Canadian Women's Health Network - survey re: care in nursing homes/long-term care - cancer patients - take survey!

Is someone close to you in a nursing home or long-term care facility? Please consider filling out this survey!

From the National Network on Environments and Women’s Health, York University
We are a group of researchers with the national working group, Women and Health Protection, based at York University. We have a longstanding interest in the uses of prescription medications and in this project want to learn about the experiences of people who have family members* in long-term care facilities who may be taking prescription drugs. Family members often have the most direct knowledge about these issues and have much to contribute to a discussion about medication use. We hope to find out more about these experiences from responses to this survey, and plan to use this (anonymously-provided) information to develop a series of recommendations that may make things better for seniors in care.
If you are involved with the care of someone in a nursing home or long term care facility, we invite you to fill out the survey found at the following link:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/J93382Q
The survey will take about 15-20 minutes to complete. All information you provide will be anonymous; no one is required to provide a name. More information about our research is provided in the introduction to the survey The closing date for completing this survey is Monday, 21 March 2011.
We thank you in advance for helping us out. And please pass this invitation to others you know who may have a family member* in long term care so we can hear from as diverse a group as possible. We have also attached a pdf of the survey if individuals would prefer to fill it in manually and return to us by mail.
Anne Rochon Ford, Co-Director
National Network on Environments and Women’s Health

he role of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in the management of patients with advanced stage ovarian cancer: Survey results from members of the SGO (Society of Gynecologic Oncologists)

abstract: Urinary tract injury: medical negligence or unavoidable complication?

"The incidence of urinary tract injury is low in most gynaecological operations but, if undiagnosed, is a cause of significant postoperative morbidity for the patient and litigation for the gynaecologist. A Medline search of studies of urinary tract injury at gynaecological surgery show that only one in 10 ureteral injuries and one in three bladder injuries are detected at the time of surgery without intra-operative cystoscopy. As cystoscopy is not routinely performed by the majority of gynaecologists during surgery, even in difficult cases, failure to detect injury to the urinary tract by itself should not be seen as negligence. However, all gynaecologists performing pelvic surgery should be encouraged to become competent in cystourethroscopy and perform this intra-operatively, at least in all high-risk cases of gynaecological surgery."

Invitation to European-based patient groups/patients to participate in an online survey on patient information - PatientView alerts and updates

abstract: Apr 5, 2010: Development of a Multimarker Assay for Early Detection of Ovarian Cancer -- JCO

Note: accompanying Editorial notes that this study was comprised of postmenopausal women only
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JCO Early Release, published online ahead of print Apr 5 2010
Journal of Clinical Oncology, 10.1200/JCO.2008.19.2484
Received August 3, 2008
Accepted January 5, 2010

Development of a Multimarker Assay for Early Detection of Ovarian Cancer (reference link for authors)

Purpose: Early detection of ovarian cancer has great promise to improve clinical outcome.
Patients and Methods: Ninety-six serum biomarkers were analyzed in sera from healthy women and from patients with ovarian cancer, benign pelvic tumors, and breast, colorectal, and lung cancers, using multiplex xMAP bead-based immunoassays. A Metropolis algorithm with Monte Carlo simulation (MMC) was used for analysis of the data.
Results: A training set, including sera from 139 patients with early-stage ovarian cancer, 149 patients with late-stage ovarian cancer, and 1,102 healthy women, was analyzed with MMC algorithm and cross validation to identify an optimal biomarker panel discriminating early-stage cancer from healthy controls. The four-biomarker panel providing the highest diagnostic power of 86% sensitivity (SN) for early-stage and 93% SN for late-stage ovarian cancer at 98% specificity (SP) was comprised of CA-125, HE4, CEA, and VCAM-1. This model was applied to an independent blinded validation set consisting of sera from 44 patients with early-stage ovarian cancer, 124 patients with late-stage ovarian cancer, and 929 healthy women, providing unbiased estimates of 86% SN for stage I and II and 95% SN for stage III and IV disease at 98% SP. This panel was selective for ovarian cancer showing SN of 33% for benign pelvic disease, SN of 6% for breast cancer, SN of 0% for colorectal cancer, and SN of 36% for lung cancer.
Conclusion: A panel of CA-125, HE4, CEA, and VCAM-1, after additional validation, could serve as an initial stage in a screening strategy for epithelial ovarian cancer.

NO abstract:CA-125 Monitoring in Ovarian Cancer: Patient Survey Responses to the Results of the MRC/EORTC CA-125 Surveillance Trial

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