complete remission (CR) and nonremission (NR).

RESULTS: ADC_FLAIR [(0.453 ± 0.103) × 10^-3 mm²/s] was significantly lower than ADC_CON [(0.486 ± 0.096) × 10^-3 mm²/s] in the 28 untreated patients (t = 3.051, P = 0.005). In the 25 treated patients, ADC_FLAIR and ADC_CON values [(0.566 ± 0.239) × 10^-3 mm²/s] and [(0.716 ± 0.235) × 10^-3 mm²/s], respectively, were higher compared with the untreated patients. The ADC_CON values showed a nonsignificant difference between the CR (n = 18) and NR (n = 7) groups (t = 1.409, P = 0.305). However, the ADC_FLAIR values exhibited statistically significant difference (t = 2.542, P = 0.018) between the two groups. In a receiver operator characteristic (ROC) analysis, the area under the curve (AUC) using ADC_FLAIR (0.770) was larger than that of ADC_CON (0.611) in distinguishing the CR and NR patients following the chemotherapy.

CONCLUSION: Although both ADC_CON and ADC_FLAIR are sensitive to tissue changes induced by chemotherapy, FLAIR-DWI outperformed conventional DWI in separating AL patients with CR from NR after chemotherapy. A possible mechanism is that FLAIR-DWI suppresses signals from free water, making the ADC measurement more sensitive to structural changes in the bone marrow.

PMID:34380856 | DOI:10.4103/ijc.IJC_765_19

Indian J Cancer. 2021 Jul 2. doi: 10.4103/ijc.IJC_538_19. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Cervical cancer is known to be the fourth most common cancer among women globally. In various factors, genetic factors have been considered as one major risk factor for cervical cancer. The research of genetic susceptibility to cervical cancer can be greatly helpful in studying the complex mechanism. This study was conducted to identify whether polymorphic variants of p73 G4C14-A4T14 and tumor protein p53 (p53) codon 72, either independently or jointly, might be associated with the risk of cervical cancer.

METHODS: The genotypes of p73 G4C14-A4T14 and p53 codon 72 polymorphisms of peripheral blood DNA from 190 cervical cancer patients and 210 controls were investigated using polymerase chain reaction with confronting two-pair primers and polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism, respectively.

RESULTS: The frequency of p73 G4C14-A4T14 AT/AT (P = 0.013) or p53 codon 72 GG (P = 0.026) genotype was associated with an increased risk of cervical cancer by comparing with the p73 G4C14-A4T14 GC/GC or p53 codon 72 CC genotype, respectively. In addition, the interaction between the p73 G4C14-A4T14 and p53 codon 72 polymorphisms increased the risk of cervical cancer in a multiply manner, with the odds ratio being 3.692 (95% confidence interval =2.106-6.473) for subjects carrying both p73 G4C14-A4T14 GC/AT+AT/AT and p53 codon 72 GG genotypes.

CONCLUSION: These results suggest that there is a statistical difference between p73 and p53 gene polymorphism and the risk of cervical cancer in Chinese women, and there is a potential gene-gene interaction in the incidence of cervical cancer.

PMID:34380847 | DOI:10.4103/ijc.IJC_538_19

Indian J Cancer. 2021 Jul 2. doi: 10.4103/ijc.IJC_666_19. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The aim of the study is to investigate the factors affecting acute hematologic toxicity (HT) in the adjuvant radiotherapy (RT) of gynecologic cancers by machine learning.

METHODS: Between January 2015 and September 2018, 121 patients with endometrium and cervical cancer who underwent adjuvant RT with volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT) were evaluated. The relationship between patient and treatment characteristics and acute HT was investigated using machine learning techniques, namely Logistic Regression, XGBoost, Artificial Neural Network, Random Forest, Naive Bayes, Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Gaussian Naive Bayes (GaussianNB) algorithms.

RESULTS: No HT was observed in 11 cases (9.1%) and at least one grade of HT was observed in 110 cases. There were 55 (45.5%) cases with ≤grade 2 HT (mild HT) and 66 (54.5%) cases with grade ≥3 HT (severe HT). None of the patients developed grade 5 HT. Of 24 variables that could affect acute HT, nine were determined as important variables. According to the results, the best machine learning technique for acute HT estimation was SVM (accuracy 70%, area under curve (AUC): 0.65, sensitivity 71.4%, specificity 66.6%). Parameters affecting hematologic toxicity were evaluated also by classical statistical methods and there was a statistically significant relationship between age, RT, and bone marrow (BM) maximum dose.

CONCLUSION: It is important to predict the patients who will develop acute HT in order to minimize the side effects of treatment. If these cases can be identified in advance, toxicity rates can be reduced by taking necessary precautions. These cases can be predicted with machine learning algorithms.

PMID:34380848 | DOI:10.4103/ijc.IJC_666_19