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Context Although gastric cancer is one of the most common tumors worldwide, there is little knowledge about symptom clusters and quality of life (QoL) in this population. Objectives The objectives were to identify the symptom clusters in gastric cancer patients receiving chemotherapy, and explore their effects on QoL. Methods Gastric cancer patients receiving chemotherapy were recruited. Data were collected using the Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale Short Form, the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Gastric and the self-designed General Information Evaluation Form. The symptom clusters were extracted through the exploratory factor analysis. The influencing factors of symptom clusters and their effects on QoL were identified using multiple linear regression analysis. Results A total of 322 participants were enrolled from three medical centers. Five factors were identified in this exploratory factor analysis based on symptom prevalence, namely fatigue related symptom cluster, epithelial symptom cluster, neurologic symptom cluster, malnutrition related symptom cluster and psychological symptom cluster (χ2 = 31.470, P Conclusion Five symptom clusters were identified in gastric cancer patients receiving chemotherapy in mainland China. The symptom clusters negatively contributed to the variance in all aspects of QoL except social well being. Further studies should examine interventions for symptom clusters, their influencing factors, and their effects on improving QoL.

Objective This study aimed to adapt relevant clinical practice guidelines for distress management in cancer patients based on A Guideline Adaptation and Implementation Planning Resource (CAN-IMPLEMENT), and develop Cancer-related Distress Management Guidelines in the context of the research site. Methods According to CAN-IMPLEMENT, the symptoms of cancer patients in Shanghai were investigated, and a work plan was formulated to adapt cancer-related distress management guidelines. The relevant clinical practice guidelines for distress management in cancer patients were searched, screened and assessed, the contents of the included clinical practice guidelines were screened, extracted and integrated, and the Cancer-related Distress Management Guidelines was developed. After peer review, the Cancer-related Distress Management Guidelines was finally formed. Results The physical symptom distress score was higher than the psychological symptom distress score among cancer patients in Shanghai. Two clinical practice guidelines related to distress management in cancer patients were included after searching, screening, assessment and selection systematically. The domain scores of the draft Cancer-related Distress Management Guidelines on Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation II (AGREE II) were 73.75%–87.50%, respectively. The scores of most recommendations on feasibility, appropriateness, meaningfulness and effectiveness were at least 90%. The final guidelines included 13 recommendations. Conclusions The quality of the draft Cancer-related Distress Management Guidelines based on two included guidelines was well-accepted. The final Cancer-related Distress Management Guidelines needs to be further verified in clinical practice for feasibility, suitability and effectiveness.

Objective: This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of an information support program on the self-efficacy (SE) of prostate cancer (PCa) patients receiving hormonal therapy (HT). Methods: Based on the information support program constructed in a previous study, a randomized controlled trial was conducted in a cancer hospital in Shanghai, China. One hundred subjects were randomly divided into two groups. The control group was provided routine care and communication, and the experimental group participated in an informational support program. Three months later, the following outcomes were compared between the two groups: information acquisition, disease knowledge mastery, SE, healthy behavior adherence, health-related quality of life (HRQoL), and serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels. t-test and Wilcoxon rank-sum test were used to compare the differences between the two groups, and intention-to-treat analysis was used to increase the reliability of the results. Results: After the intervention, information acquisition, disease knowledge mastery, and the SE and healthy behavior adherence of the experimental group were significantly increased compared with the control group, whereas the HRQoL and PSA did not significantly differ from that observed in the control group. Conclusions: The results showed that information support programs improve information acquisition, disease knowledge mastery, SE, and healthy behavior adherence among PCa patients receiving HT.

Objectives In recent years, the use of mobile health applications (mHealth apps) to deliver care for patients with breast cancer has increased exponentially. This study aimed to summarize the available evidence on developing mHealth apps to care for patients with breast cancer and identify the need for systematic efforts. Methods A scoping review was performed according to Arksey and O’Malley’s framework, aiming to identify eligible research studies in PubMed, CINAHL, and Web of Science between January 2010 and December 2020. All identified studies were screened, extracted, and analyzed independently by two reviewers. Results A total of 676 studies were retrieved, and eight eligible studies were finally included. Four themes emerged: the involvement of patients and health professionals in the phases of design and development, patients’ preferences, the characteristics of patients, and the motivators to use mHealth apps. The results indicated promising prospects for using mHealth apps to care for patients with breast cancer and identified the need for systematic efforts to develop and validate relevant apps. Conclusions The attributes of patient characteristics, needs, and patient-reported outcomes data are vital components for developing mHealth apps for patients with breast cancer. Additionally, collaborative efforts, including patients, nurses, and other significant health professionals, should develop mHealth apps for breast cancer care. Additional research focusing on the design and development of mHealth apps for patients with breast cancer is warranted.

This work aims to explore the risk factors of lung metastasis (LM) in differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) (LM-DTC) and the effect of treatment and to detect the relationship between LM-DTC and the levels of matrix metalloproteinase-13 (MMP-13) and micro ribonucleic acid (RNA)-142 (miR-142) in peripheral blood. The data of 420 patients with DTC who are admitted from March 2020 to December 2021 are collected and divided into a non-metastasis group (non-LM group) of 400 cases and metastasis group (LM group) of 20 cases according whether the mung metastasis is found. In addition, risk factors of LM-DTC are analysed and compared. The results of multivariate logistic analysis show that age, disease course, and imaging timing are independent influencing factors of the radionuclide treatment effect. Follicular carcinoma, abnormal expressions of MMP-13, and miR-142 can increase the risk of LM-DTC. MMP-13 and miR-142 can be undertaken as auxiliary diagnostic biological indicators.

To translate Female Self-Advocacy in Cancer Survivorship (FSACS) scale and evaluate the psychometric properties of Chinese version of FSACS scale among female cancer survivors in China.This study employed a cross-sectional design. FSACS scale was forward-backward translated and cognitive interviews were conducted for cultural adaptation. The newly translated tool was distributed to female cancer survivors to test psychometric properties, including item analysis, content validity, construct validity, criterion validity, internal consistency, and test-retest reliability.A total of 436 female cancer survivors were recruited in a Chinese tertiary cancer center from May to August in 2021. Item analysis showed statistical significance (The Chinese version of FSACS scale proved to be a valid and reliable instrument that can be applied among Chinese female cancer survivors. Further research could be conducted in larger populations or people in different cancer stages.

This study aimed to construct evidence-based anticancer drug clinical trial nursing management norms to ensure the safety and quality of clinical trial nursing.This before-after study was carried out to complete the evidence implementation in a cancer hospital in Shanghai, China. Seven review indicators were developed and reviewed in one phase I clinical trial center and two oncology wards. The corresponding evidence-based intervention program was formulated, and the completion rate of good clinical practice certification, protocol training, delegation of duties, qualification rate of administration, sampling and document recording in anticancer drug clinical trials before and after implementation were compared.After implementation, the completion rate of protocol training, delegation of duties, and the qualification rate of document recording were significantly higher than those of the baseline review, whereas the completion rate of good clinical practice certification and the qualification rate of sampling did not significantly differ from those observed at the baseline review. There was no administration or infusion device-related protocol deviation during the baseline and post reviews.Anticancer drug clinical trial nursing management norms and relevant standard operating procedures were constructed. The results showed that the implementation of this intervention improved the standardization of nurse qualification procedures and the nursing original document recording in anticancer drug clinical trials, and nursing-related protocol deviation could be reduced to a certain extent.

The study of spreading phenomena in networks, in particular the spread of disease, has attracted considerable interest in the network science research community. In this paper, we show that the outbreak of an epidemic can be effectively contained and suppressed in a small subnetwork by a combination of antidote distribution and partial quarantine. We improve over existing antidote distribution schemes based on personalized PageRank in two ways. First, we replace the constraint on the topology of this subnetwork described by Chung et al. [Internet Math. 6, 237 (2009)1542-795110.1080/15427951.2009.10129184] that a large fraction of the value of the personalized PageRank vector must be contained in the local cluster, with a partial quarantine scheme. Second, we derive a different lower bound on the amount of antidote. We show that, under our antidote distribution scheme, the probability of the infection spreading to the whole network is bounded, and the infection inside the subnetwork will disappear after a period that is proportional to the logarithm of the number of initially infected nodes. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our strategy with numerical simulations of epidemics on benchmark networks. We also test our strategy on two examples of epidemics in real-world networks. Our strategy is dependent only on the rate of infection, the rate of recovery, and the topology around the initially infected nodes, and is independent of the rest of the network.

This study aimed to make a comprehensive, nationwide survey of supportive care for cancer patients in China. Two sets of questionnaires, one for medical professionals and one for patients, were distributed. Responses were received from 12,686 medical care personnel and 11,172 patients or their family representatives from 34 provinces. It was found that only about one-fourth of caregivers felt they had much knowledge about oncology supportive care, and nearly 10% admitted to having little or no knowledge. Multidisciplinary teams for supportive care were more often available in tertiary hospitals (19.9%) than in non-tertiary hospitals (15.4%) (p

Background: Peripherally inserted central catheters (PICCs) and totally implanted vascular access ports (PORTs) have been widely used for medium- to long-term chemotherapy. PICCs are associated with lower insertion cost, but higher complication rates than PORTs. However, there is a paucity of cost-effectiveness comparisons between the devices. We aimed to compare the cost-effectiveness of PICCs and PORTs for medium- to long-term chemotherapy from catheter insertion to removal. Methods: A cost-effectiveness analysis was conducted based on propensity score matching (PSM) from the hospital perspective. Data were collected from a retrospective cohort study. The total cost outcome comprised insertion, maintenance, removal and complication costs. The effectiveness outcome was the complication-free rate. The primary and supplemental outcomes were cost-effectiveness ratios (CERs) and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs). Results: A total of 1050 patients (after PSM for 417 patients) were included. The average total cost for 3–6 month ($603.55 ± 78.68 vs $1270.21 ± 128.84), 6–9 month ($731.40 ± 42.97 vs $1414.48 ± 155.43), and 9–12 month ($966.83 ± 53.78 vs $1587.76 ± 160.56) dwell times were all significantly lower for PICCs than for PORTs ( p Conclusion: This study provided economic evidence that informs vascular access device choice for medium- to long-term chemotherapy. For 3–9 month dwell times, PICCs were more cost-effective than PORTs. Furthermore, ICERs were applied and the choice was determined by willingness-to-pay. For 9–12 month dwell times, PORTs might be more cost-effective than PICCs, and studies with larger sample size would be needed to verify this finding in the future.

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-jva-10.1177_1129729821991360 for Peripherally inserted central catheter versus totally implanted venous port for delivering medium- to long-term chemotherapy: A cost-effectiveness analysis based on propensity score matching by Kairong Wang, Yingfeng Zhou, Na Huang, Zhenqi Lu and Xiaoju Zhang in The Journal of Vascular Access

Background: Stomach cancer patients receiving chemotherapy suffered severe distress. This study aimed to align the Cancer-related Distress Management Guidelines into clinical practice among stomach cancer patients receiving chemotherapy, and to monitor the implementation process of Cancer-related Distress Management Guidelines, evaluate the effects of guidelines implementation, and maintain the guidelines implementation in clinical practice.Methods: A Guideline Adaptation and Implementation Planning Resource (CAN-IMPLEMENT) was used as the research framework, which include three phases. Here the Implementation Part (Phase 2 and Phase 3) was reported: alignment of Cancer-related Distress Management Guidelines in clinical practice among stomach cancer patients receiving chemotherapy, and process monitoring and outcome evaluation of Cancer-related Distress Management Guidelines.Results: After the guidelines implementation, the formal audit criteria, working pathways, assessment tools, multidisciplinary panels, training manual for healthcare professionals, education and handbook for patients and their caregivers of distress management were developed on institutional level, as well as the related assessment tools and record forms. The completion rate of distress management record was increased from 0.0% to 97.9% (PPPPConclusions: The completion rate of distress management records increased significantly after guidelines implementation, revealing the process quality control of the distress management practice was good. At the institutional level, this guidelines implementation promoted the establishment of distress management system. To healthcare professionals, the guidelines implementation improved the distress management compliance. For stomach cancer patients receiving chemotherapy, distress management practices can effectively improve the distress of stomach cancer patients receiving chemotherapy.

Background Almost all cancer patients experience some level of distress, which has significantly reduced their quality of life. Nowadays evidence-based practice in various fields of health care is increasing, and it has played an important role. This study aimed to clarify the theme of guideline adaptation, integrate relevant clinical practice guidelines on distress management in cancer patients, and develop the Cancer-related Distress Management Guidelines. Methods A Guideline Adaptation and Implementation Planning Resource (CAN-IMPLEMENT) was used as the research framework, which include three phases. Here the Adaptation Part (Phase 1) was reported: adaptation of relevant clinical practice guidelines on the distress management in cancer patients to form the Cancer-related Distress Management Guidelines. Results The physical symptom distress score (0.61 ± 0.58) was almost equal to the psychological symptom distress score (0.61 ± 0.70) among cancer patients in Shanghai. A work plan for the adaptation of Cancer-related Distress Management Guidelines was developed. Two clinical practice guidelines related to distress management in cancer patents were included after searching, screening, assessment and selection. The domain scores of the draft the Cancer-related Distress Management Guidelines on Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation II (AGREE II) were 80.00% (scope and purpose), 82.78% (stakeholder involvement), 87.50% (rigour of development), 73.89% (clarity and presentation), 73.75% (applicability), 87.50% (editorial independence) respectively. The scores of most recommendations on feasibility, appropriateness, meaningfulness and effectiveness were 90.0% or higher. The final guidelines included 13 recommendations. Conclusions The psychological symptoms and physical symptoms were both worthy of attention in cancer patients. The quality of the draft the Cancer-related Distress Management Guidelines was well-accepted based on two included guidelines. Most recommendations received positive and constructive feedback on feasibility, appropriateness, meaningfulness and effectiveness. The final guidelines was formed based on the revision of the first draft guidelines.

Network science plays a central role in understanding and modeling complex systems in many areas including physics, sociology, biology, computer science, economics, politics, and neuroscience. One of the most important features of networks is community structure, i.e., clustering of nodes that are locally densely interconnected. Communities reveal the hierarchical organization of nodes, and detecting communities is of great importance in the study of complex systems. Most existing community-detection methods consider low-order connection patterns at the level of individual links. But high-order connection patterns, at the level of small subnetworks, are generally not considered. In this paper, we develop a novel community-detection method based on cliques, i.e., local complete subnetworks. The proposed method overcomes the deficiencies of previous similar community-detection methods by considering the mathematical properties of cliques. We apply the proposed method to computer-generated graphs and real-world network datasets. When applied to networks with known community structure, the proposed method detects the structure with high fidelity and sensitivity. When applied to networks with no a priori information regarding community structure, the proposed method yields insightful results revealing the organization of these complex networks. We also show that the proposed method is guaranteed to detect near-optimal clusters in the bipartition case.

Network science plays a central role in understanding and modeling complex systems in many areas including physics, sociology, biology, computer science, economics, politics, and neuroscience. One of the most important features of networks is community structure, i.e., clustering of nodes that are locally densely interconnected. Communities reveal the hierarchical organization of nodes, and detecting communities is of great importance in the study of complex systems. Most existing community-detection methods consider low-order connection patterns at the level of individual links. But high-order connection patterns, at the level of small subnetworks, are generally not considered. In this paper, we develop a novel community-detection method based on cliques, i.e., local complete subnetworks. The proposed method overcomes the deficiencies of previous similar community-detection methods by considering the mathematical properties of cliques. We apply the proposed method to computer-generated graphs and real-world network datasets. When applied to networks with known community structure, the proposed method detects the structure with high fidelity and sensitivity. When applied to networks with no a priori information regarding community structure, the proposed method yields insightful results revealing the organization of these complex networks. We also show that the proposed method is guaranteed to detect near-optimal clusters in the bipartition case.

Comprehensive symptom assessment is crucial for symptom management. The Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale-Short Form (MSAS-SF) has been validated for symptom assessment in cancer patients, but there is no simplified Chinese version.To present the validation procedures and results for the simplified Chinese version of the Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale-Short Form (MSAS-SF-SC) among cancer patients in mainland China.The MSAS-SF was translated and culturally adapted into simplified Chinese. About 359 cancer patients completed the MSAS-SF-SC, the Chinese Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-General, the Chinese Brief Fatigue Inventory, the Chinese Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and the Chinese Medical Outcomes Study Social Support Survey. Reliability was assessed by internal consistency and test-retest coefficients. Convergent and divergent validity were analyzed by Pearson's correlation coefficients between MSAS-SF-SC subscales and the other instruments. Known-groups validity used Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group-Performance Status, hemoglobin level, and primary site.The MSAS-SF-SC was reliable with Cronbach's alpha coefficients for subscales ranging from 0.782 to 0.874 and test-retest coefficients ranging from 0.819 to 0.872. MSAS-SF-SC subscales correlated with corresponding Chinese Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-General subscales (-0.557 to -0.680; P 0.001), Chinese Brief Fatigue Inventory (0.620; P 0.001), and Chinese Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (0.663; P 0.001) indicating convergent validity. MSAS-SF-SC subscales showed low or no correlations with the Chinese Medical Outcomes Study Social Support Survey (-0.146 to -0.165; P 0.01), indicating divergent validity. MSAS-SF-SC subscales showed appropriate differences by Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group-Performance Status, hemoglobin level, and primary site.The MSAS-SF-SC demonstrated good psychometric properties and is culturally adapted. The instrument could be a valuable tool for Chinese health care professionals and researchers.

This letter investigates the joint recovery of a frequency-sparse signal ensemble sharing a common frequency-sparse component from the collection of their compressed measurements. Unlike conventional arts in compressed sensing, the frequencies follow an off-the-grid formulation and are continuously valued in $\left\lbrack 0,1 \right\rbrack$. As an extension of atomic norm, the concatenated atomic norm minimization approach is proposed to handle the exact recovery of signals, which is reformulated as a computationally tractable semidefinite program. The optimality of the proposed approach is characterized using a dual certificate. Numerical experiments are performed to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach and its advantage over separate recovery., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures

Background: The peripherally inserted central catheter implantation and maintenance process was optimized at Shanghai Fu Dan University Cancer Center using lean-based methodology. Problems addressed were coping with capacity limitations and streamlining the process of patient care to reduce potential complications associated with delays in catheter administration. These clinical processes were evaluated with regard to pretreatment areas—such as booking, waiting, and patient education—and solutions were recommended to the problems that were identified. Methods: Lean methodology was used under actual clinical settings to improve the clinical process, using observations, patient surveys, interviews, data analysis, and a kaizen workshop. Three tools were applied from lean methodology: value stream mapping, bottleneck calculation, and fishbone root cause analysis. The philosophy of kaizen was used to enhance teamwork, boost morale, and encourage all members of the frontline nursing team and administration leaders to contribute ideas and suggestions for improvement. Results: A value stream map and a redesigned future value stream map were plotted at the workshop to identify problems related to inefficiency and waste and to aid in proposing solutions. Implementation of these solutions resulted in smooth and steady patient distributions on days with the largest patient volume during a typical week and an increase of 30% in the number of patients that could be seen in a week. Conclusions: The economic methodology of lean manufacturing, especially value stream mapping, can be a powerful tool for visualizing and better understanding processes to reduce waste and reengineer a standardized workstream in settings where peripheral intravenous central catheters are placed.

BACKGROUND Epidermal growth factor receptor inhibitors (EGFRIs) bind to and inhibit epidermal growth factor receptors (EGFRs) in cancer cells, slowing/preventing tumor growth. As a type of "targeted therapy", they have demonstrated therapeutic effects on solid tumors including colorectal, lung, and head and neck cancers. While effective, various skin reactions are associated with EGFRI therapy which can lead to dose modification or discontinuation as well as discomfort, pain and reduced quality of life. With adequate knowledge and skills, EGFRI-induced skin toxicity can be effectively managed collaboratively by clinicians and people affected by cancer. OBJECTIVES This project aimed to improve management of skin toxicity caused by EGFRIs by implementing evidence-informed practice within a chemotherapy department. METHODS Evidence-informed recommendations for practice and corresponding audit criteria were developed based on a series of literature reviews. Current practice was reviewed against these criteria with 19 nurses and 21 patients within a chemotherapy department. Barriers to adherence to evidence-informed practice were identified and strategies to improve compliance were implemented with clinicians and patients. A follow-up audit against the criteria was used to measure changes in clinical practice. RESULTS Multiple strategies for getting research into practice appear to have been successful. The follow-up audit demonstrated large improvements in compliance across all audit criteria in comparison with baseline results with all but one criterion achieving 100% compliance. Low rates of suspected infection meant that clinical practice could not be measured for criterion 7. CONCLUSIONS Auditing current practice and implementation of strategies to improve compliance with evidence-informed practice were effective. Sustaining these improvements is vital to ensure clinical practice continues to support better patient outcomes.

In the design phase of sensor arrays during array signal processing, the estimation performance and system cost are largely determined by array aperture size. In this article, we address the problem of joint direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation with distributed sparse linear arrays (SLAs) and propose an off-grid synchronous approach based on distributed compressed sensing to obtain larger array aperture. We focus on the complex source distribution in the practical applications and classify the sources into common and innovation parts according to whether a signal of source can impinge on all the SLAs or a specific one. For each SLA, we construct a corresponding virtual uniform linear array (ULA) to create the relationship of random linear map between the signals respectively observed by these two arrays. The signal ensembles including the common/innovation sources for different SLAs are abstracted as a joint spatial sparsity model. And we use the minimization of concatenated atomic norm via semidefinite programming to solve the problem of joint DOA estimation. Joint calculation of the signals observed by all the SLAs exploits their redundancy caused by the common sources and decreases the requirement of array size. The numerical results illustrate the advantages of the proposed approach.

The performance of existing approaches to the recovery of frequency-sparse signals from compressed measurements is limited by the coherence of required sparsity dictionaries and the discretization of frequency parameter space. In this paper, we adopt a parametric joint recovery-estimation method based on model selection in spectral compressive sensing. Numerical experiments show that our approach outperforms most state-of-the-art spectral CS recovery approaches in fidelity, tolerance to noise and computation efficiency., 5 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, published in ICASSP 2014