Malnutrition is Associated With Fatigue and Anxiety in Advanced Cancer Patients Admitted to Home Palliative Care.

Objective: Information regarding the nutrition profile of advanced cancer patients followed at home is lacking. The aim of this study was to assess the nutritional status of patients who were admitted to specialized home palliative care, and examine eventual factors associated with malnutrition.

Design: Cross-sectional.

Home palliative medicine: an audit of weekend and public holiday telephones on-call.

Objectives: To report the on-call activity of a well-established home care programme.

Methods: The charts of consecutive phone calls recorded in the weekend or public holidays were reviewed.

Results: The principal reason to call were based on caregivers' uncertainty, for the need of information or just to be reassured.

Cancer pain management: long-term maintenance therapy.

This is a case report regarding a patient on maintenance therapy with methadone wth cancer pain. Minimal increase in methadone dose and a better modulation of administration intervals were effective, allowing the achievement of an optimal analgesia in a short time. This effect was maintained at home after discharge up the last follow-up 3 weeks after discharge.

Opioids in advanced cancer: use, storage and disposal in the home.

Objectives: To determine the patterns of storing, using and disposing of opioids among patients with advanced cancer followed at home.

Methods: Patients who were prescribed opioids were selected. Prescribed opioids and their doses used for background pain and breakthrough pain were collected, as well as CAGE (cut down, annoyed, guilty and eye opener) for alcohol and drugs, smoking and history of illicit substance use.

The use of complementary alternative medicines in advanced cancer patients followed at home.

Objectives: To assess the use of complementary alternative medicines (CAM) in advanced cancer patients followed at home.

Methods: A consecutive sample of advanced cancer patients admitted to a home palliative care program was invited to participate in the study in a period of two months. Demographic characteristics, religious belief, education level, diagnosis, and socio-economic condition were recorded.

Epidemiology and Characteristics of Episodic Breathlessness in Advanced Cancer Patients: An Observational Study.

Context: Episodic breathlessness is a relevant aspect in patients with advanced cancer.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the different aspects of this clinical phenomenon.

Methods: A consecutive sample of patients with advanced cancer admitted to different settings for a period of six months was surveyed.

How does glycerol enhance the bioprotective properties of trehalose? Insight from protein-solvent dynamics.

We present Raman investigations on lysozyme/trehalose/glycerol solutions at low water content, from room temperature up to the occurrence of the protein thermal denaturation. We studied the Amide I band and the low-frequency spectrum as a function of the glycerol content. The former allows us to monitor the protein unfolding; the latter probes the protein and solvent dynamics in anharmonic and quasi-harmonic regimes.

Adherence, compliance and persistence to oral antineoplastic therapy: a review focused on chemotherapeutic and biologic agents.

Introduction: To date, orally administered chemotherapy and biologic agents represent a significant percentage of all antineoplastic treatments in several types of cancer, which are most likely to increase in the near future. In this scenario, the issue of adherence and persistence to oral therapy is a key issue since poor compliance to oral antineoplastic treatments may negatively influence patients' clinical outcomes and, in turn, cause an increase in costs, number of hospitalizations and time spent in the hospital.

Areas Covered: The issue of adherence to new oral chemotherapeutic and/or biologic agents has not been deeply evaluated and data published in medical literature are quite scarce.

Protein thermal denaturation and matrix glass transition in different protein-trehalose-water systems.

Biopreservation by saccharides is a widely studied issue due to its scientific and technological importance; in particular, ternary amorphous protein-saccharide-water systems are extensively exploited to model the characteristics of the in vivo biopreservation process. We present here a differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) study on amorphous trehalose-water systems with embedded different proteins (myoglobin, lysozyme, BSA, hemoglobin), which differ for charge, surface, and volume properties. In our study, the protein/trehalose molar ratio is kept constant at 1/40, while the water/sugar molar ratio is varied between 2 and 300; results are compared with those obtained for binary trehalose-water systems.

Thermal denaturation of myoglobin in water--disaccharide matrixes: relation with the glass transition of the system.

Proteins embedded in glassy saccharide systems are protected against adverse environmental conditions [Crowe et al. Annu. Rev.

Staurosporine-induced apoptosis in Chang liver cells is associated with down-regulation of Bcl-2 and Bcl-XL.

A potent inhibitor of serine/threonine kinases, staurosporine exerts antiproliferative and apoptotic effects in many cancer cells, although the exact mechanism of its action is still unclear. This study examines the effects of staurosporine on Chang liver cells, an immortalized non-tumor cell line, in comparison with those caused in HuH-6 and HepG2 cells, two human hepatoma cell lines. Our results provide evidence that staurosporine promotes apoptosis in Chang liver cells as observed by flow cytometric analysis and acridine orange/ethidium bromide staining.