Are frail elderly patients treated in a CGA unit more satisfied with their hospital care than those treated in conventional acute medical care?

Objectives: Our aim was to study whether the acute care of frail elderly patients directly admitted to a comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) unit is superior to the care in a conventional acute medical care unit in terms of patient satisfaction.

Design: TREEE (Is the TReatment of frail Elderly patients Effective in an Elderly care unit?) is a clinical, prospective, controlled, one-center intervention trial comparing acute treatment in CGA units and in conventional wards.

Setting: This study was conducted in the NÄL-Uddevalla county hospital in western Sweden.

Acute care of severely frail elderly patients in a CGA-unit is associated with less functional decline than conventional acute care.

Background: A high percentage of individuals treated in specialized acute care wards are frail and elderly. Our aim was to study whether the acute care of such patients in a comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) unit is superior to care in a conventional acute medical care unit when it comes to activities of daily living (ADLs), frailty, and use of municipal help services.

Patients And Methods: A clinical, prospective, controlled trial with two parallel groups was conducted in a large county hospital in West Sweden and included 408 frail elderly patients, age 75 or older (mean age 85.

Atom probe tomography of a Ti-Si-Al-C-N coating grown on a cemented carbide substrate.

The elemental distribution within a Ti-Si-Al-C-N coating grown by physical vapour deposition on a Cr-doped WC-Co cemented carbide substrate has been investigated by atom probe tomography. Special attention was paid to the coating/substrate interface region. The results indicated a diffusion of substrate binder phase elements into the Ti-N adhesion layer.

Gene expression profiling in primary breast cancer distinguishes patients developing local recurrence after breast-conservation surgery, with or without postoperative radiotherapy.

Introduction: Some patients with breast cancer develop local recurrence after breast-conservation surgery despite postoperative radiotherapy, whereas others remain free of local recurrence even in the absence of radiotherapy. As clinical parameters are insufficient for identifying these two groups of patients, we investigated whether gene expression profiling would add further information.

Methods: We performed gene expression analysis (oligonucleotide arrays, 26,824 reporters) on 143 patients with lymph node-negative disease and tumor-free margins.

Gene expression profilers and conventional clinical markers to predict distant recurrences for premenopausal breast cancer patients after adjuvant chemotherapy.

A large proportion of breast cancer patients are treated with adjuvant chemotherapy after the primary operation, but some will recur in spite of this treatment. In order to achieve an improved and more individualised therapy, our knowledge in mechanisms for drug resistance needs to be increased. We have investigated to what extent cDNA microarray measurements could distinguish the likelihood of recurrences after adjuvant CMF (cyclophosphamide, methotrexate and 5-fluorouracil) treatment of premenopausal, lymph node positive breast cancer patients, and have also compared this with the corresponding performance when using conventional clinical variables.