Defining innovations of therapeutic interventions: a position paper by the Italian Society of Hospital Pharmacists.

Defining innovation in pharmacotherapy is complex because general definitions cannot be easily adapted to the specificity of different therapeutic areas. The Italian Society of Hospital Pharmacists has developed a position paper in which three criteria are used to recognise innovation to a new intervention: (1) clinical relevance of the trial's primary end-point; (2) evidence of superiority; (3) use of an adequate comparator in the controlled trial. Clinically relevant end-points should appear in predetermined lists by therapeutic area managed by our society; likewise, the third criterion must be documented by an authoritative therapeutic guideline recognised to be still valid.

68Ga-DOTA-TATE PET vs. 123I-MIBG in identifying malignant neural crest tumours.

Purpose: We aimed to compare imaging with (123)I-MIBG and (68)Ga-DOTA-TATE in neural crest tumours (NCT) to see if the latter could offer more advantage in detecting extra lesions and have higher sensitivity for malignant lesions.

Procedures: We retrospectively reviewed 12 patients (M = 10, F = 2; age range 20-71 years) with NCT (phaeochromocytomas = 7, paragangliomas = 4, medullary thyroid cancer = 1) who underwent both (68)Ga-DOTA-TATE positron emission tomography (PET) or PET/computed tomography (CT) and (123)I-MIBG single-photon emission computed tomography within 6 months. Visual assessment of all lesions and measurement of target/non-target (T/N) ratio in selected lesions were performed.

[Administrative data as source for epidemiological research: clinical pathways of diabetic patients].

Unlabelled: Objectives 1. To assess if record linkage of two different databases could improve the quality and understand the epidemiology of diabetes and its complications. 2.