1,721,043 research outputs found
Impact of short-course preoperative radiotherapy for rectal cancer on patients' quality of life::data From the Medical Research Council CR07/National Cancer Institute of Canada Clinical Trials Group C016 randomized clinical trial
No full textPurpose The Medical Research Council CR07/National Cancer Institute of Canada Clinical Trials Group C016 (MRC CR07/NCIC CTG C016) trial showed that, in patients with operable rectal cancer, short-course preoperative radiotherapy (PRE) reduced the rate of local recurrence compared with surgery followed by selective postoperative chemoradiotherapy for patients with a positive circumferential resection margin. However, the advantages of giving PRE to all patients needs to be balanced against any negative impact on patients' quality of life.Patients and Methods All 1,350 patients were asked to complete the Medical Outcomes Study Short-Form 36-item (MOS SF-36) and the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire Colorectal 38-item (EORTC QLQ-CR38) questionnaires. A priori hypotheses related to the impact of treatment on sexual, bowel, and physical function and general health.Results Male sexual dysfunction was significantly increased following surgery (P < .001), although there was no difference between treatment arms. However, a treatment difference had emerged at 6 months (PRE patients reporting significantly greater dysfunction; P = .004), which persisted out to at least 2 years (an insufficient number of female patients completed the sexual dysfunction questions to draw firm conclusions). Both treatment groups reported similar levels of decreased physical function at 3 months, but thereafter it returned to baseline levels. There was no evidence of any major changes between treatments or time points in terms of general health or bowel function, but exploratory analysis indicated a significant (P = .006 at 2 years) increase in the level of fecal incontinence with PRE.Conclusion These results from a large randomized trial using validated patient-completed questionnaires show that, for males, the main adverse effect was sexual dysfunction, and the main cause of this was surgery, but that PRE also affected sexual and some aspects of bowel functioning.</p
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
Systematic Review of the Quality of Life issues associated with Anal Cancer and its treatment with Radiochemotherapy
Full text linkPurpose Radiochemotherapy is the standard of care for the treatment of anal carcinoma achieving good loco-regional control and sphincter preservation. This approach is however associated with acute and late toxicities including haematological, skin, bowel function and genito-urinary complications. This paper systematically reviews studies addressing the quality of life (QoL) implications of anal cancer and radiochemotherapy. The paper also evaluates how QoL is assessed in anal cancer. Methods Medline, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsycInfo, Web of Science and the Cochrane Library were searched for publications (1996–2014) reporting the effects on patients of anal cancer and radiochemotherapy. Results Of the 152 papers reporting treatment-related effects on patients, only 11 provided a formal assessment of QoL. In the absence of an anal cancer-specific measure, QoL was assessed using generic cancer instruments such as the core EORTC quality of life questionnaire (EORTC QLQ-C30) or colorectal cancer tools such as the EORTC QLQ-CR29. Bowel function, particularly diarrhoea, and sexual problems were the most commonly reported QoL concerns. The review of QoL issues of anal cancer patients treated with radiochemotherapy is limited by the QoL assessment measures used. It is argued that certain treatment-related toxicities, for example skin-induced radiation problems, are overlooked or inadequately represented in existing measures. Conclusions This review emphasises the need to develop an anal cancer-specific QoL measure and to incorporate QoL as an outcome of future trials in anal cancer. The results of this review are informative to clinicians and patients in terms of treatment decision-making
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
- …
