Patient and Clinician Experience of Using Telehealth During the Pandemic in a Public Mental Health Service in Australia.

Background: During the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic, mental health services adopted telehealth to facilitate ongoing assessment and treatment of patients with severe mental illness. We aimed to assess the telehealth experience of mental health patients and clinicians during the COVID-19 pandemic to inform ongoing clinical telehealth service usage.

Methods: Two participant cohorts were recruited: Patients with severe mental illness at a community public mental health service; and clinicians working within this service.

Successful rechallenge with clozapine after treatment associated eosinophilia.

Objective: Eosinophilia has been associated with the use of clozapine. Where clozapine associated eosinophilia develops, and is associated with organ specific damage, clozapine is usually ceased. In cases of treatment associated eosinophilia without evidence of organ specific damage, clozapine would also typically be withdrawn.

Reclassification of the Fuhrman grading system in renal cell carcinoma-does it make a difference?

Purpose: The aim of this study was to determine whether reclassifying the Fuhrman grading system provides further prognostic information.

Materials And Methods: We studied the pathological features and cancer specific survival of 237 patients with clear cell cancer undergoing surgery between 1997-2007 in a single centre. The original Fuhrman grading system was investigated as well as various simplified models utilising the original Fuhrman grade.

A prospective study of the role of inflammation in bladder cancer.

Introduction: To examine the role of inflammation in bladder cancer, we assessed the relationship between a systemic inflammation prognostic score (modified Glasgow Prognostic Score, mGPS), the tumor inflammatory cell infiltrate as measured by the Klintrup-Makinen score and tumor necrosis with cancer specific survival in patients with bladder cancer.

Materials And Methods: The cohort consisted of 68 bladder cancer patients, 47 with localised disease and 21 with muscle invasive disease. The mGPS response was constructed by measuring C-reactive protein and albumin concentrations and the Klintrup-Makinen score was evaluated histologically for the local inflammatory response.

Nuclear factor κB predicts poor outcome in patients with hormone-naive prostate cancer with high nuclear androgen receptor.

Despite recent advances in prostate cancer treatments, disease recurrence is common and associated with significant morbidity and mortality. The need for more effective antitumor agents has led researchers to target signaling pathways that drive tumorigenesis by modulating or bypassing androgen receptor signaling--attenuation or blockade of which current treatments aim to effect. The transcription factor nuclear factor κB/p65 has been implicated in prostate cancer progression; however, few studies have examined the involvement of nuclear factor κB in hormone-naive disease.

Tumoral C-reactive protein and nuclear factor kappa-B expression are associated with clinical outcome in patients with prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer (Pca) is the most common form of cancer affecting men, despite recent advances in PCa treatments, one third of patients diagnosed each year succumb to this disease. The inflammatory response has been implicated in prostate cancer progression. The pro-inflammatory transcription factor, NFκB/p65 has been implicated in PCa progression.

Systemic inflammatory response and survival in patients with localised prostate cancer: 10-year follow-up.

Aim: To examine the prognostic value of circulating C-reactive protein concentrations at diagnosis in patients with organ-confined prostate cancer.

Patients And Methods: Ninety-eight patients with histologically proven clinically localised prostate cancer were studied. Clinical stage, tumour grade, circulating PSA and C-reactive protein concentrations at diagnosis were recorded.

Antipsychotic use in the elderly: what doctors say they do, and what they do.

Objective: To review psychiatrists' attitudes and actual practice on the use of typical and atypical antipsychotics in the elderly.

Methods: Audit data were collected from 18-old-age psychiatry units across Australia. The attitudes of old age psychiatrists and their perceptions of the efficacy, tolerability and clinical usefulness of antipsychotics were examined.

The relationship between the local and systemic inflammatory responses and survival in patients undergoing resection for localized renal cancer.

Objective: To examine the relationship between the systemic inflammatory response (C-reactive protein, CRP), tumour interleukin-6 receptor and cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 expression, tumour T-lymphocytic (CD4+, CD8+) infiltration and cancer survival in patients undergoing resection for renal cell carcinoma (RCC), as both the local and systemic inflammatory responses appear to predict the outcome in these patients.

Patients And Methods: The study included 60 patients undergoing nephrectomy for localized RCC. Pre-operative circulating CRP levels were measured and tumour interleukin-6 receptor and COX-2 expression, tumour CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes were assessed using immunohistochemical analysis.

Systemic inflammatory response, prostate-specific antigen and survival in patients with metastatic prostate cancer.

Background: It is increasingly recognised that, in cancer patients, disease progression is dependent on a complex interaction of the tumour and the host inflammatory response and that the systemic inflammatory response, as evidenced by an elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) concentration, may be a useful prognostic factor.

Materials And Methods: The prognostic value of CRP compared with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) was examined in 62 patients with metastatic prostate cancer receiving androgen-deprivation therapy.

Results: In all, 41 (66%) of patients died, 38 (61%) of their disease.

Vitamin antioxidants, lipid peroxidation and the systemic inflammatory response in patients with prostate cancer.

The relationship between lipid soluble antioxidant vitamins, lipid peroxidation, disease stage and the systemic inflammatory response were examined in healthy subjects (n = 14), patients with benign prostate hyperplasia BPH (n = 20), localized (n = 40) and metastatic (n = 38) prostate cancer. Prostate cancer patients had higher concentrations of malondialdehyde (p < 0.05) and lower circulating concentrations of lutein (p < 0.

Porcine cytomegalovirus in pigs being bred for xenograft organs: progress towards control.

In human medicine, human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is readily transmitted by organ transplant causing end-organ disease and triggering graft rejection in recipients. Because of a chronic shortage of human organs, pigs transgenic for human complement control proteins are being considered as potential donors. Such xenotransplantation raises concerns about the potential zoonotic transmission of viruses including porcine cytomegalovirus (PCMV), an endemic infection of pigs.

The production of transgenic pigs for potential use in clinical xenotransplantation: baseline clinical pathology and organ size studies.

This report describes the results of hematology, serum biochemistry, growth, and organ weight studies undertaken on pigs from nine cohorts of qualified pathogen free (QPF) pigs reared within a high welfare bioexclusion facility as potential organ source animals. Confirmation of the high health status of the pigs was given through total leukocyte counts and serum globulin concentrations that fell below the expected reference range for conventional pigs. The calculated mean growth rate for QPF pigs was found to exceed target rates set for optimum genotype commercial pig herds.

The production of transgenic pigs for potential use in clinical xenotransplantation: microbiological evaluation.

Debate over the infection hazards of pig-to-human xenotransplantation has focused mainly on the porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERV). However, hazards of exogenous infectious agents possibly associated with the xenograft have also been evaluated (Xenotransplantation 2000; 7: 143). We report the results of a health monitoring program demonstrating the exclusion of more than 80 potential pathogens from nine cohorts of pigs reared in a high welfare bioexclusion facility as potential xenograft source animals.