Child and caregiver voices about inpatient care: What do they report as positive and as needing improvement?

Purpose: In pediatric healthcare, patient satisfaction queries exclude children and solicit quantitative ratings from caregivers. We sought satisfaction perspectives from hospitalized children 7 to 17 years and their caregivers by qualitatively analyzing interview responses.

Design And Methods: English and Spanish-speaking children and their parents on five inpatient units completed two open-ended questions about their satisfaction at hospital discharge (T1, face to face) and 7 to 10 days later (T2, telephone).

Who wants to go first? A simulation study of accrual in a stand-alone trial versus starting a platform trial.

Others have quantified the efficiency of the platform approach as compared to a sequence of independent two-arm trials and have shown the platform approach more efficiently evaluates a set of candidate therapies. However, a practical barrier to initiating a platform trial is incentivizing the first candidate therapies to enter the platform. A platform trial is more complex and will take longer to design and operationalize than a traditional trial.

The Impact of Demographics on Child and Parent Ratings of Satisfaction with Hospital Care.

Introduction: Patient satisfaction ratings differ between minority and nonminority respondents in studies of hospitalized adults, but little is known about such differences in pediatrics. Our goal was to determine if patient satisfaction ratings completed by hospitalized children and their parents at the point of discharge differed by race/ethnicity, language, child gender, and age.

Methods: We used a mixed-methods design.

Publisher Correction: ASPI: a public-private partnership to develop treatments for autism.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

The Child's Voice in Satisfaction with Hospital Care.

Purpose: Patient satisfaction is a quality improvement indicator used to evaluate care. Ratings of patient satisfaction in pediatrics exclude the child voice. We tested the feasibility and acceptability of a new model that included both child and parent satisfaction ratings.

Tales of diversity: Genomic and morphological characteristics of forty-six Arthrobacter phages.

The vast bacteriophage population harbors an immense reservoir of genetic information. Almost 2000 phage genomes have been sequenced from phages infecting hosts in the phylum Actinobacteria, and analysis of these genomes reveals substantial diversity, pervasive mosaicism, and novel mechanisms for phage replication and lysogeny. Here, we describe the isolation and genomic characterization of 46 phages from environmental samples at various geographic locations in the U.

Significant decrease in maternal serum concentrations of angiopoietin-1 and -2 after delivery.

Objective: To characterize the physiological distribution of angiopoietins (Ang)-1 and Ang-2 and soluble endothelial cell-specific tyrosine kinase receptor-2 (Tie-2) at term and following delivery.

Design: A prospective, descriptive study.

Setting: Helsinki University Central Hospital.

Borrowing strength with nonexchangeable priors over subpopulations.

We introduce a nonparametric Bayesian model for a phase II clinical trial with patients presenting different subtypes of the disease under study. The objective is to estimate the success probability of an experimental therapy for each subtype. We consider the case when small sample sizes require extensive borrowing of information across subtypes, but the subtypes are not a priori exchangeable.

Changes in serum concentrations of soluble vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-1 after pregnancy.

Background: Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is the most potent stimulator of angiogenesis. It mediates its activity through two membrane-bound receptors, VEGFR-1 and VEGFR-2, both expressed in the placenta. Beginning in early pregnancy, the soluble form of the first, sVEGFR-1, binds and inhibits most of the biological actions of circulating VEGF.

Maternal serum angiopoietin-1 and -2 and tie-2 in early pregnancy ending in preeclampsia or intrauterine growth retardation.

Context: The antiangiogenic growth factor angiopoietin-2 (Ang-2) antagonizes, whereas angiopoietin-1 (Ang-1) activates the endothelial cell-specific tyrosine kinase receptor-2 (Tie-2). In preeclampsia, circulating concentrations of Ang-1 are increased and those of Ang-2 and Tie-2 are decreased.

Objective: We wanted to study whether maternal serum concentrations of Ang-1, Ang-2, and Tie-2 are altered at gestational wk 12-15 or 16-20 in women with subsequent preeclampsia or intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR).

Concentrations of vascular endothelial growth factor C and D in amniotic fluid and maternal plasma.

Objective: Vascular endothelial growth factor-C (VEGF-C) and VEGF-D promote both endothelial and lymphatic vascularization during embryonic development. We studied their presence in amniotic fluid (AF) and maternal plasma during pregnancy.

Design: Descriptive study.

Maternal serum endostatin at gestational weeks 16-20 is elevated in subsequent pre-eclampsia but not in intrauterine growth retardation.

Objective: Endostatin, an important anti-angiogenic factor produced by endothelial cells, is elevated in established pre-eclampsia. We measured maternal serum endostatin concentrations in early pregnancy associated with later pre-eclampsia and intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR).

Design: Retrospective case-control study.

Smoking and sVEGFR-1: circulating maternal concentrations and placental expression.

Smoking reduces the expression of VEGFR-1 in non-pregnant women. In pregnant women it reduces the risk of pre-eclampsia, which in turn is associated with increased placental expression of VEGFR-1 and increased maternal circulating soluble VEGFR-1 (sVEGFR-1). We therefore hypothesized that smoking might affect VEGFR-1 expression in pregnant women.

Is serum-soluble vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-1 of importance in unexplained infertility?

Objective: To analyze the role of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and its naturally occurring circulating antagonist, soluble VEGF receptor-1 (sVEGFR-1), in infertility. VEGF is a key angiogenic factor in the endometrial and ovarian cyclic processes that are crucial for fertility and sVEGFR-1 impairs its function and fertility in animals - less is known as regards human fertility.

Design: Case-control study.

Maternal serum-soluble vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-1 in early pregnancy ending in preeclampsia or intrauterine growth retardation.

Context: Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) promotes placental vascularization, which is inadequate in preeclampsia and intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR). The soluble receptor of VEGF (sVEGFR-1), also known as soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase-1, is produced in the placenta and reduces VEGF activity. Therefore, elevated sVEGFR-1 could contribute to the development of preeclampsia and IUGR.

PAX6 suppresses growth of human glioblastoma cells.

Purpose: Glioblastomas (GBMs) are the most common primary malignant brain tumors. Majority of GBMs has loss of heterozygosity of chromosome 10. The PAX6 encodes a transcription factor that involves in development of the brain, where its expression persists.

Suppression of tumorigenesis and induction of p15(ink4b) by Smad4/DPC4 in human pancreatic cancer cells.

Purpose: The tumor suppressor gene Smad4/DPC4, a key transcription factorin transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) signaling cascades,is inactivated in 50% of pancreatic adenocarcinomas. We seek to determine the role of Smad4/DPC4 in the suppression of tumor cell growth and in the regulation of TGF-beta-mediated expression of cell-cycle regulatory genes p15(ink4b) and p21(waf1).

Experimental Design: Smad4/DPC4 is overexpressed by adenoviral infection in CFPac-1 pancreatic cancer cells, in which the Smad4/DPC4 is homozygously deleted, and in Capan-1 pancreatic cancer cells, in which Smad4/DPC4 is not expressed.

Cyclooxygenase-2 expression in human breast cancers and adjacent ductal carcinoma in situ.

Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) is an inducible enzyme that converts arachidonic acid to prostaglandins. Overexpression of the COX-2 gene in mammary glands of transgenic mice was sufficient to induce tumorigenesis. We analyzed COX-2 expression in human breast cancers (and breast cancer cell lines) and adjacent ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) as well as its association with HER2/neu and clinicopathological variables.

A novel cytokine receptor-ligand pair. Identification, molecular characterization, and in vivo immunomodulatory activity.

As part of a large scale effort to discover novel secreted proteins, a cDNA encoding a novel cytokine was identified. Alignments of the sequence of the new protein, designated IL-17B, suggest it to be a homolog of the recently described T cell-derived cytokine, IL-17. By Northern analysis, EST distribution and real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis, mRNA was detected in many cell types.