Retinal electroretinogram features can detect depression state and treatment response in adults: A machine learning approach.

Background: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a major public health problem. The retina is a relevant site to indirectly study brain functioning. Alterations in retinal processing were demonstrated in MDD with the pattern electroretinogram (PERG).

Nonspecialty Nurse Education: Evaluation of the Oncology Intensives Initiative, an Oncology Curriculum to Improve Patient Care.

Background: A community hospital combined its medical and surgical patients with cancer on one unit, which resulted in nurses not trained in oncology caring for this patient population.

Objectives: The Oncology Intensives Initiative (ONCii) involved the (a) design and implementation of a daylong didactic boot camp class and a four-hour simulation session and (b) the examination of nurses' worries, attitudes, self-efficacy, and perception of interdisciplinary teamwork.

Methods: A two-group, pre-/post-test design was implemented.

Exploration of the retinal nerve fiber layer thickness by measurement of the linear dichroism.

An electro-optic device mounted on a slit lamp to assess the degree of polarization of a light beam that has double passed through the retina about the optic-nerve head in the living human eye is described. The asymmetric structure of the retinal nerve's fiber layer possesses a linear-form dichroism and will partially polarize an unpolarized light beam that is scattered at the fundus of the eye and has double passed the ocular media (cornea, lens, retina). This partial polarization is a function of the retinal nerve's fiber layer thickness, and its measurement may be used for exploring glaucoma and other retinal neuropathies.

Neoadjuvant and adjuvant chemotherapy with doxorubicin and docetaxel in locally advanced breast cancer.

Fifty patients with histologically confirmed stage III breast cancer were enrolled in this study of doxorubicin 50 mg/m2 and docetaxel 75 mg/m2 intravenously infused over 1 hour every 21 days with granulocyte colony-stimulating factor for 4 cycles. This was followed by surgery (mastectomy or lumpectomy) and 4 more cycles of doxorubicin/docetaxel postoperatively, then radiation and tamoxifen as indicated. Forty-six of the 50 patients (92%) completed neoadjuvant chemotherapy, and 38 patients (76%) completed adjuvant chemotherapy.

A practitioner's guide to cancer-related alopecia.

Alopecia due to the side effects of the treatment of cancer is one of the most common and emotionally troublesome effects of cancer therapy. Preventive measures, primarily scalp hypothermia, can be effective in some cases, but the worry of subsequent scalp metastasis remains. Investigative studies in animals are hindered by a poor animal alopecia model.