Publications by authors named "Mieke van Hemelrijck"

Background: Oesophago-gastric cancer surgery negatively affects quality of life with a high postoperative symptom burden. Several conditions that may be diagnosed and treated after surgery are recognised. However, consensus regarding their definition and management is lacking.

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Background: When faced with treatment options, patients are asked to participate in decision-making. We sought to determine which treatment aspects matter most for individuals treated for muscle invasive bladder cancer (MIBC), with an aim to improve understanding of patient preferences and what trade-offs patients are willing to accept. Our study consisted of a discrete choice experiment (DCE): a type of questionnaire used to elicit preferences in the absence of real-world choice.

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  • Stage IIIA-N2 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has low survival rates and lacks a standardized treatment, making patient management difficult.
  • This study analyzed 142 patients to assess overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS), finding the median OS to be 31 months, with no significant differences between treatment methods.
  • The results emphasize the need for personalized treatment plans and collaborative decision-making among healthcare professionals, with future research aimed at new therapies and multi-centre trials.
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  • - PIONEER is a European initiative that combines the efforts of 34 organizations across 9 countries to enhance prostate cancer screening, diagnosis, and treatment using big data analytics.
  • - The project has created a comprehensive platform that integrates various data sources, helping to respond to critical research questions and improve understanding of prostate cancer management at different stages.
  • - Despite successes, challenges with real-world data persist, necessitating ongoing collaboration and knowledge sharing, which PIONEER aims to support as part of the UroEvidenceHub initiative by the European Association of Urology.
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  • The study reviews the role of glycosylation in human IgE (Immunoglobulin E) and how it affects its structure, function, and relation to diseases, especially allergies.
  • It emphasizes that despite inconsistent findings from various studies, there is evidence of different glycosylation patterns in allergic vs. healthy individuals and their functional implications in allergic reactions.
  • The review suggests that certain glycosylation changes could lead to potential therapeutic targets and underscores the need for improved research methods to further investigate these effects.
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  • Active surveillance (AS) is a safe and acceptable treatment strategy for men with low- and intermediate-risk prostate cancer, showing a high overall survival (OS) rate of 84.1% and metastasis-free survival (MFS) exceeding 99% over a follow-up period of more than 6 years.
  • The study analyzed clinical data from nearly 27,000 men across 15 countries, revealing that while there was no significant change in overall survival rates over time, metastasis-free survival rates improved notably.
  • Treatment changes were primarily driven by anxiety or tumor progression, with the most common radical treatment being surgery, which resulted in 90% of men remaining free from biochemical recurrence after 5 years.
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Background: Rapid diagnostic clinics (RDCs) provide a streamlined holistic pathway for patients presenting with non-site specific (NSS) symptoms concerning of malignancy. The current study aimed to: 1) assess the prevalence of anxiety and depression, and 2) identify a combination of patient characteristics and symptoms associated with severe anxiety and depression at Guy's and St Thomas' Foundation Trust (GSTT) RDC in Southeast London. Additionally, we compared standard statistical methods with machine learning algorithms for predicting severe anxiety and depression.

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  • Advancements in understanding myelodysplastic neoplasms (MDS) have revealed important cellular and molecular factors that influence disease progression, highlighting the significance of immune dysregulation in the bone marrow during MDS evolution.
  • Despite these advancements, immunotherapy for MDS has lagged due to a lack of effective immune classifications for patient stratification and no widely accepted immune panels for clinical use.
  • To address these challenges, the i4MDS consortium proposes standardized immune monitoring approaches, including flow cytometry panels and cytokine assays, aiming to improve patient stratification and develop predictive markers for treatment response in MDS.
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Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has had an enormous impact on the experiences of patients across all health disciplines, especially those of cancer patients. The study aimed to understand the experiences of cancer patients who underwent surgery during the first two waves of the pandemic at Guy's Cancer Centre, which is a large tertiary cancer centre in London.

Methods: A mixed-methods approach was adopted for this study.

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Objective: To analyse the effectiveness of rapid diagnostic clinics (RDCs) as an alternative pathway for patients with concerning symptoms and a faecal immunochemical test (FIT) result <10. Our primary endpoint was rate of colorectal cancer (CRC) detection. Second endpoints were rates of other cancers and gastrointestinal (GI) serious benign conditions.

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Background And Objective: The treatment landscape of metastatic prostate cancer (mPCa) has evolved significantly over the past two decades. Despite this, the optimal therapy for patients with mPCa has not been determined. This systematic review identifies available predictive models that assess mPCa patients' response to treatment.

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  • A study looked at how well doctors and patients talk to each other, especially for men with prostate cancer in Europe.
  • The researchers asked 372 men about their communication experiences with their doctors during diagnosis and treatment.
  • Most men felt their conversations were good, but there were still ways to improve communication, like making sure patients understand their treatment and addressing their emotional needs.
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  • PD-L1 expression is a key biomarker for predicting the effectiveness of immunotherapy in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and is linked to glucose metabolism.
  • This study analyzed data from 210 patients with resectable NSCLC to see how metabolic parameters from [F]FDG-PET/CT scans relate to PD-L1 expression levels in tumors and lymph nodes.
  • Results showed that while certain metabolic scores were higher in patients with PD-L1 expression ≥ 1%, the accuracy of these scores for predicting PD-L1 positivity was only moderate, indicating limited reliability in clinical settings.
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Unlabelled: Cancer survivorship was recently identified as a prostate cancer (PCa) research priority by PIONEER, a European network of excellence for big data in PCa. Despite being a research priority, cancer survivorship lacks a clear and agreed definition, and there is a distinct paucity of patient-reported outcome (PRO) data available on the subject. Data collection on cancer survivorship depends on the availability and implementation of (validated) routinely collected patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs).

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Objective: To evaluate the impact of metastases-directed stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in men with oligometastatic prostate cancer (PCa) using real-world data from the OligoCare cohort.

Materials And Methods: OligoCare is a pragmatic, observational cohort designed to assess the impact of metastases-directed SBRT on patients with oligometastatic disease (OMD). We report an interim analyses of the secondary endpoint HRQoL, assessed using the EORTC QLQ-C30, within six months of metastases-directed SBRT for oligometastatic disease in men with PCa among the first 1600 registered patients.

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Purpose: The Graham Roberts Study was initiated in 2018 and is the first Trials Within Cohorts (TwiCs) study for bladder cancer. Its purpose is to provide an infrastructure for answering a breadth of research questions, including clinical, mechanistic, and supportive care centred questions for bladder cancer patients.

Participants: All consented patients are those aged 18 or older, able to provide signed informedconsent and have a diagnosis of new or recurrent bladder cancer.

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Epidemiological studies have explored the relationship between allergic diseases and cancer risk or prognosis in AllergoOncology. Some studies suggest an inverse association, but uncertainties remain, including in IgE-mediated diseases and glioma. Allergic disease stems from a Th2-biased immune response to allergens in predisposed atopic individuals.

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Background: To date, limited evidence exists on the impact of COVID-19 in patients with soft tissue sarcoma (STS), nor about the impact of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and recent chemotherapy on COVID-19 morbidity and mortality in this specific population.

Methods: We described COVID-19 morbidity and mortality among patients with STS across 'Omicron' (15 December 2021-31 January 2022), 'Pre-vaccination' (27 February 2020-30 November 2020), and 'Alpha-Delta' phase (01 December 2020-14 December 2021) using OnCovid registry participants (NCT04393974). Case fatality rate at 28 days (CFR) and COVID-19 severity were also described according to the SARS-CoV-2 vaccination status, while the impact of the receipt of cytotoxic chemotherapy within 4 weeks prior to COVID-19 on clinical outcomes was assessed with Inverse Probability of Treatment Weighting (IPTW) models adjusted for possible confounders.

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  • Previous studies linked cancer diagnoses with increased COVID-19 death risk, but many didn’t differentiate between long-term survivors and those recently diagnosed or treated, nor did they consider age factors.
  • The research aimed to provide clearer evidence regarding the risk of COVID-19-related death in individuals with active or recent cancers during the pre-vaccination period, analyzing 39 studies that adjusted for age and gender.
  • Results indicated that people with recent cancer diagnoses have a significantly higher risk of dying from COVID-19, especially for those with lung or hematological cancers, with the risk decreasing over time since treatment.
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  • Androgen deprivation therapy has been the standard treatment for metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer (mHSPC), but new combination therapies with chemotherapy and targeted agents have shown better results.
  • Recent advancements in treatment, including "triplet" therapies, are helping to improve outcomes for patients, although metastatic disease remains a complex clinical challenge.
  • This study aims to create and validate a predictive model to assess the risk of symptomatic progression, new treatments, and death in mHSPC patients based on their characteristics at admission.
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Objectives: To date, studies have not provided definitive answers regarding whether previous immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) treatment alters outcomes for cancer patients with COVID-19.

Methods: The OnCovid registry (NCT04393974) was searched from February 27, 2020, to January 31, 2022, for patients who received systemic anti-cancer therapy in the 4 weeks before laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis. Propensity-score matching using country, vaccination status, primary tumor type, sex, age, comorbidity burden, tumor stage, and remission status investigated differences in predefined clinical outcomes comparing those who had or had not received ICIs.

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Introduction: Patients undergoing prostate radiotherapy with an enlarged prostate can have short-term and long-term urinary complications. Currently, transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP) is the mainstay surgical intervention for men with urinary symptoms due to an enlarged prostate prior to radiotherapy. UroLift (NeoTract, Pleasanton, CA, USA) is a recent minimally invasive alternative, widely used in benign disease but is untested in men with prostate cancer.

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