Statistics in Oncology

INTRODUCTION: Geriatric assessment (GA) is currently not a standard of cancer care across Canada. In the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, there are no known formal geriatric teams in outpatient oncology settings. Therefore, it is not known whether, how, and to what extent GA is performed in oncology clinics, or what supports are needed to carry out a GA. The objective of this study was to explore Saskatchewan oncology care providers' knowledge, perceptions, and practices regarding GA, and their perceived barriers to implementing formal GA...

OBJECTIVES: Many oncology health professionals (HPs) report communicating with carers as complex; and receive limited carer-relevant training. We developed an online HP education program for supporting and managing carer involvement (eTRIO). We aimed to assess whether HPs' self-efficacy in carer communication, knowledge, and decision-making preferences improve following eTRIO. Satisfaction and implementation potential were assessed. METHODS: This type 1 hybrid effectiveness-implementation study used a pre-post single arm intervention design...

The right hemisphere has been underestimated by being considered as the non-dominant hemisphere. However, it is involved in many functions, including movement, language, cognition, and emotion. Therefore, because lesions on this side are usually not resected under awake mapping, there is a risk of unfavorable neurological outcomes. The goal of this study is to compare the functional and oncological outcomes of awake surgery (AwS) versus surgery under general anesthesia (GA) in supratentorial right-sided gliomas...

PURPOSE: The treatment of the advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with KRAS mutation has been closely paid more attention. The aim of this study is to investigate the efficacy of different first-line regimens in advanced KRAS-mutated non-small cell lung cancer. METHODS: In our retrospective study, we collected patients with advanced NSCLC with KRAS mutation in Zhejiang Cancer Hospital between January 2015 and May 2023. We analyzed the benefit of different first-line therapy according to theraputic methods and the differential effect of the same treatment method among KRAS-mutated subtypes...

INTRODUCTION: The Dual Shell Encompass Fibreplast™ System (DS-Encompass) by CQ Medical™ is validated for frameless immobilization in stereotactic brain radiotherapy. An alternative mask model has been proposed with the rear shell replaced by a Moldcare® cushion (M-Encompass). To validate the use of this model in our cranial stereotactic workflow method including HyperArc™, we performed a prospective randomized study comparing inter-and intrafractional motion and patients comfort between both masks...

BACKGROUND: Both CellSearch and CellCollector have been accepted as the proper devices to capture CTC by domestic approval department. However, there is little article about the comparison between these two devices around the world. Herein, we conducted the real-world study to compare with these two devices and to re-verify the efficacy of CTC counts. METHODS: Patients who meet the following points should be included in the analysis. 1. Female, aged 18 years or older; 2...

OBJECTIVES: The objective of this article is to describe the profile of the population attended to by the palliative geriatrics clinic and to evaluate the symptomatic control derived from the care provided. METHODS: During 2017 a model based on a holistic approach was implemented, in this model the team geriatric palliative care plays a fundamental role by being part of the palliative care team and functioning as a liaison with the oncology team and other required services...

Single-arm phase II trials are very common in oncology. A fixed sample trial may lack sufficient power if the true efficacy is less than the assumed one. Adaptive designs have been proposed in the literature. We propose a Simon's design based, adaptive sequential design. Simon's design is the most used fixed sample design for single-arm phase II oncology trials. A prominent feature of Simon's design is that it minimizes the sample size when there is no clinically meaningful efficacy. We identify Simon's trial as a special group sequential design...

PURPOSE: Radiation necrosis (RN) is a local inflammatory reaction that arises in response to radiation injury and may cause significant morbidity. This study aims to evaluate and compare the efficacy of bevacizumab and laser interstitial thermal therapy (LITT) in treating RN in patients with previously radiated central nervous system (CNS) neoplasms. METHODS: PubMed, Cochrane, Scopus, and EMBASE databases were screened. Studies of patients with radiation necrosis from primary or secondary brain tumors were included...

BACKGROUND: A co-surgeon model is known to be favorable in microvascular breast reconstruction, but simultaneous co-surgeon deep inferior epigastric perforator (DIEP) flap cases have not been well-studied. The authors hypothesize that performing two simultaneous co-surgeon bilateral DIEP flap reconstructions results in non-inferior clinical outcomes and may improve patient access to care. METHODS: A single-institution, retrospective cohort study was performed utilizing record review to identify all cases of co-surgeon free-flap breast reconstructions over a 38-month period...

Current drug development strategies present many challenges that can impede drug approval by regulatory agencies. Alternative study models, such as adaptive trial designs, have recently sparked interest, as they provide a flexible and more efficient approach in conducting clinical trials. Adaptive trial designs offer several potential benefits over traditional randomized controlled trials, which include decrease in costs, reduced clinical development time and limiting exposure of patients to potentially ineffective treatments allowing completion of studies with fewer patients...

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the prevalence of sarcopenia and its impact on clinical outcomes in patients with esophageal, gastric, or colorectal cancer (EC, GC, and CRC) receiving neoadjuvant therapy through Meta-analysis. METHODS: We searched the PubMed, Embase databases, and Cochrane Library for the prevalence of sarcopenia and its impact on clinical outcomes in EC, GC, or CRC patients treated with neoadjuvant therapy (NAT) from inception to November 2022. The primary endpoints were the prevalence of sarcopenia and overall survival in patients with EC, GC, or CRC treated with NAT...

Introduction Artificial intelligence (AI) models using large language models (LLMs) and non-specific domains have gained attention for their innovative information processing. As AI advances, it's essential to regularly evaluate these tools' competency to maintain high standards, prevent errors or biases, and avoid flawed reasoning or misinformation that could harm patients or spread inaccuracies. Our study aimed to determine the performance of Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (ChatGPT) by OpenAI and Google BARD (BARD) in orthopedic surgery, assess performance based on question types, contrast performance between different AIs and compare AI performance to orthopedic residents...

BACKGROUND: Long-standing controversy has existed over whether sublobar resection is an adequate oncological procedure for clinical stage IA non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) ≤2 cm, despite the recent randomized trial reports of Japanese Clinical Oncology Group (JCOG) 0802 and Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB) 140503 demonstrating non-inferior outcomes with sublobar resection compared to lobectomy. As practice patterns shift, we sought to compare oncologic outcomes in patients with these early-stage tumors after wedge resection, segmentectomy, or lobectomy in a contemporary, real-world, cohort...

PURPOSE: The purpose of the study was to determine the status of spiritual needs and influencing factors of postoperative breast cancer (BC) women undergoing chemotherapy. PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: This study is a cross-sectional study. A total of 173 participants completed a general information questionnaire and a Chinese version of the Spiritual Needs Scale at the Guangxi Medical University Cancer Hospital. Data were collected by purposive sampling from December 2022 to April 2023...

Cancer is a leading cause of death, with a rapidly increasing global burden. Chemotherapy is the most effective cancer treatment, and with its benefits, there exist potential problems. The present study assesses cancer patients' knowledge, attitude, and practice toward chemotherapy use. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in the oncology wards of various tertiary care hospitals and cancer care centers in Lahore, Pakistan. Patients were included in the study based on convenient sampling. A structured questionnaire with 25 (close-ended) questions and a demographic profile was used to collect data...

INTRODUCTION: In soft tissue pelvic liposarcoma and leiomyosarcoma, it is unknown whether a specific tumor size cut-off may help to better predict prognosis, defined as cancer-specific survival (CSS). We tested whether different tumor size cut-offs, could improve CSS prediction. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Surgically treated non-metastatic soft tissue pelvic sarcoma patients were identified (Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results 2004-2019). Kaplan-Meier plots, univariable and multivariable Cox-regression models and receiver operating characteristic-derived area under the curve (AUC) estimates were used...

BACKGROUND: Despite numerous studies on racial/ethnic disparities among patients with breast cancer, there is a paucity of literature evaluating racial/ethnic differences in 21-gene recurrence score (RS) and survival differences stratified by RS risk categories. We thus performed an observational cohort study to examine racial/ethnic disparities in the context of RS. METHODS: The National Cancer Database (NCDB) was queried for female patients diagnosed between 2006 and 2018 with estrogen receptor (ER)-positive, pT1-3N0-1aM0 breast cancer who received surgery followed by adjuvant endocrine therapy and had RS data available...

INTRODUCTION: Delayed bleeding is a potentially serious complication after partial nephrectomy (PN), with reported rates of 1%-2%. Patients with multiple renal tumors, including those with hereditary forms of kidney cancer, are often managed with resection of multiple tumors in a single kidney which may increase the risk of delayed bleeding, though outcomes have not previously been reported specifically in this population. The objective of this study was to evaluate the incidence and timing of delayed bleeding as well as the impact of intervention on renal functional outcomes in a cohort primarily made up of patients at risk for bilateral, multifocal renal tumors...

INTRODUCTION: The use of stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) for tumors in close proximity to the central mediastinal structures has been associated with a high risk of toxicity. This study (BLINDED FOR REVIEW) aimed to determine the maximally tolerated dose (MTD) of SBRT for ultra-central (UC) non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC), using a time-to-event continual reassessment methodology (TITE-CRM). METHODS: Patients with T1-3N0M0 (≤ 6 cm) NSCLC were eligible...