Treatment of Children and Adolescents With Metastatic Medulloblastoma and Prognostic Relevance of Clinical and Biologic Parameters.

Purpose To assess an intensified treatment in the context of clinical and biologic risk factors in metastatic medulloblastoma. Patients and Methods Patients (4 to 21 years old, diagnosed between 2001 and 2007) received induction chemotherapy, dose-escalated hyperfractionated craniospinal radiotherapy, and maintenance chemotherapy. Subgroup status and other biologic parameters were assessed.

Cost-utility analysis of a telerehabilitation program: a case study of COPD patients.

Objective: The present study seeks to conduct cost-utility analysis (CUA) of the Danish TELEKAT (Telehomecare, Chronic Patients and the Integrated Healthcare System) project. The TELEKAT project seeks to test and develop a preventive home monitoring concept across sectors for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients. The concept of the TELEKAT project is to reduce admissions by enabling the COPD patients to conduct self-monitoring and maintain rehabilitation activities in their own home.

Long-term follow-up of the multicenter, multidisciplinary treatment study HIT-LGG-1996 for low-grade glioma in children and adolescents of the German Speaking Society of Pediatric Oncology and Hematology.

The Hirntumorstudien (HIT)-LGG-1996 protocol offered a comprehensive treatment strategy for pediatric patients with low-grade glioma (LGG), ie, observation, surgery, adjuvant radiotherapy, and chemotherapy to defer the start of irradiation in young children. In this current study, we sought to determine clinical factors for progression and survival. Between October 1, 1996 and March 31, 2004, 1031 patients were prospectively recruited into an observation arm (n = 668) and a nonsurgical arm stratifying 12 months of vincristine-carboplatin chemotherapy (n = 216) and conventional radiotherapy/brachytherapy (n = 147) in an age-dependent manner.

Using preventive home monitoring to reduce hospital admission rates and reduce costs: a case study of telehealth among chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients.

We studied whether preventive home monitoring of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) could reduce the frequency of hospital admissions and lower the cost of hospitalization. Patients were recruited from a health centre, general practitioner (GP) or the pulmonary hospital ward. They were randomized to usual care or tele-rehabilitation with a telehealth monitoring device installed in their home for four months.

A long duration of the prediagnostic symptomatic interval is not associated with an unfavourable prognosis in childhood medulloblastoma.

Background: Due to the lacking specificity of symptoms making a correct diagnosis can be a challenge in children with medulloblastoma. This can lead to prediagnostic symptomatic intervals (PSIs) of several weeks to months. It is unknown whether the length of the PSI is associated with an inferior survival outcome in this population.