Colonoscopy and Colorectal Cancer Mortality in the Veterans Affairs Health Care System: A Case-Control Study.

Background: Colonoscopy is widely used in the Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system for colorectal cancer (CRC) prevention, but its effect on CRC mortality is unknown.

Objective: To determine whether colonoscopy is associated with decreased CRC mortality in veterans and whether its effect differs by anatomical location of CRC.

Design: Case-control study.

Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE): awareness and prophylaxis practices reported by patients with cancer.

Patients with cancer are at increased risk for venous thromboembolism (VTE). An online survey to measure PE/DVT terminology awareness and understanding of VTE risks revealed 24% and 15% of the 500 cancer patients surveyed had heard of term DVT/PE; 19% and 17% could name signs/ symptoms of DVT/PE; 3% recognized cancer treatments as risk factors for DVT/PE. Only 25% of the patients received prevention education from providers; <50% received VTE prophylaxis.

Immunoneutralization of procalcitonin or its component peptides: a promising treatment of sepsis.

Sepsis and the severe systemic response syndrome are very common illnesses that are responsible for a great amount of morbidity and death. These closely related conditions are characterized by a remarkable increase in the prohormone ProCT (procalcitonin). ProCT is both a marker of sepsis and a harmful mediator of the disease.

Procalcitonin in sepsis and systemic inflammation: a harmful biomarker and a therapeutic target.

The worldwide yearly mortality from sepsis is substantial, greater than that of cancer of the lung and breast combined. Moreover, its incidence is increasing, and its response to therapy has not appreciably improved. In this condition, the secretion of procalcitonin (ProCT), the prohormone of calcitonin, is augmented greatly, attaining levels up to thousands of fold of normal.

Early immunoneutralization of calcitonin precursors attenuates the adverse physiologic response to sepsis in pigs.

Objective: The 116 amino acid prohormone procalcitonin and some of its component peptides (collectively termed calcitonin precursors) are important markers and mediators of sepsis. In this study, we sought to evaluate the effect of immunoneutralization of calcitonin precursors on metabolic and physiologic variables of sepsis in a porcine model.

Design: A prospective, controlled animal study.