Ordinal tasks are increasingly used to explore preferences for health states. This study aimed to determine the suitability of two ordinal preference elicitation tasks (discrete choice experiments (DCE) and best-worst scaling (BWS)) for use with children and young people to generate health state utility values. The study explored children’s understanding, the relationship between their age and level of understanding, and how many tasks they felt they could complete.

Children aged 11-16 years were recruited from a secondary school in South Yorkshire, UK. Participants were asked to ‘think aloud’ as they completed a computer-based survey that contained both DCE and BWS tasks relating to dental caries (tooth decay) health states. Health states involved descriptions of the impact of tooth decay on children’s daily lives. One-to-one semi-structured interviews were then held with participants, with use of a topic guide. Qualitative data were transcribed verbatim and analysed thematically.

A total of 33 children (12 male, 21 female) participated, comprising 5-6 children from each school year group. Children expressed a preference for BWS and demonstrated a better understanding of these tasks than DCE. selleck compound There was no clear relationship between children’s level of understanding and age. Children felt they could manage between 8 and 10 BWS tasks comfortably.

This study suggests that BWS tasks are the most appropriate type of preference elicitation task to value health states for children and young people aged 11-16 years to complete.

This study suggests that BWS tasks are the most appropriate type of preference elicitation task to value health states for children and young people aged 11-16 years to complete.

After breast cancer treatment, follow-up consists of physical examination and mammography for at least 5 years, to detect local and regional recurrence. The risk of recurrence may decrease after event-free time. This study aims to determine the risk of local recurrence (LR) as a first event until 5 years after diagnosis, conditional on being event-free for 1, 2, 3 and 4 years.

From the Netherlands Cancer Registry, all M0 breast cancers diagnosed between 2005 and 2008 were included. LR risk was calculated with Kaplan-Meier analysis, overall and for different subtypes. Conditional LR (assuming x event-free years) was determined by selecting event-free patients at x years, and calculating their LR risk within 5 years after diagnosis.

Five-year follow-up was available for 34,453 patients. Overall, five-year LR as a first event occurred in 3.0%. This risk varied for different subtypes and was highest for triple negative (6.8%) and lowest for ER+PR+Her2- (2.2%) tumors. After 1, 2, 3 and 4 event-free years, thoduce low yield of LR, both for individual patients and studies using LR as primary outcome. This can be used as a starting point to tailor follow-up to individual needs.

To describe clinical and non-clinical factors associated with receipt of breast conserving surgery (BCS) versus mastectomy and time to surgical intervention.

Cross-sectional retrospective study of January 1, 2012 through March 31, 2018 data from the IBM MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounter and Medicare Supplemental Databases. Area Health Resource Files provided non-clinical characteristics and sociodemographic data. Eligibility Female sex, claim(s) with ICD-9-CM or ICD-10-CM diagnosis of non-metastatic invasive breast cancer, > 6months of continuous insurance pre- and post-diagnosis, evidence of BCS or mastectomy following initial ICD9/10 code diagnosis. Logistic and quantile multivariable regression models assessed the association between clinical and non-clinical factors and the outcome of BCS and time to surgery, respectively.

A total of 53,060 women were included in the study. Compared to mastectomy, BCS was significantly associated with older age (ORs 1.54 to 2.99, 95% CIs 1.45 to 3.38; ps < .0001) and higher community density of medical genetics (OR 5.88, 95% CIs 1.38 to 25.00; p = 0.02) or obstetrics and gynecology (OR 1.13, 95% CI 1.02 to 1.25; p = .02) physicians. Shorter time-to-BCS was associated with living in the South (-2.96, 95% CI -4.39 to -1.33; p < .0001). Longer time-to-BCS was associated with residence in more urban (4.18, 95% CI 0.08 to 8.29; p = 0. 05), educated (9.02, 95% CI 0.13 to 17.91; p = 0.05), or plastic-surgeon-dense (4.62, 95% CI 0.50 to 8.73; p = 0.03) communities.

Clinical and non-clinical factors are associated with adoption of BCS and time to treatment, suggesting opportunities to ensure equitable and timely care.

Clinical and non-clinical factors are associated with adoption of BCS and time to treatment, suggesting opportunities to ensure equitable and timely care.The neurotracer 6-[18F] FDOPA has been, for many years, a powerful tool in PET imaging of neuropsychiatric diseases, movement disorders and brain malignancies. More recently, it also demonstrated good results in the diagnosis of other malignancies such as neuroendocrine tumours, pheochromocytoma or pancreatic adenocarcinoma.The multiple clinical applications of this tracer fostered a very strong interest in the development of new and improved methods for its radiosynthesis. The no-carrier-added nucleophilic 18F-fluorination process has gained increasing attention, in recent years, due to the high molar activities obtained, when compared with the other methods although the radiochemical yield remains low (17-30%). This led to the development of several nucleophilic synthetic processes in order to obtain the product with molar activity, radiochemical yield and enantiomeric purity suitable for human PET studies.Automation of the synthetic processes is crucial for routine clinical use and compliance with GMP requirements. Nevertheless, the complexity of the synthesis makes the production challenging, increasing the chance of failure in routine production. Thus, for large-scale clinical application and wider use of this radiopharmaceutical, progress in the automation of this complex radiosynthesis is of critical importance.This review summarizes the most recent developments of 6-[18F]FDOPA radiosynthesis and discusses the key issues regarding its automation for routine clinical use.