Intravenous and intraperitoneal chemotherapy are associated with equivalent survival in patients with minimal residual stage III epithelial ovarian cancer after optimal cytoreductive surgery.

The predictive effect of prognostic factors for mortality varied among patients with pneumonia from the different age groups. PSI performed significantly better than CURB-65 for mortality prediction, but its discriminative power decreased with advancing age.

We have formulated and prospectively validated a simple prognostic score for untreated HCC that only requires a clinical evaluation for ascites and physical performance status and measurement of serum AFP. This simple model is particularly apt for developing country circumstances and can also be used to select patients for treatment trials.

The authors declare that no financial or other relationships exist that might lead to a conflict of interest.Disclosure: Nothing to report. PURPOSE:The aim of this study was to assess a newly introduced hospitalist care model in a Singapore hospital. Clinical outcomes of the family medicine hospitalists program were compared with the traditional specialists-based model using the hospital's administrative database. METHODS:Retrospective cohort study of hospital discharge database for patients cared for by family medicine hospitalists and specialists in 2008. Multivariate analysis models were used to compare the clinical outcomes and resource utilization between patients cared for by family medicine hospitalists and specialist with adjustment for demographics, and comorbidities. RESULTS:Of 3493 hospitalized patients in 2008 who met the criteria of the study, 601 patients were under the care of family medicine hospitalists. As compared with patients cared for by specialists, patients cared for by family medicine hospitalists had a shorter hospital length of stay (adjusted LOS, geometric mean, GM, 4.4 vs. 5.3 days; P < 0.001) and lower hospitalization costs (adjusted cost, GM, $2250.7 vs. $2500.0; P¼ 0.003), but a similar in-patient mortality rate (4.2% vs. 5.3%, P¼ 0.307) and 30-day all-cause unscheduled readmission rate (7.5% vs. 8.4%, P¼ 0.231) after adjustment for age, ethnicity, gender, intensive care unit (ICU) admission, numbers of organ failures, and comorbidities. CONCLUSION:The family medicine hospitalist model was associated with reductions in hospital LOS and cost of care without adversely affecting mortality or 30-day all-cause readmission rate. These findings suggest that the hospitalist care model can be adapted for health systems outside North America and may produce similar beneficial effects in care efficiency and cost savings.

A monoclonal antibody was generated against an ovarian cancer cell line, OC-3-VGH and was shown to recognize a unique tumor-associated antigen, COX-1 found in ovarian or cervical tumors. COX-1 can be detected in the cultured shed medium of several ovarian/cervical cancer cell lines, and in the sera of ovarian or cervical cancer patients when assayed by a sandwich immunoassay kit employing this monoclonal antibody. Multi-medical centers clinical trials have been conducted since 1989 to evaluate the efficacy of using this immunoassay procedure for the cancer monitoring. In the case of ovarian cancer, COX-1 immunoassay kit has the sensitivity of 68% as compared to 71% for the corresponding CA 125 kit. When both COX-1 and CA 125 kits were combined for the simultaneous monitoring of cancer patients, the sensitivity could be increased to as high as 87%. Further analysis revealed that serum COX-1 levels in cancer patients are correlated with stages of tumor progression. Following the surgical removal of tumors, greater than 50% of the cancer patients showed dramatic and significant decrease of serum levels of COX-1 antigen. The results of these multi-center clinical studies clearly suggested that COX-1 is a suitable marker for the monitoring and diagnosis of ovarian cancer patients, when used alone or in combination with CA 125.