0000000000784451

AUTHOR

G Nardone

Modeling cost-effectiveness and health gains of a “universal” versus “prioritized” hepatitis C virus treatment policy in a real-life cohort

We evaluated the cost-effectiveness of two alternative direct-acting antiviral (DAA) treatment policies in a real-life cohort of hepatitis C virus–infected patients: policy 1, “universal,” treat all patients, regardless of fibrosis stage; policy 2, treat only “prioritized” patients, delay treatment of the remaining patients until reaching stage F3. A liver disease progression Markov model, which used a lifetime horizon and health care system perspective, was applied to the PITER cohort (representative of Italian hepatitis C virus–infected patients in care). Specifically, 8,125 patients naive to DAA treatment, without clinical, sociodemographic, or insurance restrictions, were us…

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BIOMONITORIG ACTIVITIES OF “COMPRENSORIO DI PACE DEL MELA”.ANALYSES OF AIR QUALITY DATA

The “Assessorato Territorio e Ambiente” of the Regional Sicilian Government and the “Ingegneria e Tecnologie Agro Forestali” (ITAF) Department, Palermo University, have been involved in a study (D.R.S. N° 473) concerning the occurrence of environmental pollution by heavy metals in the "Comprensorio territoriale di Pace del Mela". The involved local administrations (“comuni”) in the area of interest are: Condrò, Gualtieri Sicaminò, Milazzo, Pace del Mela, S.Filippo del Mela, Santa Lucia del Mela, San Pier Niceto. Naturalistic aspects and landscape relevance of the “Pace del Mela” area is supported by the existence of three Natural Reserves, twelve Sites of Community Interest (S.I.C.) and a Z…

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Overview of Prognostic Systems for Hepatocellular Carcinoma and ITA.LI.CA External Validation of MESH and CNLC Classifications

Simple Summary This review proposes a comprehensive overview of the main prognostic systems for HCC classified as prognostic scores, staging systems, or combined systems. Prognostic systems for HCC are usually compared in terms of homogeneity, monotonicity of gradients, and discrimination ability. However, despite the great number of published studies comparing HCC prognostic systems, it is rather difficult to identify a system that could be universally accepted as the best prognostic scheme for all HCC patients encountered in clinical practice. In order to give a contribute in this topic, we conducted a study aimed at externally validate the MESH score and the CNLC classification using the…

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Restaging Patients With Hepatocellular Carcinoma Before Additional Treatment Decisions: A Multicenter Cohort Study

Prognostic assessment of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) at the time of diagnosis remains controversial and becomes even more complex at the time of restaging when new variables need to be considered. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the prognostic utility of restaging patients before proceeding with additional therapies for HCC. Two independent Italian prospective databases were used to identify 1,196 (training cohort) and 648 (validation cohort) consecutive patients with HCC treated over the same study period (2008-2015) who had complete restaging before decisions about additional therapies. The performance of the Italian Liver Cancer (ITA.LI.CA) prognostic score …

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Comparison of prognostic models in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma patients undergoing Sorafenib: A multicenter study

Background: Sorafenib is the gold standard therapy for the advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). No scoring/staging is universally accepted to predict the survival of these patients. Aims: To evaluate the accuracy of the available prognostic models for HCC to predict the survival of advanced HCC patients treated with Sorafenib included in the Italian Liver Cancer (ITA.LI.CA.) multicenter cohort. Methods: The performance of several prognostic scores was assessed through a Cox regression-model evaluating the C-index and the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC). Results: Data of 1129 patients were analyzed. The mean age of patients was 61.6 years, and 80.8% were male. During a median follow-u…

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ANALISI DELLA RISPOSTA DEL BIOMONITORAGGIO DI METALLI IN TRACCIA MEDIANTE L’UTILIZZO DI LICHENI IN CAMPAGNE DI STUDIO CONDOTTE IN CONDIZIONI CLIMATICHE DIFFERENTI

The results of a biomonitoring surveys carried on in Palermo using the accumulation of heavy metals in lichens, thalli of Xanthoria s.l. as indicators of air pollution are reported in this work. Beginning from the data of 38 simple sites shed on Palermo’s territory, has been developed a study of the air pollution in the centre of the town, the target of this work is to know the existing relationship between the concentration of heavy metals study area and the possible pollution sources as industry, shipyards, vehicles etc. In order to recuperate most information of the territory, the development of this work has been carried on with a new technology for the data management: the GIS (Geograp…

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