Abdominoperineal resection for distal rectal cancer is associated with a higher recurrence rate and a poorer overall prognosis than anterior resection. In order to improve the outcome, a more extensive procedure - extralevator abdominoperineal resection - has been introduced. There are, however, currently no prospective or registry-based studies on the effect of this new procedure on local recurrence rates.
Abdominoperineal extralevator resection (APER) is a registry-based Swedish study investigating local recurrence rate three years postoperatively in the entire population of Swedish patients who underwent abdominoperineal resection or extralevator abdominoperineal resection in the 2007-2009-period. In addition to local recurrence rates, the study also investigates the functional and quality-of-life-related outcome 3-4 years postoperatively in the entire study population.
Distal rectal cancer is a surgical and oncological challenge. The APER study will be able to compare the two operative techniques (standard abdominoperineal resection or extralevator abdominoperineal resection) in terms of oncological and functional outcome.
not relevant.
The trial is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier NCT01296984.
Genetic testing for a variety of diseases is becoming more available to primary care physicians, but it is unclear how useful physicians perceive these tests to be. We examined academic family physicians' perception of and experiences with clinical genetic testing and direct-to-consumer genetic testing.
This study is an analysis of a survey conducted as part of the Council of Academic Family Medicine Educational Research Alliance (CERA). Academic family physicians in the United States and Canada were queried about their perception of genetic testing's utility, how frequently patients ask about genetic testing, and the importance of genetic testing in future practice and education of students and residents.
The overall survey had a response rate of 45.1% (1,404/3,112). A majority (54.4%) of respondents felt that they were not knowledgeable about available genetic tests. Respondents perceived greater utility of genetic tests for breast cancer (94.9%) and hemochromatosis (74.9%) than for Alzheimer's disease (30.3%), heart disease (25.4%), or diabetes (25.2%). Individuals with greater self-perceived knowledge of genetic tests were more likely to feel that genetic testing would have a significant impact on their future practice (23.1%) than those with less knowledge (13.4%). Respondents had little exposure to direct-to-consumer genetic tests, but a majority felt that they were more likely to cause harm than benefit.
Academic family physicians acknowledge their lack of knowledge about genetic tests. Educational initiatives may be useful in helping them incorporate genetic testing into practice and in teaching these skills to medical students and residents.
Delayed sleep phase (DSP) in adolescence has been linked to reduced academic performance, but there are few population-based studies examining this association using validated sleep measures and objective outcomes.
The youth@hordaland-survey, a large population-based study from Norway conducted in 2012, surveyed 8347 high-school students aged 16-19 years (54% girls). DSP was assessed by self-report sleep measures, and it was operationalized according to the International Classification of Sleep Disorders - Second Edition. School performance (grade point average, GPA) was obtained from official administrative registries, and it was linked individually to health data.
DSP was associated with increased odds for poor school performance. After adjusting for age and gender, DSP was associated with a threefold increased odds of poor GPA (lowest quartile) [odds ratio (OR)?=?2.95; 95% confidence interval (CI): 2.03-4.30], and adjustment for sociodemographics and lifestyle factors did not, or only slightly, attenuate this association. Adjustment for nonattendance at school reduced the association substantially, and in the fully adjusted model, the effect of DSP on poor academic performance was reduced to a non-significant level. Mediation analyses confirmed both direct and significant indirect effects of DSP on school performance based on school absence, daytime sleepiness, and sleep duration.
Poor academic performance may reflect an independent effect of underlying circadian disruption, which in part could be mediated by school attendance, as well as daytime sleepiness and short sleep duration. This suggests that careful assessment of sleep is warranted in addressing educational difficulties.
The link between physical activity (PA) and prevention of disease, maintenance of independence, and improved quality of life in older adults is supported by strong evidence. However, there is a lack of data on population levels in this regard, where PA level has been measured objectively. The main aims were therefore to assess the level of accelerometer-determined PA and to examine its associations with self-reported health in a population of Norwegian older adults (65-85 years).
This was a part of a national multicenter study. Participants for the initial study were randomly selected from the national population registry, and the current study included those of the initial sample aged 65-85 years. The ActiGraph GT1M accelerometer was used to measure PA for seven consecutive days. A questionnaire was used to register self-reported health. Univariate analysis of variance with Bonferroni adjustments were used for comparisons between multiple groups.
A total of 560 participants had valid activity registrations. Mean age (SD) was 71.8 (5.6) years for women (n=282) and 71.7 (5.2) years for men (n=278). Overall PA level (cpm) differed considerably between the age groups where the oldest (80-85 y) displayed a 50% lower activity level compared to the youngest (65-70 y). No sex differences were observed in overall PA within each age group. Significantly more men spent time being sedentary (65-69 and 70-74 years) and achieved more minutes of moderate to vigorous PA (MVPA) (75-79 years) compared to women. Significantly more women (except for the oldest), spent more minutes of low-intensity PA compared to men. PA differed across levels of self-reported health and a 51% higher overall PA level was registered in those, with "very good health" compared to those with "poor/very poor health".
Norwegian older adults PA levels differed by age. Overall, the elderly spent 66% of their time being sedentary and only 3% in MVPA. Twenty one percent of the participants fulfilled the current Norwegian PA recommendations. Overall PA levels were associated with self-reported health.
From the School of Population and Public Health (Dr Bustillos), University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; and Occupational Medicine Postgraduate Program (Dr Trigoso), Faculty of Medicine, Cayetano Heredia University, Lima, Peru.
To examine access to health programs at workplace as a determinant of presenteeism among adults.
Data source was a subsample of the 2009-2010 Canadian Community Health Survey. The outcome was self-reported reduced activities at work (presenteeism). The explanatory variable was self-reported access to a health program at workplace. Logistic regression was used to measure the association between outcome and explanatory variables adjusting for potential confounders.
Adjusting for sex, age, education, income, work stress, and chronic conditions, presenteeism was not associated with having access to a health program at workplace (adjusted odds ratio, 1.23; 95% confidence interval, 0.91 to 1.65). The odds of presenteeism were higher in workers who reported high work stress and those with chronic medical conditions.
This study found that access to health programs at workplace is not significantly associated with a decline in presenteeism.
Immigrants make up one fifth of the Canadian population and this number continues to grow. Adequate access to primary health care is important for this population but it is not clear if this is being achieved. This study explored patient reported access to primary health care of a population of immigrants in Ontario, Canada who were users of the primary care system and compared this with Canadian-born individuals; and by model of primary care practice.
This study uses data from the Comparison of Models of Primary Care Study (COMP-PC), a mixed-methods, practice-based, cross-sectional study that collected information from patients and providers in 137 primary care practices across Ontario, Canada in 2005-2006. The practices were randomly sampled to ensure an equal number of practices in each of the four dominant primary care models at that time: Fee-For-Service, Community Health Centres, and the two main capitation models (Health Service Organization and Family Health Networks). Adult patients of participating practices were identified when they presented for an appointment and completed a survey in the waiting room. Three measures of access were used, all derived from the patient survey: First Contact Access, First Contact Utilization (both based on the Primary Care Assessment Tool) and number of self-reported visits to the practice in the past year.
Of the 5,269 patients who reported country of birth 1,099 (20.8%) were born outside of Canada. In adjusted analysis, recent immigrants (arrival in Canada within the past five years) and immigrants in Canada for more than 20 years were less likely to report good health compared to Canadian-born (Odds ratio 0.58, 95% CI 0.36,0.92 and 0.81, 95% CI 0.67,0.99). Overall, immigrants reported equal access to primary care services compared with Canadian-born. Within immigrant groups recently arrived immigrants had similar access scores to Canadian-born but reported 5.3 more primary care visits after adjusting for health status. Looking across models, recent immigrants in Fee-For-Service practices reported poorer access and fewer primary care visits compared to Canadian-born.
Overall, immigrants who were users of the primary care system reported a similar level of access as Canadian-born individuals. While recent immigrants are in poorer health compared with Canadian-born they report adequate access to primary care. The differences in access for recently arrived immigrants, across primary care models suggests that organizational features of primary care may lead to inequity in access.
Notes
Cites: Health Serv Res. 2002 Jun;37(3):529-5012132594
It has been claimed that exposure to risk of road traffic accidents (usually conceptualized as mileage) is curvilinearly associated with crashes (i.e., the increase in number of crashes decreases with increased mileage). However, this effect has been criticized as mainly an artifact of self-reported data.
To test the proposition that self-reported accidents create part of the curvilinearity in data by under-reporting by high-accident drivers, self-reported and recorded collisions were plotted against hours of driving for bus drivers.
It was found that the recorded data differed from self-reported information at the high end of exposure, and had a more linear association with the exposure measure as compared to the self-reported data, thus supporting the hypothesis.
Part of the previously reported curvilinearity between accidents and exposure is apparently due to biased methods. Also, the interpretation of curvilinearity as an effect of exposure upon accidents was criticized as unfounded, as the causality may just as well go the other way.
The question of how exposure associates with crash involvement is far from resolved, and everyone who uses an exposure metric (mileage, time, induced) should be careful to investigate the exact properties of their variable before using it.
Bias in self-reported dietary intake is important when evaluating the effect of dietary interventions, particularly for intervention foods. However, few have investigated this in children, and none have investigated the reporting accuracy of fish intake in children using biomarkers. In a Danish school meal study, 8- to 11-year-old children (n 834) were served the New Nordic Diet (NND) for lunch. The present study examined the accuracy of self-reported intake of signature foods (berries, cabbage, root vegetables, legumes, herbs, potatoes, wild plants, mushrooms, nuts and fish) characterising the NND. Children, assisted by parents, self-reported their diet in a Web-based Dietary Assessment Software for Children during the intervention and control (packed lunch) periods. The reported fish intake by children was compared with their ranking according to fasting whole-blood EPA and DHA concentration and weight percentage using the Spearman correlations and cross-classification. Direct observation of school lunch intake (n 193) was used to score the accuracy of food-reporting as matches, intrusions, omissions and faults. The reporting of all lunch foods had higher percentage of matches compared with the reporting of signature foods in both periods, and the accuracy was higher during the control period compared with the intervention period. Both Spearman's rank correlations and linear mixed models demonstrated positive associations between EPA+DHA and reported fish intake. The direct observations showed that both reported and real intake of signature foods did increase during the intervention period. In conclusion, the self-reported data represented a true increase in the intake of signature foods and can be used to examine dietary intervention effects.
Acne is a very common skin condition, and it is of great interest to elucidate lifestyle factors that may contribute to its occurrence. In the last decade, the acne-diet connection has been brought back to credibility.
To examine whether high intakes of dairy products in early adolescence is associated with moderate to severe acne in later adolescence.
The study is a longitudinal, questionnaire-based population study of Norwegian adolescents. Students attending the 10th grade (15-16 years old) of compulsory schooling in Oslo in 2000-2001 and the 13th grade (18-19 years old) 3 years later, in 2004, were invited. Dairy product consumption was self-reported at age 15-16 and acne severity was self-assessed and reported at age 18-19.
The overall prevalence of moderate to severe acne was 13.9%. High intakes (=2 glasses per day) of full-fat dairy products were associated with moderate to severe acne. In boys with exclusively high intakes of full-fat dairy products, the odds ratio for acne was 4.81 (1.59-14.56). A high total intake of dairy products was associated with acne in girls (OR 1.80, 1.02-3.16). No significant associations were found between acne and intake of semi-skimmed or skimmed dairy products, and not with moderate intakes of any fat variety of dairy products.
This study shows association between high intakes of dairy products and acne in adolescence. Our findings support a hypothesis suggesting that dairy consumption may be a factor contributing to acne. The study is based on multiple hypothesis testing, and the methodological limitations must be considered when interpreting the results.
The aims of the study were to describe the stability of active commuting (AC) behavior (i.e., walking and cycling) over 27years and examine the relationship between AC and physical activity (PA) from youth to early midlife.
The mode and distance of travel were assessed using a self-reported questionnaire at five consecutive measurements between 1980 and 2007, when 2072 individuals were followed up from youth (9-18years) to adulthood (30-45years). PA was also measured using a questionnaire.
The prevalence of AC declined sharply with age, particularly after 12years, while AC distances to work or place of study increased substantially. AC was concurrently and prospectively associated with PA in both men and women. Maintained AC, whether walking or cycling and short or long distances, positively predicted adult PA over time. Compared with persistently passive commuters, persistently active commuters had higher adult PA after adjustment for potential covariates. Increasing AC was independently associated with high adult PA, particularly in young adulthood.
Walking and cycling to school/work should be encouraged, as regular AC is associated with higher levels of PA over 27years of follow-up, and thus, may contribute to a healthy and active lifestyle through the various stages of life-course.
