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Few studies have validated standard measurement instruments for evaluation of chronic pruritus. The Chronic Pruritus Tools Questionnaire PRURITOOLS assembles a set of instruments for the assessment of pruritus, such as the visual analogue scale (horizontal 100-mm line), numerical rating scale (0-10), verbal rating scale, and information on pruritus quality and improvement during therapy. This study, with 40 subjects, analysed PRURITOOLS regarding convergent validity and test-retest reliability (60 min), followed by a feasibility questionnaire. Test-retest reliability for PRURITOOLS items was excellent (intraclass correlation coefficient 0.84-1). Strong to very strong correlations between the pruritus intensity scales indicated convergent validity. The feasibility questionnaire showed an overall acceptance of PRURITOOLS, and the majority of subjects (82.5%) considered it an appropriate questionnaire to measure pruritus. In conclusion, PRURITOOLS offers validated tools for rapid pruritus assessment in routine care or endpoints of clinical trials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The quality of life (QoL) of patients with osteosarcoma (OS) may be adversely affected by the disease or its treatment. Therefore, it is important to understand the QoL of patients undergoing treatment for OS to improve the QoL. We report on the first prospective international QoL study that was embedded within a large randomized clinical trial from 4 national study groups. Objective: This paper aimed to describe the QoL study development, methodology, accrual details, and characteristics of the QoL cohort. Methods: A total of 2260 patients registered in the EURopean AMerican Osteosarcoma Study-1 (EURAMOS-1), of whom 97.92% (2213/2260) were eligible for the optional QoL assessment and could participate in terms of questionnaire availability. Overall, 61.86% (1369/2213) of patients and/or proxies completed the QoL evaluation at the first assessment time point (E1) after the start of preoperative treatment. The QoL measures used (self- and/or proxy reports) depending on the patient's age and national study group. Participants and nonparticipants in the ancillary QoL study were compared regarding relevant demographic and disease-related characteristics at registration in the trial. Results: The participation rate at time point E1 did not differ with regard to age, gender, the occurrence of pathological fracture, or the presence of any metastases at diagnosis. No differences were found regarding the primary tumor site. Only the national study group affiliation had an influence on participation. Participation decreased linearly with trial progress up to 20% at the final time point of QoL assessment. Conclusions: This study demonstrates the feasibility of international cooperation for the purpose of assessing and understanding the QoL of pediatric and adolescent/young adult patients with cancer. Future outcomes of this QoL substudy will help to adapt interventions to improve QoL. We help JMIR researchers to raise funds to pursue their research and development aimed at tackling important health and technology challenges. If you would like to show your support for this author, please donate using the button below. The funds raised will directly benefit the corresponding author of this article (minus 8% admin fees). Your donations will help this author to continue publishing open access papers in JMIR journals. Donations of over $100 may also be acknowledged in future publications. Suggested contribution levels: $20/$50/$100 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To compare optical coherence tomography angiography (OCT-A) image quality gradings performed by readers of varying retinal expertise levels in different retinal diseases., Methods: Central 3 × 3 mm 2 OCT-A images (AngioVue, Optovue) of 57 healthy controls (50.9 ± 22.4 years) and 148 patients (66.5 ± 14.1 years) affected by various chorioretinal diseases were retrospectively analyzed including early age-related macular degeneration (AMD, n = 26), neovascular AMD (nAMD, n = 22), and geographic atrophy due to AMD (GA, n = 6), glaucoma (n = 28), central serous chorioretinopathy (CSC, n = 14), epiretinal membrane (EM, n = 26), retinitis pigmentosa (RP, n = 16), and retinal venous occlusion (RVO, n = 10). A senior expert in medical retina (SE), an ophthalmology resident (OR), and a non-ophthalmologic medical doctor (MD) independently assessed OCT-A image quality using the motion artifact score (MAS) and the segmentation accuracy score (SAS)., Results: Regarding MAS, inter-reader agreement between SE and OR was 93.7% (Cohen's kappa = 0.907) and 85.4% (Cohen's kappa = 0.786) between SE and MD. Regarding SAS, inter-reader agreement between SE and OR was 95.1% (Cohen's kappa = 0.92) and 92.2% (Cohen's kappa = 0.874) between SE and MD. In the SAS analysis, signal strength index (SSI) and presence of retinal pathology had a significant influence on the overall agreement ( P  = 0.046; P  < 0.001)., Conclusions: OCT-A image quality assessment can be performed most reliably by an ophthalmologist with knowledge in retinal image analysis. Yet, well-instructed non-ophthalmologic assessors show only slightly inferior results and, thus, may be integrated in routine OCT-A image quality assessment as well.