We report on three patients who developed four episodes of acute pancreatitis while their systemic lupus erythematosus was active and being treated with prednisolone. In all three, gastritis was first considered and treated due to abdominal pain, vomiting, and epigastric tenderness, but their symptoms did not improve. Then pancreatic enzymes were measured, which confirmed pancreatitis. Imaging studies showed an enlarged pancreas in one case, a normal pancreas in two cases, and a focal hypodense nonenhancing parenchyma in one case. Corticosteroids were prescribed for both active SLE and SLE-related pancreatitis. Pulse methylprednisolone was prescribed in one episode, increasing oral prednisolone in one episode, and the same dose of prednisolone continued in the other two episodes. All cases recovered without complications. SLE-related pancreatitis should be considered in SLE patients when the SLE is active and a patient develops abdominal pain and vomiting.

IntroductionWe examined the design, analysis and reporting in multi-reader multi-case (MRMC) research studies using the area under the receiver-operating curve (ROC AUC) as a measure of diagnostic performance.MethodsWe performed a systematic literature review from 2005 to 2013 inclusive to identify a minimum 50 studies. Articles of diagnostic test accuracy in humans were identified via their citation of key methodological articles dealing with MRMC ROC AUC. Two researchers in consensus then extracted information from primary articles relating to study characteristics and design, methods for reporting study outcomes, model fitting, model assumptions, presentation of results, and interpretation of findings. Results were summarized and presented with a descriptive analysis.ResultsSixty-four full papers were retrieved from 475 identified citations and ultimately 49 articles describing 51 studies were reviewed and extracted. Radiological imaging was the index test in all. Most studies focused on lesion detection vs. characterization and used less than 10 readers. Only 6 (12%) studies trained readers in advance to use the confidence scale used to build the ROC curve. Overall, description of confidence scores, the ROC curve and its analysis was often incomplete. For example, 21 (41%) studies presented no ROC curve and only 3 (6%) described the distribution of confidence scores. Of 30 studies presenting curves, only 4 (13%) presented the data points underlying the curve, thereby allowing assessment of extrapolation. The mean change in AUC was 0.05 (−0.05 to 0.28). Non-significant change in AUC was attributed to underpowering rather than the diagnostic test failing to improve diagnostic accuracy.ConclusionsData reporting in MRMC studies using ROC AUC as an outcome measure is frequently incomplete, hampering understanding of methods and the reliability of results and study conclusions. Authors using this analysis should be encouraged to provide a full description of their methods and results.

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Objective: To compare tumor control and toxicity between tri-weekly chemotherapy and weekly platinum-based chemotherapy in locally advanced cervical cancer using the propensity score matching method.Material and Methods: DESIGN: Retrospective cohort with propensity score matched population. SETTING: Four university hospitals. PARTICIPANTS: 781 advanced local cervical cancer patients. INTERVENTION: tri-weekly platinum-based chemoradiotherapy versus weekly chemoradiotherapy OUTCOMES: Overall survival (OS), local recurrence-free survival (LRFS), regional recurrence-free survival (RRFS), distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS), and toxicity, including hematological and renal toxicity.Results: Overall median follow-up time was 59.5 months. After the propensity score matching process was completed, 326 patients were analyzed (163 in each group). The five-year OS was 66% and 64% (p 0.630); five-year LRFS was 85% and 81% (p 0.209); five-year RRFS was 89% and 94% (p 0.307); and five-year DMFS was 75% and 79% (p 0.420) in the tri-weekly and weekly groups, respectively. The patients in the tri-weekly and the weekly group had grade 2-3 neutropenia (10.5% vs 2.5%). The other toxicities appeared to be similar in both groups in terms of white blood count, platelet and creatinine.Conclusion: There was a potential small benefit of local control (4%) and overall survival (2%) with the tri-weekly regimen but we could not demonstrate statistical significance. However, this came at the price of an increase of 7% to 8% in grade 2-3 neutropenia.