Determination of biomarkers associated with neoadjuvant treatment response focusing on colibactin-producing Escherichia coli in patients with mid or low rectal cancer: a prospective clinical study protocol (MICARE)

Introduction
The management of mid and low rectal cancer is based on neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (CRT) followed by standardised surgery. There is no biomarker in rectal cancer to aid clinicians in foreseeing treatment response. The determination of factors associated with treatment response might allow the identification of patients who require tailored strategies (eg, therapeutic de-escalation or intensification). Colibactin-producing Escherichia coli (CoPEC) has been associated with aggressive colorectal cancer and could be a poor prognostic factor. Currently, no study has evaluated the potential association between intestinal microbiota composition and tumour response to CRT in mid and low rectal cancer. The aim of this study is to assess the association between response to neoadjuvant CRT and faecal intestinal microbiota composition and/or CoPEC prevalence in patients with mid or low rectal cancer.

Methods and analysis
This is a non-randomised bicentric prospective clinical study with a recruitment capacity of 200 patients. Three stool samples will be collected from participants with histological-proven adenocarcinome of mid or low rectum who meet eligibility criteria of the study protocol: one before neoadjuvant treatment start, one in the period between CRT end and surgery and one the day before surgery. In each sample, CoPEC will be detected by culture in special media and molecular (PCR) approaches. The global microbiota composition will be also assessed by the bacterial 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Neoadjuvant CRT response and tumour regression grade will be described using the Dworak system at pathological examination. Clinical data and survival outcomes will also be collected and investigated.

Ethics and dissemination
MICARE was approved by the local ethics committee (Comité de Protection des Personnes Sud-Est II, 18 December 2019. Reference number 2019-A02493-54 and the institutional review board. Patients will be required to provide written informed consent. Results will be published in a peer reviewed journal.

Trial registration number
NCT04103567.

Leggi
Dicembre 2022

Swedish Chronic Pain Biobank: protocol for a multicentre registry and biomarker project

Introduction
About 20% of the adult population have chronic pain, often associated with psychological distress, sick leave and poor health. There are large variations in the clinical picture. A biopsychosocial approach is used in investigation and treatment. The concept of personalised medicine, that is, optimising medication types and dosages for individual patients based on biomarkers and other patient-related factors, has received increasing attention in different diseases but used less in chronic pain. This cooperative project from all Swedish University Hospitals will investigate whether there are changes in inflammation and metabolism patterns in saliva and blood in chronic pain patients and whether the changes correlate with clinical characteristics and rehabilitation outcomes.

Methods and analysis
Patients at multidisciplinary pain centres at University Hospitals in Sweden who have chosen to participate in the Swedish Quality Registry for Pain Rehabilitation and healthy sex-matched and age-matched individuals will be included in the study. Saliva and blood samples will be collected in addition to questionnaire data obtained from the register. From the samples, proteins, lipids, metabolites and micro-RNA will be analysed in relation to, for example, diagnosis, pain characteristics, psychological distress, body weight, pharmacological treatment and clinical rehabilitation results using advanced multivariate data analysis and bioinformatics.

Ethics and dissemination
The study is approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority (Dnr 2021–04929) and will be conducted in accordance with the declaration of Helsinki.
The results will be published in open access scientific journals and in popular scientific relevant journals such as those from patient organisations. Data will be also presented in scientific meetings, meeting with healthcare organisations and disseminated in different lecturers at the clinics and universities.

Leggi
Novembre 2022

Preventing chronic disease in overweight and obese patients with low health literacy using eHealth and teamwork in primary healthcare (HeLP-GP): a cluster randomised controlled trial

Objectives
To evaluate a multifaceted intervention on diet, physical activity and health literacy of overweight and obese patients attending primary care.

Design
A pragmatic two-arm cluster randomised controlled trial.

Setting
Urban general practices in lower socioeconomic areas in Sydney and Adelaide.

Participants
We aimed to recruit 800 patients in each arm. Baseline assessment was completed by 215 patients (120 intervention and 95 control).

Intervention
A practice nurse-led preventive health check, a mobile application and telephone coaching.

Primary and secondary outcome measures
Primary outcomes were measured at baseline, 6 and 12 months, and included patient health and eHealth literacy, weight, waist circumference and blood pressure. Secondary outcomes included changes in diet and physical activity, preventive advice and referral, blood lipids, quality of life and costs. Univariate and multivariate analyses of difference-in-differences (DiD) estimates for each outcome were conducted.

Results
At 6 months, the intervention group, compared with the control group, demonstrated a greater increase in Health Literacy Questionnaire domain 8 score (ability to find good health information; mean DiD 0.22; 95% CI 0.01 to 0.44). There were similar differences for domain 9 score (understanding health information well enough to know what to do) among patients below the median at baseline. Differences were reduced and non-statistically significant at 12 months. There was a small improvement in diet scores at 6 months (DiD 0.78 (0.10 to 1.47); p=0.026) but not at 12 months. There were no differences in eHealth literacy, physical activity scores, body mass index, weight, waist circumference or blood pressure.

Conclusions
Targeted recruitment and engagement were challenging in this population. While the intervention was associated with some improvements in health literacy and diet, substantial differences in other outcomes were not observed. More intensive interventions and using codesign strategies to engage the practices earlier may produce a different result. Codesign may also be valuable when targeting lower socioeconomic populations.

Trial registration number
Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ACTRN 12617001508369) (http://www.ANZCTR.org.au/ACTRN12617001508369.aspx).

Trial protocol
The protocol for this trial has been published (open access; https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/8/6/e023239).

Leggi
Novembre 2022

Pain predict genetics: protocol for a prospective observational study of clinical and genetic factors to predict the development of postoperative pain

Introduction
Postoperative pain remains a challenging medical condition impacting the quality of life of every patient. Although several predictive factors for postoperative pain have been identified, an adequate prediction of postoperative pain in patients at risk has not been achieved yet.
The primary objective of this study is to identify specific genetic risk factors for the development of acute and chronic postoperative pain to construct a prediction model facilitating a more personalised postoperative pain management for each individual. The secondary objectives are to build a databank enabling researchers to identify other risk factors for postoperative pain, for instance, demographic and clinical outcome indicators; provide insight into (genetic) factors that predict pharmacological pain relief; investigate the relationship between acute and chronic postoperative pain.

Methods and analysis
In this prospective, observational study, patients who undergo elective surgery will be recruited to a sample size of approximately 10 000 patients. Postoperative acute and chronic pain outcomes will be collected through questionnaires at different time points after surgery in the follow-up of 6 months. Potential genetic, demographic and clinical risk factors for prediction model construction will be collected through blood, questionnaires and electronic health records, respectively.
Genetic factors associated with acute and/or chronic postoperative pain will be identified using a genome-wide association analysis. Clinical risk factors as stated in the secondary objectives will be assessed by multivariable regression. A clinical easy-to-use prediction model will be created for postoperative pain to allow clinical use for the stratification of patients.

Ethics and dissemination
The Institutional Review Board of the Radboud university medical centre approved the study (authorisation number: 2012/117). The results of this study will be made available through peer-reviewed scientific journals and presentations at relevant conferences, which will finally contribute to personalised postoperative pain management.

Trial registration number
NCT02383342.

Leggi
Novembre 2022

Nomogram models to predict low fertilisation rate and total fertilisation failure in patients undergoing conventional IVF cycles

Objectives
To establish visualised prediction models of low fertilisation rate (LFR) and total fertilisation failure (TFF) for patients in conventional in vitro fertilisation (IVF) cycles.

Design
A retrospective cohort study.

Setting
Data from August 2017 to August 2021 were collected from the electronic records of a large obstetrics and gynaecology hospital in Sichuan, China.

Participants
A total of 11 598 eligible patients who underwent the first IVF cycles were included. All patients were randomly divided into the training group (n=8129) and the validation group (n=3469) in a 7:3 ratio.

Primary outcome measure
The incidence of LFR and TFF.

Results
Logistic regressions showed that ovarian stimulation protocol, primary infertility and initial progressive sperm motility were the independent predictors of LFR, while serum luteinising hormone and P levels before human chorionic gonadotropin injection and number of oocytes retrieved were the critical predictors of TFF. And these indicators were incorporated into the nomogram models. According to the area under the curve values, the predictive ability for LFR and TFF were 0.640 and 0.899 in the training set and 0.661 and 0.876 in the validation set, respectively. The calibration curves also showed good concordance between the actual and predicted probabilities both in the training and validation group.

Conclusion
The novel nomogram models provided effective methods for clinicians to predict LFR and TFF in traditional IVF cycles.

Leggi
Novembre 2022

Impact of conditional cash transfer programmes on antenatal care service uptake in low and middle-income countries: a systematic review

Objective
Antenatal care (ANC) is crucial to protecting the health of pregnant women and their unborn children; however, the uptake of ANC among pregnant women in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) is suboptimal. One popular strategy to increase the uptake of health services, including ANC visits, are conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes. CCT programmes require beneficiaries to comply with certain conditionalities in order to receive a financial sum. A systematic review was carried out to determine whether CCT programmes have a positive impact on ANC uptake in LMIC populations.

Methods
Electronic databases CENTRAL, MEDLINE, Embase, Maternity and Infant Care and Global Health were searched from database inception to 21 January 2022. Reference checking and grey literature searches were also applied. Eligible study designs were randomised controlled trials, controlled before-after studies and interrupted time series analysis. Risk of bias assessments were undertaken for each study by applying the Risk of Bias 2 tool and the Risk of Bias in Non-randomised Studies of Interventions tool.

Results
Out of 1534 screened articles, 18 publications were included for analysis. Eight studies reported statistically non-significant results on all reported outcomes. Seven studies demonstrated statistically significant positive effects ranging from 5.5% to 45% increase in ANC service uptake. A further three studies reported small but statistically significant impact of CCT on the use of ANC services in both positive (2.5% increase) and negative (3.7% decrease) directions. Subanalysis of results disaggregated by socioeconomic status (SES) indicated that ANC attendance may be more markedly improved by CCT programmes in low SES populations; however, results were inconclusive.

Conclusion
Our evidence synthesis presented here demonstrated a highly heterogeneous evidence base pertaining to the impact of CCTs on ANC attendance. More high-powered studies are required to elucidate the true impact of CCT programmes on ANC uptake, with particular focus on the barriers and enablers of such programmes in achieving intended outcomes.

Leggi
Novembre 2022

(C)onsumer focused (E)ducation on p(A)racetamol (S)ide (E)ffects, i(N)adequate (O)utcomes and (W)eaning (CEASE NOW) for individuals with low back pain: results of a feasibility study

Objectives
To determine the feasibility of a patient-education booklet to support patients with low back pain (LBP) to reduce paracetamol intake.

Design
Single group, repeated measures feasibility study.

Setting
Community.

Participants
Adults experiencing LBP of any kind and self-reporting consumption of paracetamol for LBP weekly for at least 1 month were invited to participate.

Intervention
Participants received a patient-education booklet 1 week after the baseline measures were collected. The intervention was designed to change beliefs, increase knowledge and self-efficacy to deprescribe paracetamol for their LBP and create discussion with a health professional through the mechanisms of motivation, capacity and opportunity.

Primary outcome measures
Feasibility of recruitment procedures, data collection and acceptability of the intervention.

Secondary outcome measures
Changes in motivation, self-efficacy, opportunity to deprescribe paracetamol for their LBP, paracetamol usage and LBP clinical outcomes at baseline, 1-week and 1-month follow-up.

Results
A total of 24 participants were recruited into the study within the timeframe of 3 months from study advertisement and all completed the study follow-up. There were no missing data for any outcome measure across all follow-up points, 22 (91.6%) participants were willing to participate in a future randomised control trial (RCT) and over 60% of participants responded positively to questions regarding acceptability of the patient-educational booklet. Overall, at the 1-month follow-up, approximately two thirds (15/24) of participants had an increase in motivation and self-efficacy scores and had discussed or intended to discuss their paracetamol use for LBP with a health professional.

Conclusions
The results of this study demonstrate that the patient-education booklet is feasible to implement, and both the intervention and study design were well-received by participants. This study supports the undertaking an RCT to assess the effects of the patient-education booklet on deprescribing paracetamol in people with LBP.

Leggi
Novembre 2022

Effects of COVID-19 on paediatric cardiac centres in low-income and middle-income countries: a mixed-methods study

Objectives
The aim of this study was to understand the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on paediatric cardiac services in critical access centres in low-income and middle-income countries.

Design
A mixed-methods approach was used.

Setting
Critical access sites that participate in the International Quality Improvement Collaborative (IQIC) for congenital heart disease (CHD) were identified.

Participants
Eight IQIC sites in low-income and middle-income countries agreed to participate.

Outcome measures
Differences in volume and casemix before and during the pandemic were identified, and semistructured interviews were conducted with programme representatives and analysed by two individuals using NVivo software. The qualitative component of this study contributed to a better understanding of the centres’ experiences and to identify themes that were common across centres.

Results
In aggregate, among the seven critical access sites that reported data in both 2019 and 2020, there was a 20% reduction in case volume, though the reduction varied among programmes. Qualitative analysis identified a universal impact for all programmes related to Access to Care/Clinical Services, Financial Stability and Professional/Personal Issues for healthcare providers.

Conclusions
Our study identified and quantified a significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on critical access to CHD surgery in low-income and middle-income countries, as well as a significant adverse impact on both the skilled workforce needed to treat CHD and on the institutions in which care is delivered. These findings suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic has been a major threat to access to care for children with CHD in resource-constrained environments and that this effect may be long-lasting beyond the global emergency. Efforts are needed to preserve vulnerable CHD programmes even during unprecedented pandemic situations.

Leggi
Novembre 2022

What is the relationship between physical activity and chronic pain in older adults? A systematic review and meta-analysis protocol

Introduction
Chronic pain is highly prevalent in older adults and can cause functional limitations, negatively affecting health and quality of life. Physical activity is a non-pharmacological approach used to prevent chronic pain as it promotes the release of endogenous opioids that block pain sensitivity. Therefore, we developed a systematic review protocol to analyse the relationship between physical activity and the occurrence and intensity of chronic pain in older adults.

Methods and analyses
The systematic review will search PubMed, Scopus and Embase databases. The inclusion criteria will be observational studies that had primary chronic pain as an outcome, including persistent and intermittent pain. The population will include older adults from the community, living in a long-stay institution, or in outpatient follow-up. There will be no restriction regarding the year of publication and articles published in Portuguese, English and Spanish will be analysed. Effect or impact measures will be quantified, including OR, HR, prevalence ratio, incidence ratio and relative risk with their 95% CIs. If the data allow, a meta-analysis will be performed. The results may help understand the impact of physical activity as a potential protection factor against the occurrence of pain later in life as well as promote strategic prevention plans and public policies that encourage this practice in older adults.

Ethics and dissemination
Ethical approval is not required. The results will be disseminated via submission for publication to a peer-reviewed journal when complete.

PROSPERO registration number
CRD42021282898.

Leggi
Novembre 2022

Study protocol for an integrative theory review of the concept of unidentified pain

Introduction
Most definitions of pain require individuals experiencing pain to report their pain. There are three groups who may not always report pain including those who: (1) lack the cognitive ability to verbally communicate their pain and also lack a proxy/surrogate to report pain for them; (2) lack the cognitive ability to verbally communicate their pain but have a proxy to report the pain; and (3) have the cognitive ability to verbally report pain but are unable or unwilling to do so. Clinicians may not be able to determine which patients are at risk for unidentified pain. Therefore, in this study, we present a protocol for an integrative review with the aim of identifying existing theoretical approaches to understanding unidentified pain.

Methods and analysis
We propose a systematic overview of the existing theoretical approaches to understanding ‘unidentified pain’. We will use Campbell and colleagues’ criteria for systematic reviews of theory and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols guidelines. Our search will be broad to cover theoretical approaches to ‘unidentified pain’ using MEDLINE, CINAHL, Embase and Google Scholar. Covidence systematic review software will be used for data extraction and analysis. Then, qualitative content analysis will take place. The content analysis will be presented as a narrative.

Ethics and dissemination
No human or animal subjects will be involved. The results are to be published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at conferences in the USA and internationally.

Leggi
Novembre 2022