China
Africa
Explore chapters and articles related to this topic
Pharmacogenomics Synergistic Strategies Using a Chimerical Peptide for Enhanced Chemotherapy Based on ROS and DNA Nanosystem
Published in Loutfy H. Madkour, Nanoparticle-Based Drug Delivery in Cancer Treatment, 2022
Response to therapy was evaluated using standard criteria for patients with measurable disease, based on WHO guidelines [77]. CA-125 was used to classify responses only in the absence of a measurable lesion and based on established guidelines [78]. A complete response (CR) was defined as complete disappearance of all measurable and assessable diseases or, in the absence of measurable lesions, a normalization of the CA-125 level after salvage therapy. A partial response (PR) was considered a 50% or greater reduction in the product obtained from the measurement of each bidimensional lesion for at least 4 weeks or a drop in the CA-125 by at least 50% for at least 4 weeks. Progressive disease was defined as a 50% or greater increase in the product from any lesion documented within 8 weeks of initiation of therapy, the appearance of any new lesion within 8 weeks of initiation of therapy, or doubling of CA-125 from baseline. For the purposes of our analysis, a clinically beneficial response (i.e., “responder”) included CR or PR. A patient who did not demonstrate a CR or PR was considered a “nonresponder.”
Multiplet resonances in MRS data from normal and cancerous prostate
Published in Dževad Belkić, Karen Belkić, Signal Processing in Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy with Biomedical Applications, 2010
It has also been suggested that MRSI could improve assessment of recurrence after radiation therapy, which causes fibrotic and atrophic changes that distort the glandular anatomy. This is manifested in low T2 weighted signal intensity on MRI, which is difficult to differentiate from prostate cancer. Here again, metabolic activity, notably the appearance of choline can be suggestive of local recurrence and help guide salvage therapy. Preliminary data indicate that MRSI detected recurrence of prostate cancer accurately after radiation therapy in over 80% of cases [429].
*
Published in Chad A. Mirkin, Spherical Nucleic Acids, 2020
C. Shad Thaxton, Robert Elghanian, Audrey D. Thomas, Savka I. Stoeva, Jae-Seung Lee, Norm D. Smith, Anthony J. Schaeffer, Helmut Klocker, Wolfgang Horninger, Georg Bartsch, Chad A. Mirkin
Although some researchers and clinicians argue about the merits of using PSA levels as a routine screening tool for prostate cancer [4, 5], PSA can be used as an unambiguous indicator of response to therapy and recurrence in the case of patients who have undergone radical prostatectomy [6, 7]. Biochemical recurrence after CaP treatment is defined as a PSA level rising from <0.1 ng/ mL to persistently >0.2 ng/mL, and occurs in up to 40% of men who are surgically treated [3, 7–9]. For pathologically aggressive and recurrent CaP, a number of studies have concluded that early adjuvant or salvage radiation treatment delivered after radical prostatectomy leads to significant improvements in patient outcomes [10, 11]. Also, intervention at low PSA values was significantly associated with improved outcomes in these studies [10, 11]. In contrast to CaP screening where serum PSA values are within a measurable range, radical prostatectomy eliminates the source of PSA production from the standpoint of commercially available PSA immunoassays, and serum values characteristically fall below the 0.1 ng/mL limit of detection. The same is often the case for patients receiving adjuvant or salvage therapy for CaP. As a result, clinicians and patients are not able to prospectively assess whether one is disease free or is destined for recurrence, nor can there be an objective assessment of the biochemical response to adjuvant or salvage treatments. In light of the clinical data, the ability to reliably and accurately quantify PSA values <0.1 ng/mL may enable a more timely assessment of the response to primary therapy, promptly direct the delivery of beneficial adjuvant or salvage treatments, and allow researchers to validate new therapies and assess the biochemical response to such interventions.
Polymer-based nano-therapies to combat COVID-19 related respiratory injury: progress, prospects, and challenges
Published in Journal of Biomaterials Science, Polymer Edition, 2021
Despite the improved molecular understanding of the infection, there is still no specific treatment for ARDS. Some common therapeutic strategies include protective mechanical ventilation, prone-positioning ventilation, fluid-conservative strategy, and other supportive care.[41] These strategies have some limitations like the development of ventilation-induced lung injury (VILI), exacerbation of lung injury, and stimulating inflammatory reactions.[42] Veno-venous extracorporeal membrane oxygenation or VV-ECMO is an effective life-saving intervention to treat ARDS. However, the routine application of ECMO as salvage therapy in severe ARDS patients is a matter of debate.[43,44] Broad-spectrum antiviral therapy could be an option to treat COVID-19 related ARDS patients. However, a low success rate due to ongoing inflammatory response, the emergence of rapid mutation of SARS-CoV-2 strains, and antibiotic administration’s timing make such pharmacologic treatments completely ineffective.[45]
Searching for therapies, seeking for hope: transnational cancer care in Asia
Published in Mobilities, 2019
Understanding patients and family caregivers as mobile agents also requires taking disease into account – not just as the driver of therapeutic mobility, but as a shaper. Disease involves prognosis and associated fears and hopes and the medical imaginary. I have argued that the ‘regime of diagnostic clinical truth’ (Prasad 2015) is place-specific. The medical imaginary, though, can be viewed as a ‘global form’ (Ong and Collier 2005); the desire to broaden the scope for hope and the readiness to take efforts to realize new hopes are shaped by local political economies of health care, the transnational circulation of medical knowledge, as well as individual characteristics, but basically can be found in many places of the world. Good (2007, 369) writes that there is a clinical narrative that ‘weds the experimental to the therapeutic’. When standard cancer treatments are ineffective, oncologists are expected to invite patients to what a clinician had called ‘salvage therapy’ (Good 2007, 369). The therapeutic journeys described in this paper can also be viewed as ‘salvage therapy’. Whereas in Good’s case, salvage refers to the experimental and hence insecure nature of the treatment, in our case, salvage refers to practice of leaving a familiar context to access treatment. Defeating the ‘disposable subject’ public health care ascribes to some cancer patients, family caregivers invite patients to the experiment of medical travel. In so doing, patients and family caregivers accumulate vulnerability and patients are exposed to treatments that, though standard at the destination, to them are at the same time new, promising and risky, hence experimental.
A post-market, randomized, controlled, prospective study evaluating intrathecal pain medication versus conventional medical management in the non-cancer, refractory, chronic pain population (PROSPER)
Published in Expert Review of Medical Devices, 2022
Jason E. Pope, Navdeep Jassal, Dawood Sayed, Denis Patterson, Gladstone McDowell, Anjum Bux, Phillip Lim, Eric Chang, Ali Nairizi, Samuel Grodofsky, Timothy R Deer
Intrathecal therapy has been an important offering for the treatment of moderate-to-severe refractory chronic pain for many decades, highlighted by numerous consensus and recommendation efforts [1–4]. Inspection of the peer reviewed literature highlights the paucity of randomized prospective clinical investigation for the placement of intrathecal therapy in the treatment algorithm for chronic pain, as compared to the wealth of studies for minimally invasive spinal decompressive procedures and other forms of neuromodulation [5–11]. As the trend is to position intrathecal therapy away from salvage therapy [12], many clinicians are using intrathecal therapy as the same line therapy in the algorithm as spinal cord stimulation [1].