Plos One
-
Randomized Controlled Trial
Acute pain therapy in postanesthesia care unit directed by skin conductance: a randomized controlled trial.
After surgery, effective and well-directed acute pain therapy is a necessary and integral part of the overall treatment plan. Generally, the assessment of pain intensity depends on a patient's self-evaluation using scoring systems such as numeric rating scales (NRS, 0 to 10). Recently, a "Pain Monitor" was commercially provided which is based on measurements of fluctuations of skin conductance (NFSC). In this randomized, controlled, single-blind trial, possible benefits of this certain device were studied. ⋯ Postoperative patients experience diverse stressors, such as anxiety, disorientation, shivering, sickness and pain. Although the application of continuous pain monitoring would be meaningful in this clinical setting, the tested device failed to distinguish pain from other stressors in postoperative adult patients.
-
Randomized Controlled Trial
Molecular prognostic prediction for locally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma by support vector machine integrated approach.
Accurate prognostication of locally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) will benefit patients for tailored therapy. Here, we addressed this issue by developing a mathematical algorithm based on support vector machine (SVM) through integrating the expression levels of multi-biomarkers. ⋯ Our SVM prognostic models designed in the RCT displayed strong power in refining patient prognosis for locally advanced NPC, potentially directing future target therapy against the related signaling pathways.
-
Randomized Controlled Trial
Efficacy of memantine for agitation in Alzheimer's dementia: a randomised double-blind placebo controlled trial.
Agitation in Alzheimer's disease (AD) is common and associated with poor patient life-quality and carer distress. The best evidence-based pharmacological treatments are antipsychotics which have limited benefits with increased morbidity and mortality. There are no memantine trials in clinically significant agitation but post-hoc analyses in other populations found reduced agitation. We tested the primary hypothesis, memantine is superior to placebo for clinically significant agitation, in patients with moderate-to-severe AD. ⋯ Memantine did not improve significant agitation in people with in moderate-to-severe AD. Future studies are urgently needed to test other pharmacological candidates in this group and memantine for neuropsychiatric symptoms.
-
Randomized Controlled Trial
Limit allogeneic blood use with routine re-use of patient's own blood: a prospective, randomized, controlled trial in total hip surgery.
There are risks related to blood incompatibility and blood-borne diseases when using allogeneic blood transfusion. Several alternatives exist today, one of which, used for autologous blood salvage perioperatively, is the Sangvia Blood Management System. This study was designed to investigate the efficacy of the system and to add data to previously reported safety results. ⋯ General low use of allogeneic blood in THA is seen in the current study of the Sangvia system used together with a transfusion protocol. The trial setting is under-powered due to premature termination and therefore not able to verify efficacy for the system itself but contributes with descriptive data on safety.
-
Randomized Controlled Trial
PTEN as a prognostic and predictive marker in postoperative radiotherapy for squamous cell cancer of the head and neck.
Tumor suppressor PTEN is known to control a variety of processes related to cell survival, proliferation, and growth. PTEN expression is considered as a prognostic factor in some human neoplasms like breast, prostate, and thyroid cancer. ⋯ These results suggest that PTEN may serve as a potent prognostic and predictive marker in postoperative radiotherapy for high-risk squamous cell cancer of the head and neck.