The Tango to Modern Collaboration and Patient-Centric Value Generation in Health Care - a real-world guide from practitioners for practitioners.

Background: Value-Based Health Care (VBHC) represents a pivotal shift from volume-based to outcome-driven quality metrics centered on patient-valued outcomes. This approach requires collaboration across all participants in the health care value chain; providers, payers, pharma, policymakers and patients (collectively known as the 5Ps). Despite substantial theoretical endorsement of VBHC's potential for improving health outcomes and system efficiency, empirical evidence detailing its practical implementation remains limited.

Interleukin-2 inhalation therapy temporarily induces asthma-like airway inflammation.

Background: Inhaled interleukin-2 (IL-2) is an effective and safe treatment in metastasing renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) but known to potentially elicit respiratory symptoms.

Objectives: The present study analyses the effects of IL-2 using a panel of measures including markers of airway inflammation.

Methods: Ten patients with mRCC (7m/3f; mean age, 63 yrs) were measured at baseline, 6-10 days after start of therapy (n = 5, inhaled IL-2 only; n = 5, inhaled IL-2 plus 1/11th of daily dose subcutaneously), and 16-29 days later under continuous combined (inhaled plus subcutaneous) therapy, including additional subcutaneous IFN-alpha in 8 patients.

Micromachined sensor for lactate monitoring in saliva.

A miniaturised sensor for continuous lactate measurement in saliva was developed and tested. The sensor was built using silicon microfabrication technologies. The size of the chip is 5.

Therapeutic approaches in metastatic renal cell carcinoma: local immunotherapy.

Since 1990, aerosol interleukin (IL)-2 has been used to treat pulmonary metastatic renal cell carcinoma (pmRCC). Inhalation therapy deposits a drug into the airways to achieve a high, local, clinical effect while avoiding serious systemic side effects. We report three studies to describe safety and efficacy of aerosol IL-2 in patients with pmRCC.

Cellular profiles of induced sputum in children with stable cystic fibrosis: comparison with BAL.

Neutrophil-dominated endobronchial inflammation is a major characteristic of cystic fibrosis (CF) and there is increasing demand for easy-to-perform noninvasive monitoring for prediction and intervention. Fourteen stable paediatric CF patients (8-17 yrs; mean forced expiratory volume in one second 86.7% of the predicted value) were investigated once by fractional bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) and by sputum induction on three occasions, 2-6 weeks apart.