Evaluating the Impact of PSA as a Selection Criteria for Nerve Sparing Radical Prostatectomy in a Screened Cohort.

Purpose. We investigated whether NS-RP increased risk of PSA failure and whether PSA should be included as a selection criterion for NS. Methods.

Refusal of curative radiation therapy and surgery among patients with cancer.

Purpose: Surgery and radiation therapy represent the only curative options for many patients with solid malignancies. However, despite the recommendations of their physicians, some patients refuse these therapies. This study characterized factors associated with refusal of surgical or radiation therapy as well as the impact of refusal of recommended therapy on patients with localized malignancies.

Maximum tumor diameter and the risk of prostate-specific antigen recurrence after radical prostatectomy.

Introduction/background: The aim of this study was to investigate whether the MTD could identify men at low risk of PSA recurrence after RP who might not benefit from ART despite other adverse features.

Patients And Methods: The study cohort consisted of 354 men with T1c to T2 prostate cancer diagnosed between September 2001 and December 2008 who underwent RP without adjuvant therapy. Multivariable Cox regression was used to assess the effect of MTD on the risk of PSA recurrence (> 0.

The effect of differing Gleason scores at biopsy on the odds of upgrading and the risk of death from prostate cancer.

Introduction/background: The GS is an established prostate cancer prognostic factor. Whether the presence of differing GSs at biopsy (eg, 4+3 and 3+3), which we term ComboGS, improves the prognosis that would be predicted based on the highest GS (eg, 4+3) because of decreased upgrading is unknown. Therefore, we evaluated the odds of upgrading at time of radical prostatectomy (RP) and the risk of PCSM when ComboGS was present versus absent.

Natural history of untreated prostate specific antigen radiorecurrent prostate cancer in men with favorable prognostic indicators.

Background and Purpose. Life expectancy data could identify men with favorable post-radiation prostate-specific antigen (PSA) failure kinetics unlikely to require androgen deprivation therapy (ADT). Materials and Methods.

Evidence suggesting that obesity prevention measures may improve prostate cancer outcomes using data from a prospective randomized trial.

Purpose. Increasing body mass index (BMI) is associated with higher risk prostate cancer (PC) at presentation. Whether increasing BMI also prompts earlier salvage androgen suppression therapy (sAST) is unknown.

Prior-cancer diagnosis in men with nonmetastatic prostate cancer and the risk of prostate-cancer-specific and all-cause mortality.

Purpose. We evaluated the impact a prior cancer diagnosis had on the risk of prostate-cancer-specific mortality (PCSM) and all-cause mortality (ACM) in men with PC. Methods.

Multivariate recurrent events in the presence of multivariate informative censoring with applications to bleeding and transfusion events in myelodysplastic syndrome.

We propose a general novel class of joint models to analyze recurrent events that has a wide variety of applications. The focus in this article is to model the bleeding and transfusion events in myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) studies, where patients may die or withdraw from the study early due to adverse events or other reasons, such as consent withdrawal or required alternative therapy during the study. The proposed model accommodates multiple recurrent events and multivariate informative censoring through a shared random-effects model.

The likelihood of death from prostate cancer in men with favorable or unfavorable intermediate-risk disease.

Background: Recently, men with intermediate-risk prostate cancer (PC) were classified into favorable and unfavorable categories; however, whether the risk of PC-specific mortality (PCSM) among men with high-risk PC versus unfavorable intermediate-risk PC is increased is unknown.

Methods: In a prospective, randomized trial conducted between 1995 and 2001, 206 men with intermediate-risk or high-risk PC were randomized to receive 70 Gy with or without 6 months of androgen-suppression therapy (AST). The subgroup of 197 patients with information available on the percentage of positive biopsies formed the cohort.

Greatest percentage of involved core length and the risk of death from prostate cancer in men with highest Gleason score ≥ 7.

Introduction/background: Men with highest GS ≥ 7 and a differing, lower GS core (ComboGS) have decreased PC-specific mortality (PCSM) risk after RT or RT and androgen deprivation therapy (ADT). Whether the greatest percentage of involved core length (GPC) modulates this risk is unknown.

Patients And Methods: Men with GS ≥ 7 PC (n = 333) consecutively treated between December 1989 and July 2000 using RT (n = 268; 80%) or RT and 6 months of ADT (n = 65; 20%) comprised the study cohort.

Blood pressure is associated with occult cardiovascular disease in prospectively studied Hodgkin lymphoma survivors after chest radiation.

The objectives of this study were to prospectively screen a cohort of asymptomatic long-term survivors of Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) treated with chest irradiation for occult cardiovascular disease (CVD), and correlate screen-detected disease with prospectively measured cardiovascular risk factors (CRFs). A total of 182 HL survivors treated with chest irradiation (median follow-up time 14.8 years) were enrolled and underwent prospective CRF measurement and resting and stress echocardiography to assess coronary artery disease (CAD)/valve disease and left ventricular systolic dysfunction (LVSD).

Bayesian sequential meta-analysis design in evaluating cardiovascular risk in a new antidiabetic drug development program.

Recently, the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research at the Food and Drug Administration released a guidance that makes recommendations about how to demonstrate that a new antidiabetic therapy to treat type 2 diabetes is not associated with an unacceptable increase in cardiovascular risk. One of the recommendations from the guidance is that phases II and III trials should be appropriately designed and conducted so that a meta-analysis can be performed. In addition, the guidance implies that a sequential meta-analysis strategy could be adopted.

Posterior predictive Bayesian phylogenetic model selection.

We present two distinctly different posterior predictive approaches to Bayesian phylogenetic model selection and illustrate these methods using examples from green algal protein-coding cpDNA sequences and flowering plant rDNA sequences. The Gelfand-Ghosh (GG) approach allows dissection of an overall measure of model fit into components due to posterior predictive variance (GGp) and goodness-of-fit (GGg), which distinguishes this method from the posterior predictive P-value approach. The conditional predictive ordinate (CPO) method provides a site-specific measure of model fit useful for exploratory analyses and can be combined over sites yielding the log pseudomarginal likelihood (LPML) which is useful as an overall measure of model fit.

Effects of intravenous and intrathecal dexmedetomidine in spinal anesthesia: a meta-analysis.

Purpose: To assess the effects of dexmedetomidine on the duration of sensory and motor block, postoperative analgesia, hypotension, bradycardia, and side effects in patients undergoing spinal anesthesia.

Methods: Two researchers searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, and the Cochrane controlled trial register independently for randomized controlled trials comparing dexmedetomidine with a placebo without any language restrictions.

Results: A total of 412 patients from eight trials were included in this study.

Marital status and survival in patients with cancer.

Purpose: To examine the impact of marital status on stage at diagnosis, use of definitive therapy, and cancer-specific mortality among each of the 10 leading causes of cancer-related death in the United States.

Methods: We used the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results program to identify 1,260,898 patients diagnosed in 2004 through 2008 with lung, colorectal, breast, pancreatic, prostate, liver/intrahepatic bile duct, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, head/neck, ovarian, or esophageal cancer. We used multivariable logistic and Cox regression to analyze the 734,889 patients who had clinical and follow-up information available.

Differential expression analysis with global network adjustment.

Background: Large-scale chromosomal deletions or other non-specific perturbations of the transcriptome can alter the expression of hundreds or thousands of genes, and it is of biological interest to understand which genes are most profoundly affected. We present a method for predicting a gene's expression as a function of other genes thereby accounting for the effect of transcriptional regulation that confounds the identification of genes differentially expressed relative to a regulatory network. The challenge in constructing such models is that the number of possible regulator transcripts within a global network is on the order of thousands, and the number of biological samples is typically on the order of 10.

Growth differential factor-9 inhibits testosterone production in mouse theca interstitial cells.

Objective: To explore the effect of growth differential factor-9 (GDF-9) alone on cell proliferation, cell viability, steroidogenesis, and hormone-stimulated gene expression in cultured mouse theca interstitial cells.

Design: Basic research.

Setting: University hospital.

Defining the optimal approach to the patient with postradiation prostate-specific antigen recurrence using outcome data from a prospective randomized trial.

Background: Optimal management remains unknown following prostate-specific antigen (PSA) failure when considering comorbidity and PSA kinetics at recurrence. In order to define randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that can address this issue, this study examined factors associated with the risk of death following PSA failure.

Methods: Of 206 men randomized to RT with or without 6 months of androgen suppression therapy (AST), 108 sustained PSA failure and began AST when PSA approached 10 ng/mL and formed the study cohort.

Identification of comorbidities that place men at highest risk of death from androgen deprivation therapy before brachytherapy for prostate cancer.

Purpose: To determine which specific comorbidities predispose men to excess mortality by androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) given before and during brachytherapy for prostate cancer.

Methods And Materials: We analyzed 5972 men with T1c-T3b prostate cancer treated with brachytherapy-based radiation with or without neoadjuvant ADT. Cox multivariable analysis with propensity scoring was used to determine if ADT was associated with increased all-cause mortality (ACM) in men divided into groups stratified by cardiac comorbidities.

Azoarcus olearius sp. nov., a nitrogen-fixing bacterium isolated from oil-contaminated soil.

A novel nitrogen-fixing strain, designated DQS-4(T), was isolated from oil-contaminated soil in Taiwan and was characterized using a polyphasic taxonomic approach. Cells of strain DQS-4(T) stained Gram-negative, contained poly-β-hydroxybutyrate granules and were motile rods, surrounded by a thin capsule. Cells displayed a strictly aerobic type of metabolism and fixed nitrogen microaerobically.

Outcomes in stage I testicular seminoma: a population-based study of 9193 patients.

Background: Few studies have quantified temporal patterns of cause-specific mortality in contemporary cohorts of men with early-stage seminoma. Given that several management strategies can be applied in these patients, each resulting in excellent long-term survival, it is important to evaluate associated long-term sequelae. In particular, data describing long-term risks of cardiovascular disease (CVD) are conflicting.

Bayesian modeling and inference for clinical trials with partial retrieved data following dropout.

In randomized clinical trials, it is common that patients may stop taking their assigned treatments and then switch to a standard treatment (standard of care available to the patient) but not the treatments under investigation. Although the availability of limited retrieved data on patients who switch to standard treatment, called off-protocol data, could be highly valuable in assessing the associated treatment effect with the experimental therapy, it leads to a complex data structure requiring the development of models that link the information of per-protocol data with the off-protocol data. In this paper, we develop a novel Bayesian method to jointly model longitudinal treatment measurements under various dropout scenarios.

Bayesian inference for multivariate meta-analysis Box-Cox transformation models for individual patient data with applications to evaluation of cholesterol-lowering drugs.

In this paper, we propose a class of Box-Cox transformation regression models with multidimensional random effects for analyzing multivariate responses for individual patient data in meta-analysis. Our modeling formulation uses a multivariate normal response meta-analysis model with multivariate random effects, in which each response is allowed to have its own Box-Cox transformation. Prior distributions are specified for the Box-Cox transformation parameters as well as the regression coefficients in this complex model, and the deviance information criterion is used to select the best transformation model.

Effects of quercetin on LPS-induced disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) in rabbits.

Introduction: Quercetin is widely distributed in plants and has been reported to have effects of anti-inflammation and anti-thrombosis. In this study, we evaluated the protective effect of quercetin on LPS-induced experimental DIC in rabbits, and tried to clarify its mechanism against DIC.

Materials And Methods: LPS-induced DIC model in rabbits was established through continuous infusion of 100 ug · kg(-1) · h(-1) LPS for a period of 6h.

Bayesian gamma frailty models for survival data with semi-competing risks and treatment switching.

Motivated from a colorectal cancer study, we propose a class of frailty semi-competing risks survival models to account for the dependence between disease progression time, survival time, and treatment switching. Properties of the proposed models are examined and an efficient Gibbs sampling algorithm using the collapsed Gibbs technique is developed. A Bayesian procedure for assessing the treatment effect is also proposed.