PaFLO: Pazopanib with 5-fluorouracil, leucovorin, and oxaliplatin (FLO) as first-line treatment in advanced gastric cancer: A randomized phase II study of the  Arbeitsgemeinschaft internistische Onkologie (AIO).

TPS4138 Background: VEGF inhibition in gastric cancer shows promising improvement of remission rate and progression-free survival (Ohtsu et al., JCO 2011). Pazopanib is an orally available tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) selectively inhibiting VEGFR-1, -2, -3, c-kit and PDGFR. It is approved for treating renal cell cancer. A phase-I trial showed good tolerability of pazopanib with full-dose FOLFOX in solid tumors (Brady et al., ASCO, 2009). FLO is a widely used combination for advanced gastric cancer recommended in national guidelines. Methods: 75 Patients with HER-2-negative locally advanced or metastatic adenocarcinoma of the stomach or the gastro-esophageal junction will be randomized i…

Treatment of acute edema attacks in hereditary angioedema with a bradykinin receptor-2 antagonist (Icatibant)

Background In hereditary angioedema, bradykinin is assumed to be the most important mediator of edema formation. Objective To assess whether the selective bradykinin receptor-2 antagonist Icatibant is effective in acute edema attacks of hereditary angioedema. Methods In this uncontrolled pilot study, 15 patients with 20 attacks were treated with Icatibant. The attacks were analyzed by using a standardized and validated visual analog scale measurement and compared with historical data of untreated attacks. Plasma bradykinin concentration was measured before and 4 hours after intravenous Icatibant treatment. Results Symptom intensity decreased within 4 hours after administration of Icatibant;…

Aspirin use and breast cancer risk: a meta-analysis and meta-regression of observational studies from 2001 to 2005

Purpose To examine the recent epidemiological studies on aspirin use and breast cancer risk published from 2001 to 2005 within a meta-analysis, to investigate reasons for heterogeneity between the individual studies and to analyse a dose-response-relationship considering frequency and duration of use. Methods We systematically searched for cohort-studies and case-control-studies from 2001–2005, which evaluated the association between aspirin and breast cancer risk. We calculated a pooled estimate for the relative risk (RR) and investigated reasons for heterogeneity between the individual studies and analysed a dose-response-relationship using random effects mixed models. Results We identifi…

Meta-Analysis in Epidemiology

The use of meta-analyses in order to synthesise the evidence from epidemiological studies has become more and more popular recently. It has been estimated by Egger et al. (1998) that from articles retrieved by MEDLINE with the medical subject heading (MeSH) term “meta-analysis” some 33% reported results of a meta-analysis from randomised clinical trials and nearly the same proportion (27%) were from observational studies, including 12% papers in which the aetiology of a disease was investigated. The remaining papers include methodological publications or review articles. Reasons for the popularity of meta-analyses are the growing information in the scientific literature and the need of time…

Jillian Russyll (AKA Jill) Tate