1,720,986 research outputs found
Extended Pelvic Lymph Node Dissection Does Not Affect Erectile Function Recovery in Patients Treated with Bilateral Nerve-Sparing Radical Prostatectomy
No full textIntroduction. Extended pelvic lymph node dissection (ePLND) might be associated with damages to the pelvic plexus, potentially affecting erectile function (EF) recovery after radical prostatectomy (RP). However, the impact of the extent of pelvic lymph node dissection (PLND) on EF has never been addressed. Aim. The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of ePLND on potency recovery in patients who underwent bilateral nerve-sparing RP (BNSRP). Methods. The study included 396 patients with prostate cancer treated with BNSRP by two high-volume surgeons. Patients were retrospectively divided into two groups based on PLND status: no PLND (N = 161; 40.9%) and ePLND (N = 235; 59.1%) at the time of BNSRP. All patients had preoperative functional and oncological data. Univariable and multivariable Cox regression models tested the association between ePLND and EF recovery after surgery, after accounting for confounders. Main Outcome Measure. The International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF) was used to evaluate EF after BNSRP. Postoperative EF recovery was defined as an IIEF-EF domain score =22. Results. At a mean follow up of 33.2 months after surgery (median 30), 183 patients (46.2%) recovered EF. Overall, postoperative EF recovery rate at 2 years was 48.4%. No significant differences were recorded when patients were stratified according to the extent of PLND (EF recovery rates at 2-year: 46.6% vs. 49.7% for patients who did not undergo PLND vs. those treated with ePLND; P = 0.33). These results were confirmed at multivariable analyses, where only age at surgery and preoperative IIEF-EF (all P = 0.03), but not ePLND (P = 0.8), represented independent predictors of EF recovery. Conclusions. The extent of PLND is not associated with potency after BNSRP. Conversely, other factors such as age at surgery and preoperative EF represent the major predictors of postoperative potency recovery. Therefore, when indicated, ePLND can be safely performed without compromising EF outcomes. Gandaglia G, Suardi N, Gallina A, Abdollah F, Capitanio U, Salonia A, Colombo R, Bianchi M, Chun FK, Hansen J, Rigatti P, Montorsi F, and Briganti A. Extended pelvic lymph node dissection does not affect erectile function recovery in patients treated with bilateral nerve-sparing radical prostatectomy. J Sex Med 2012;9:21872194
Prostate cancer nomograms: an update
No full textObjective: Several nomograms have been developed to predict outcomes related to prostate cancer (PCa). Methods: We provide a descriptive and an analytic comparison of nomograms. Further, we report a set of recent PCa nomograms, in which we recorded predictor variables, number of patients used to develop each nomogram, and nomogram-specific features. Moreover, accuracy estimates and type of validation are considered. Results: Our findings suggest a demand for updated nomograms in selected fields of PCa outcomes. Moreover, an increasing number of nomograms address important end points such as prostate-specific antigen recurrence, distant metastases, or androgen-independent PCa-specific survival. Conclusion: Our results suggest that nomograms are available for many PCa-related outcomes. They represent a valid methodologic approach if correct criteria are met. (c) 2006 European Association of Urology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved
Reply to Dr Stephan et al's Letter to the Editor re: Felix K.-H. Chun, Markus Graefen, Alberto Briganti, Andrea Gallina, Julia Hopp, Michael Kattan, Hartwig Huland and Pierre I. Karakiewicz. Initial Biopsy Outcome Prediction-Head-to-Head Comparison of a Logistic Regression-Based Nomogram versus Artificial Neural Network
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Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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