Purpose: Childhood and adolescent cancer survivors (CACS) experience medical and psychosocial adverse effects. Attention widens to include issues such as socio-bureaucratic hardships. This systematic review synthesized the available evidence on insurance, legal, and financial hardships to better understand the broader picture of socio-bureaucratic hardships as distinct but interrelated types of hardships.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCommonly, quantitative gait analysis post-stroke is performed in fully equipped laboratories housing costly technologies for quantitative evaluation of a patient's movement capacity. Combining such technologies with an electromyography (EMG)-driven musculoskeletal model can estimate muscle force properties non-invasively, offering clinicians insights into motor impairment mechanisms. However, lab-constrained areas and time-demanding sensor setup and data processing limit the practicality of these technologies in routine clinical care.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Much remains unknown about how complex community-based programmes can successfully achieve long-term impact. More insight is needed to understand the key mechanisms through which these programmes work. Therefore, we conducted an in-depth study in five communities that implemented the Healthy Youth, Healthy Future (JOGG) approach, a Dutch community-based obesity prevention programme.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Parkinson's disease is associated with increased impulsivity, which can be divided into several domains: motor (consisting of proactive and reactive subdomains), reflection, and cognitive impulsivity. Evidence suggests that both dopaminergic medication and subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation can affect impulsivity. Therefore, we set out to investigate the effects of dopaminergic medication and subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation on motor, reflection, and cognitive impulsivity in Parkinson's disease patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe spread of invasive species often follows a jump-dispersal pattern. While jumps are typically fostered by humans, local dispersal can occur due to the specific traits of a species, which are often poorly understood. This holds true for small hive beetles (Aethina tumida), which are parasites of social bee colonies native to sub-Saharan Africa.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: There is a lack of evidence regarding the relationship between family involvement and outcomes in gastrointestinal oncology patients after surgery. To evaluate the effect of a family involvement program for patients undergoing oncologic gastrointestinal surgery on unplanned readmissions within 30 days after surgery.
Methods: A multicenter patient-preference cohort study compared 2 groups: patients who participated in the family involvement program versus usual care.
Introduction: The standard treatment for patients with focal drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE) who are not eligible for open brain surgery is the continuation of anti-seizure medication (ASM) and neuromodulation. This treatment does not cure epilepsy but only decreases severity. The PRECISION trial offers a non-invasive, possibly curative intervention for these patients, which consist of a single stereotactic radiotherapy (SRT) treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo protect older adults against influenza A virus (IAV) infection, innovative strategies are imperative to overcome the decrease in protective immune response with age. One approach involves the boosting of CD8+ T cells at middle age that were previously induced by natural infection. At this stage, the immune system is still fit.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Stratification to categorize patients with Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia (SAB) as low or high risk for metastatic infection may direct diagnostic evaluation and enable personalized management. We investigated the frequency of metastatic infections in low-risk SAB patients, their clinical relevance, and whether omission of routine imaging is associated with worse outcomes.
Methods: We performed a retrospective cohort study at 7 Dutch hospitals among adult patients with low-risk SAB, defined as hospital-acquired infection without treatment delay, absence of prosthetic material, short duration of bacteremia, and rapid defervescence.
Unmet needs of relatives of patients with advanced cancer not only reduce their own health-related quality of life, but may also negatively affect patients' health outcomes. The aim of this study was to assess changes in relatives' unmet needs of patients with advanced cancer in the last year of life and to identify differences in unmet needs by gender and type of relationship. Relatives of patients with advanced cancer in the Netherlands were included in a prospective, longitudinal, observational study.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To assess the degree of openness of communication about illness and death between patients with advanced cancer and their relatives during the last three months of the patient's life, and its association with relatives' characteristics and bereavement distress.
Methods: We used data from bereaved relatives of patients with advanced cancer from the prospective, longitudinal, multicenter, observational eQuipe study. Univariate and multivariable linear regression analyses were used to assess the association between the degree of openness of communication (measured using the validated Caregivers' Communication with patients about Illness and Death scale), the a priori defined characteristics of the relatives, and the degree of bereavement distress (measured using the Impact of Event Scale).
Community-based programmes are a widely implemented approach for population health promotion. Due to the context-dependent and dynamic nature of these programmes, evaluating their implementation is challenging. Identifying key events in the implementation process in evaluation could enable us to support future implementation, while acknowledging the complexity of real-world implementation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGenerating guideline-based recommendations during multidisciplinary team (MDT) meetings in solid cancers is getting more complex due to increasing amount of information needed to follow the guidelines. Usage of clinical decision support systems (CDSSs) can simplify and optimize decision-making. However, CDSS implementation is lagging behind.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Cognitive problems contribute to decline in work performance. We evaluated (1) the effectiveness of basic self-management and extensive therapist-guided online cognitive rehabilitation on attainment of individually predetermined work-related goals among occupationally active cancer survivors, and (2) whether effectiveness of the programs differed for survivors with and without formal cognitive impairment.
Methods: In a 3-arm randomized controlled trial (NCT03900806), 279 non-central nervous system cancer survivors with cognitive complaints were assigned to the basic program (n = 93), the extensive program (n = 93), or a waiting-list control group (n = 93).
Available data suggest that there may be gender differences in the effect of STN-DBS in the treatment of Parkinson's disease (PD). The aim of this study was to review data on gender discrepancies and gender differences in clinical outcomes in PD patients treated with deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus (STN-DBS). Included were original studies that specifically examined gender discrepancies or gender differences in PD patients with STN-DBS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Palliative care (PC) is an integral part of cancer treatment. However, data on service availability is limited in childhood cancers.
Aim: To describe the availability of PC services in paediatric oncology centres across Europe, and to identify barriers and facilitators for implementing and providing paediatric palliative care (PPC).
Antimicrobial sensitivity data are important to guide antimicrobial therapy. In microbiological laboratories, routine sensitivity measurements are typically performed with automated testing systems such as VITEK2 and Phoenix. Using data from the Dutch national surveillance system for antimicrobial resistance over a 6-year period, we found that the measured minimum inhibitory concentrations for aminoglycosides in Enterobacterales and non-fermenters were too high for the Phoenix system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHere, we describe an adult female with severe fasciitis and skin necrosis who carried a private, predicted deleterious missense mutation in OTULIN in heterozygosity. OTULIN is a cellular regulator of deubiquitination that has been shown to play a key role in intrinsic immunity against staphylococcal α-toxin. The patient was treated with broad-spectrum antibiotics, and multiple surgical explorations were conducted without clinical response.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Physical activity (PA) is associated with higher quality of life and probably better prognosis among colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. This study focuses on determinants of PA among CRC patients from diagnosis until 5 yr postdiagnosis.
Methods: Sociodemographic and disease-related factors of participants of two large CRC cohort studies were combined.