Publications by authors named "Janssens A"

Background: Young adult cancer survivors, defined as individuals aged 18-39 who have completed primary curative treatment, face numerous age-specific biopsychosocial late effects that impact health-related quality of life negatively. Rehabilitation can enhance participation in life roles, work, leisure activities and health-related quality of life. However, there is a lack of age-specific cancer rehabilitation for this population, leaving many young adults with diminished self-efficacy in managing their challenges, resulting in unmet needs.

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Baseline metabolic tumor volume (MTV) is a promising prognostic marker in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). We assessed the prognostic value of 4 novel metabolic risk scores in a real-life DLBCL cohort and compared them with the revised International Prognostic Index (IPI). We included a consecutive series of untreated DLBCL, not otherwise specified cases that were diagnosed in our hospital from 2008 to 2021 with available baseline [F]FDG PET/CT.

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Background: It has been advocated that the development of medical school curricula must be informed by students, doctors in training, educators, employers, other health and social care professionals and patients, families and carers. Patients are widely employed to teach clinical and interpersonal skills, and while recognised as crucial in health education, they have mostly been offered a passive role. We assessed the impact of patients contributing personal illness narratives in the master curriculum of allied health care professionals on students' learning experiences.

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Background: The integrity of clinical research and machine learning models in healthcare heavily relies on the quality of underlying clinical laboratory data. However, the preprocessing of this data to ensure its reliability and accuracy remains a significant challenge due to variations in data recording and reporting standards.

Methods: We developed lab2clean, a novel algorithm aimed at automating and standardizing the cleaning of retrospective clinical laboratory results data.

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Article Synopsis
  • A group of experts and patients created a way to assess how useful artificial intelligence (AI) can be in healthcare by involving patients in the project.
  • The team reflected on their experiences and challenges throughout the project to improve how they worked together.
  • Including patients made the research more meaningful, but they also faced some difficulties, like one patient leaving the project, highlighting the need for support in future collaborations.
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Background: In rare diseases, limited access to services and rare disease experts may force families to act as medical advocates for their child; they can volunteer to support clinician-initiated research or initiate and lead research themselves. Ketotic Hypoglycemia International (KHI) is a new, global organization for families affected by idiopathic ketotic hypoglycemia (IKH) and is run solely by volunteers. Doing research together, families and international experts in a collaborative process such as at KHI, also referred to as patient and public involvement and engagement (PPIE) or extreme citizen science, is often praised for its positive effects on the research and the stakeholders involved.

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Background: Spatial modeling of disease risk using primary care registry data is promising for public health surveillance. However, it remains unclear to which extent challenges such as spatially disproportionate sampling and practice-specific reporting variation affect statistical inference.

Methods: Using lower respiratory tract infection data from the INTEGO registry, modeled with a logistic model incorporating patient characteristics, a spatially structured random effect at municipality level, and an unstructured random effect at practice level, we conducted a case and simulation study to assess the impact of these challenges on spatial trend estimation.

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Article Synopsis
  • The GAIA/CLL13 trial found that venetoclax-obinutuzumab and venetoclax-obinutuzumab-ibrutinib combinations led to better undetectable measurable residual disease (MRD) rates and longer progression-free survival compared to traditional chemoimmunotherapy for untreated chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) patients.
  • The trial was a phase 3 study involving 159 sites across Europe and the Middle East, enrolling patients aged 18 and older with specific health criteria and assigning them to different treatment groups, including standard chemoimmunotherapy and various venetoclax-based combinations.
  • All treatment regimens were administered in cycles, with detailed protocols for each group, specifically focusing on
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Background: In Flanders, general practitioners (GPs) were among the first ones to collect data regarding COVID-19 cases. Intego is a GPs' morbidity registry in primary care with data collected from the electronic medical records from a sample of general practices. The Intego database contain elaborate information regarding patient characteristics, such as comorbidities.

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Article Synopsis
  • A phase 3 trial found that neoadjuvant treatment with nivolumab plus chemotherapy improved event-free survival in patients with resectable non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) compared to chemotherapy alone, with 70.2% of the nivolumab group remaining event-free at 18 months, versus 50.0% in the chemotherapy group.!* -
  • Patients receiving nivolumab also had a significantly higher rate of pathological complete response (25.3%) compared to those on chemotherapy (4.7%), indicating better treatment efficacy.!* -
  • The safety profile was similar between both groups, with 32.5% of nivolumab patients experiencing grade 3 or 4 treatment-related adverse events
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Background: It is crucial to understand the trends in paediatric antibiotic prescribing and serious and nonserious infections to improve antibiotic prescribing practices for children in ambulatory care.

Objectives: Assessing trends in paediatric antibiotic prescribing and infection incidence in general practice from 2002 to 2022.

Methods: In this retrospective cohort study using INTEGO network data from 162 507 patients in Flanders (Belgium), we calculated antibiotic prescribing rates and proportions alongside incidence rates of serious and nonserious infections, stratified by age (0-1, 2-6, 7-12 years) and municipality.

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Background: Older people often have multiple health conditions and therefore extended care needs. The transition from the hospital back to their home requires careful planning. The fragmented healthcare system and rapid discharge from the hospital can result in limited involvement of the older patient in the discharge planning process.

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Focus on patient and public involvement and engagement (PPIE) is increasing in health policy and research governance. PPIE is considered by some to be a democratic right, and by others to be a way to improve health care and research outcomes and implementation. Most recently, policy makers, funders and (clinical) research institutions are making PPIE a strategic requirement for health research urging researchers to invite patients and relatives into their research activities.

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Article Synopsis
  • Treatment strategies for advanced stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) have evolved significantly with the introduction of targeted therapies and immunotherapy.
  • The growth of targeted therapies in oncology includes the identification of primary mutations, co-occurring mutations, and resistance mechanisms that influence treatment decisions.
  • Implementing large-panel next-generation sequencing (NGS) for all patients is essential, and centralized expert laboratories are recommended for efficient predictive molecular testing and to facilitate complex clinical decision-making through a regional Molecular Tumor Board.
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In the past two decades, the treatment of metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), has undergone significant changes due to the introduction of targeted therapies and immunotherapy. These advancements have led to the need for predictive molecular tests to identify patients eligible for targeted therapy. This review provides an overview of the development and current application of targeted therapies and predictive biomarker testing in European patients with advanced stage NSCLC.

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Background: Person-centered care (PCC) encourages patients to actively participate in health care, thus facilitating care that fits the life of the patient. Therefore, health care professionals (HCPs) need to know the patient. As part of a broad policy for improving PCC, a digital questionnaire ("We would like to know you") consisting of 5 questions has previously been developed to help HCPs to get to know the patient with the help of patient and staff involvement.

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This review assesses the possibility of utilizing malignant effusions (MEs) for generating patient-derived tumor organoids (PDTOs). Obtained through minimally invasive procedures MEs broaden the spectrum of organoid sources beyond resection specimens and tissue biopsies. A systematic search yielded 11 articles, detailing the successful generation of 190 ME-PDTOs (122 pleural effusions, 54 malignant ascites).

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Method: A cross-sectional survey study was conducted between February 2021 and April 2021 for all doctors and doctors in training, working in the Antwerp University Hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Results: 127 doctors participated in this study. The familiarity with the different scores used in the triage during the COVID-10 pandemic was 51% for the Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) and 20% for the Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI).

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Purpose: We report an analysis of minimal residual/detectable disease (MRD) as a predictor of outcome in previously untreated patients with follicular lymphoma (FL) from the randomized, multicenter GALLIUM (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01332968) trial.

Patients And Methods: Patients received induction with obinutuzumab (G) or rituximab (R) plus bendamustine, or cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, prednisone (CHOP) or cyclophosphamide, vincristine, prednisone (CVP) chemotherapy, followed by maintenance with the same antibody in responders.

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The outer membrane in Gram-negative bacteria consists of an asymmetric phospholipid-lipopolysaccharide bilayer that is densely packed with outer-membrane β-barrel proteins (OMPs) and lipoproteins. The architecture and composition of this bilayer is closely monitored and is essential to cell integrity and survival. Here we find that SlyB, a lipoprotein in the PhoPQ stress regulon, forms stable stress-induced complexes with the outer-membrane proteome.

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Small airway disease is an important pathophysiological feature of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Recently, "pre-COPD" has been put forward as a potential precursor stage of COPD that is defined by abnormal spirometry findings or significant emphysema on computed tomography (CT) in the absence of airflow obstruction. To determine the degree and nature of (small) airway disease in pre-COPD using microCT in a cohort of explant lobes/lungs.

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After the establishment of a causal relationship between tobacco use and cancer in the 1950s, cellulose acetate filters were introduced with the claim to reduce the adverse health impact of unfiltered cigarettes. Often perceived to be more pleasant and healthy, filters encouraged smoking. However, filtered cigarettes are more deeply inhaled to obtain the same nicotine demand while altered combustion releases more tobacco-specific nitrosamines.

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