Effectiveness of a tailored forest package of interventions, including topical repellents, in reducing malaria incidence in Myanmar.

Background: In Myanmar, progress towards malaria elimination has stagnated in some areas requiring deployment of new tools and approaches to accelerate malaria elimination. While there is evidence that networks of community-based malaria workers and insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) can reduce malaria transmission in a variety of settings, evidence for the effectiveness of other interventions, such as topical repellents, is limited. Since malaria transmission in Myanmar occurs outdoors, mainly among forest-goers, this study tested the effectiveness of topical repellents in combination with supplemental ITN distribution and strengthened networks of malaria workers.

Contact X-ray Brachytherapy as a Boost Therapy After Neoadjuvant (Chemo)Radiation in High-Risk Locally Advanced Rectal Cancer.

Purpose: Radical surgery following neoadjuvant therapy is the standard of care for locally advanced rectal cancer. A contact x-ray brachytherapy (CXB) boost can alternatively be used to treat residual disease postneoadjuvant (chemo)radiation, especially in patients who are not suitable for or do not wish to have surgery. Its role has mostly been studied to date in low- to intermediate-risk patients.

Sequence of Contact X-ray Brachytherapy (CXB) and External Beam Radiation (EBRT) in organ-preserving treatment for small rectal cancer.

Background And Purpose: External Beam Radiotherapy (EBRT) followed by Contact X-ray Brachytherapy (CXB) and vice versa are viable alternatives to surgery for selected rectal cancer patients who have small tumours (≤3 cm). However, the optimal sequence of treatment needs to be established. We compared two approaches using Propensity Score (PS) matching and inverse probability treatment weighting (IPTW) analyses to investigate whether the sequence of treatment affected patient outcomes.

Contact X-ray brachytherapy (CXB) as a salvage treatment for rectal cancer patients who developed local tumor re-growth after watch-and-wait approach.

Purpose: A watch-and-wait approach is an alternative to surgery for rectal cancer patients who have achieved a clinical complete response (cCR) following neoadjuvant (chemo)radiotherapy. However, approximately 25-38% of patients experience subsequent local tumor re-growth that requires salvage surgery. We evaluated the effectiveness of contact X-ray brachytherapy (CXB) as an alternative method of salvage therapy for those patients who were either unfit for or refused surgery.