Cost-effectiveness analysis of imaging surveillance in stage II and III extremity soft tissue sarcoma: an Australian perspective.

Background: Surveillance imaging is used to detect local and/or distant recurrence following primary treatment of localised soft tissue sarcoma (STS), however evidence supporting optimal surveillance modality or frequency is lacking. We used prospectively collected sarcoma data to describe current surveillance imaging practice in patients with AJCC stage II and III extremity STS and evaluate its cost-effectiveness.

Methods: From three selected Australian sarcoma referral centres, we identified patients with stage II and III extremity STS treated between 2009 and 2013.

Systematic review of reducing population meat consumption to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and obtain health benefits: effectiveness and models assessments.

Objectives: This review evaluates existing co-benefit models for emission and health outcomes of counterfactual scenarios of reduced meat consumption at a population level.

Methods: A novel assessment process was developed, combining selected measures from the Cochrane Review quality assessment tools, from the PRISMA checklist, and model quality measures identified by the authors during the preliminary phases of the review process.

Results: Four emission models and three health outcome models have been identified which show great variation in model characteristics and qualities.

Accounting for costs, QALYs, and capacity constraints: using discrete-event simulation to evaluate alternative service delivery and organizational scenarios for hospital-based glaucoma services.

Background: Decision-analytic models are routinely used as a framework for cost-effectiveness analyses of health care services and technologies; however, these models mostly ignore resource constraints. In this study, we use a discrete-event simulation model to inform a cost-effectiveness analysis of alternative options for the organization and delivery of clinical services in the ophthalmology department of a public hospital. The model is novel, given that it represents both disease outcomes and resource constraints in a routine clinical setting.

Contribution of active membrane processes to conducted hyperpolarization in arterioles of hamster cheek pouch.

Objective: Conduction of vasodilation triggered by acetylcholine (ACh) in arteriolar networks reflects hyperpolarization and its spread from cell to cell along the vessel wall. The amplitude and distance of the vasomotor response appear greater than can be explained by simple passive decay of the electrical signal. The authors tested the hypothesis that the conduction of hyperpolarization involves active membrane processes as the signal travels along the arteriolar wall.