LISTING EXPECTED MEAN SQUARE COMPONENTS.
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AIM: To evaluate the influence of various clinicopathologic factors on survival of patients with bile duct carcinoma after curative resection. METHODS: A retrospective analysis was made for 86 cases of bile duct carcinoma treated from January 1981 to September 1995. Fifteen clinicopathologic factors possibly influencing survival were selected. Independent variables were first analyzed by univariate methods. Survival for variable was estimated by the method of Kaplan and Meier. The variables that were statistically significant by univariate analysis were included in a multivariate analysis, which were confirmed using the Cox stepwise proportion hazard model with the help of SPSS 10.0 for Windows software. RESULTS: The overall cumulative survival rate was 72.6 % at 1 year, 32.4 % at 3 years, and 18.7 % at 5 years. The results of univariate analysis showed that the major significant prognostic factors influencing survival of these patients were histological type of lesion, lymph node metastasis, pancreatic invasion, duodenal invasion, perineural invasion, macroscopic vessel involvement, resected surgical margin and depth of cancer invasion (P=0.02, 0.02, 0.004, 0.005, 0.01, 0.43, 0.03 and 0.04). Age, sex, location of tumor, size of tumor, macroscopic type of lesions, hepatic metastasis, and hepatic invasion were not significantly associated with prognosis (P>0.05). Pancreatic invasion, perineural invasion and lymph node metastases were the three most important prognostic factors by multivariate analysis using the Cox proportional hazards model. CONCLUSION: Pancreatic invasion, perineural invasion and lymph node metastases are the most important prognostic factors for bile duct carcinoma after curative resection.
A questionnaire survey for medical practitioners was conducted to clarify their basic awareness and concepts of risk management. One hundred and sixty-three medical practitioners participated in the fourth. Chugoku Yakugaku Kenkyukai. More than 50% of the participants (n = 83, aged 39.7 +/- 10.8 years) answered correctly questions about the awareness of risk management and the existence of a risk management committee in their medical institution. All of those survey participants had experienced common risk managements incidents (approximately 12 times/year) during working hours. When multivariate statistical analysis was performed on the survey results, the factors influencing the presence of a risk management committee in a medical institution were a system for the submission of incident reports, the number of beds, and the presence of a person assigned to manage risk. The analysis showed that in a number of cases medical institutions did not have a system for incident reports and did not appoint risk management staff. Moreover, the analysis showed that factors influencing the presence of a risk management committee were staff age, experience in submitting incident reports, and participation of the top executive in the operation of the risk management committee. Participants younger than 40 years of age were dissatisfied with the reporting system of risk management committees those older. The younger group usually reported incidents to those older than 40 years of age, who only accepted the reports and did not submit them to the risk management committee. In conclusion, our results suggest that in a risk management program it is important to establish a committee and a system for the submission of incident reports. Incident reports should not only include expressions of regret for medication errors but also propose a plan for improvement.
PURPOSE: Bladder stone formation (BSF) after sigmoidocolocystoplasty (SCP) is a major source of morbidity. The authors identify risk factors and analyze them statistically. METHODS: Medical records of 106 patients who had SCP at our institute were reviewed to examine the incidence of post-SCP BSF, the stone removal method and length of follow-up. The primary underlying pathological conditions were myelomeningocele in 103 patients and other conditions in 3. Risk factors for BSF were statistically assessed by comparing cases with and without BSF. RESULTS: Bladder stone formation occurred in 20 (18.9%) of 106 patients (BSF group). The remaining 86 did not have stones (NBSF group). Mean age at SCP was 11.7 years in the BSF group and 10.2 years in the NBSF group. Mean follow-up was 12.0 years in the BSF group and 11.0 years in the NBSF group. BSF developed after a mean of 30.3 +/- 25.6 months after SCP. Twenty-two stone removal procedures were performed in the BSF group and spontaneous evacuation occurred in 4 instances. Once stone free, BSF recurred in 4 patients. Although differences between the 2 groups with respect to sex, age at SCP, follow-up period, bladder capacity, bladder compliance, incidence of gram-negative bacteriuria, incidence of gram-positive coccus bacteriuria, electrolytes, frequency of urinary catheterization, post-SCP incidence of vesicoureteric reflux, and incidence of ureteric reimplantation were not statistically significant, differences in the incidence of spontaneous micturition, bladder neck tightening procedures, or gram-positive bacillus bacteriuria, or frequency of bladder irrigation were all statistically significant (P < .05 in all, Fisher's Exact test). CONCLUSIONS: The authors are the first to statistically analyze a wide range of varying risk factors for BSF. BSF would appear to be common after SCP.
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OBJECTIVE: To identify biomarkers of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and related disorders through analysis of microarray data, pathology test results and self-report symptom profiles. METHOD: To empirically derive the symptom domains of the illnesses, factor analysis was performed on responses to self-report questionnaires (multidimensional fatigue inventory, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) symptom inventory and Zung depression scale) before validation with independent datasets. Gene expression patterns that distinguished subjects across each factor dimension were then sought. RESULTS: A four-factor solution was favored, featuring 'fatigue' and 'mood disturbance' factors. Scores on these factors correlated with measures of disability on the Short Form (SF)-36. A total of 57 genes that distinguished subjects along each factor dimension were identified, although the separation was significant only for subjects beyond the extreme (15th and 85th) percentiles of severity. Clustering of laboratory parameters with expression of these genes revealed associations with serum measurements of pH, electrolytes, glucose, urea, creatinine, and liver enzymes (aspartate amino transferase [AST] and alanine amino transferase [AST]); as well as hematocrit and white cell count. CONCLUSION: CFS is a complex syndrome that cannot simply be associated with changes in individual laboratory tests or expression levels of individual genes. No clear association with gene expression and individual symptom domains was found. However, analysis of such multifacetted datasets is likely to be an important means to elucidate the pathogenesis of CFS.
BACKGROUND: The combination of airway hyper-responsiveness, eosinophilic airway inflammation, and lung function impairment is considered as a hallmark of bronchial asthma. Since airway function might change with time in chronic asthma, the association between parameters which are characteristic of asthma could be different in subjects with different durations of the disease. OBJECTIVE: We assessed whether in patients with asthma the relationship between airway hyperresponsiveness, non-invasive markers of airway inflammation, and baseline lung function depended on the duration of the disease. METHODS: Sixty-six non-smoking patients with mild to moderate allergic asthma without corticosteroids were assigned to two groups, according to a duration of the disease (time interval since doctor's diagnosis) of either < or = 16 years (median 8 years; mean FEV1, 92.6% pred.; n = 34) or > 16 year (median 25 years; mean FEV1, 87.9% pred.; n = 32). RESULTS: Groups did not differ statistically in PC20FEV1 of methacholine, sputum composition, levels of exhaled nitric oxide (NO), lung function parameters, or history of treatment. There were significant correlations between PC20FEV1, eosinophils and NO in patients with a duration of the disease < or = 16 year, but no relation to lung function. In contrast, patients with a duration > 16 year showed a correlation between PC20FEV1 of methacholine and lung function but not eosinophils or NO. In both groups, eosinophils and NO were associated with each other. These results were corroborated by the statistical procedure of factor analysis that revealed 'inflammation' and 'lung function' as major entities and found 'responsiveness' to be associated with only one of them in each group. CONCLUSION: Our data demonstrate that with a shorter duration of the asthmatic disease airway hyper-responsiveness is associated with airway inflammation, whereas with a longer duration it is associated with impaired lung function, suggesting that in chronic asthma ongoing alterations become the primary determinant of functional characteristics.
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