Biomedical subjects

S Garcia-Acosta

Publications and source records attributed to S Garcia-Acosta.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2005

Prognostic factors for survival in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients treated with riluzole.

The objective of this study was to identify prognostic factors for survival in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis from a large prospective observational study performed in France. The study included a cohort of 2069 patients fulfilling broad entry criteria treated with riluzole. Over 100 demographic, biological, clinical and quality-of-life variables were monitored and assessed for their effect on survival. Patients were randomized post hoc into two groups: one group (two-thirds of the patients) to generate the prognostic models and one group (one-third of the patients) to validate the resulting models. Thirteen variables were found to affect survival independently and were used to construct a survival prediction score, RL401. These included age, disease duration, slow vital capacity, intensity of tiredness (visual analogue scale), number of body levels with spasticity, atrophy and/or fasciculations, cough, distal muscle strength, household income, depression and two biological parameters, plasma creatinine levels and neutrophil counts. A simplified score, RL401S, was constructed, designed to be easy to use and interpret. The predictive powers of the two scores were similar.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Patient preference for either the EORTC QLQ-C30 or the FACIT Quality Of Life (QOL) measures: a study performed in patients suffering from carcinoma of an unknown primary site (CUP).

The objective of this study was to examine and compare two core measures of Quality Of Life (QOL) used in cancer clinical trials: the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer QOL Core Questionnaire 30 (EORTC QLQ-30) and the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy (FACIT), in order to identify which one patients have the strongest preference for using. 68 patients suffering from Carcinomas of an Unknown Primary site (CUP) were recruited in a multicentric study; all of them completed both questionnaires, administered in a randomised manner. The criteria were the percentage of preferences, and four indicators of acceptability. The results indicated that an equal proportion of patients preferred the QLQ-C30 (19%) and FACIT (19%). 54% of patients felt both questionnaires were acceptable. All the indicators of acceptability favoured the QLQ-C30. Analysis of open-ended questions shed light on the difficulties encountered by the patients. As no significant preference was observed for one of the questionnaires, the QLQ-C30 was chosen on the basis of its significantly better acceptability criteria.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Efficacy of oral ketoprofen in acute migraine: a double-blind randomized clinical trial.

BACKGROUND: Certain nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are effective in the acute treatment of migraine attacks. The authors report a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized cross-over trial of a dual-release formulation of oral ketoprofen in the acute treatment of migraine attacks. METHODS: The authors compared the efficacy of two doses of ketoprofen (75 or 150 mg) with that of placebo (primary analysis) and zolmitriptan 2.5 mg (secondary analysis) on one to four consecutive attacks in 235 intent-to-treat patients (out of 257 randomized patients) with migraine with or without aura. The principal efficacy outcome was headache relief (reduction in headache severity from severe or moderate to mild or absent at 2 hours). RESULTS: Results are based on 838 attacks with a severe or moderate headache that were evaluable at 2 hours. Relief was reported for 62.6% of headaches treated with ketoprofen 75 mg, 61.6% with ketoprofen 150 mg, and 66.8% with zolmitriptan. The difference between the three active treatments and placebo (27.8% relief) was highly significant, both tests of ketoprofen vs placebo being globally controlled at a 5% level for the type I error (primary analysis). Headaches at 2 hours disappeared more frequently for the active treatments than for placebo. The authors also demonstrated efficacy on most other secondary outcomes. The tolerance of ketoprofen was good (similar to that of placebo). CONCLUSIONS: Oral ketoprofen (75 mg or 150 mg) in a dual-release formulation is an effective and well-tolerated drug in the acute treatment of migraine attacks.

Acute Disease↗

PubMed2002

[Study of the real situation of improvement by Zopiclone in treatment of insomnia among persons working during night shifts].

UNLABELLED: We investigated the effect of adapted management of sleep on the duration and quality of sleep in shift workers working the night shift. Twenty-nine shift workers suffering from insomnia were included and treated with zopiclone (7.5mg/day) or placebo according to a random double-blind protocol. Patients completed a sleep diary and a wrist actigraph was used to evaluate episodes of rest/activity. A self-administered subjective sleep questionnaire was filled out just after awakening. Zopicone was found to increase the duration of sleep significantly (p<0.05) over the baseline duration after the first and second night on duty. Subjective estimation of sleep was better in patients taking zopiclone who exhibited a smaller number of shorter awakening episodes. IN CONCLUSION: zopiclone improves the quality and duration of sleep in shift workers suffering from insomnia.

Adult↗

PubMed1999

[Dealing with missing, abnormal and incoherent data in E3N cohort study].

BACKGROUND: The E3N Study, 'Etude Epidémiologique auprès de femmes de la Mutuelle Générale de l'Education Nationale', is a cohort study, aiming at studying cancer risk factors on 100,000 women. Even if the incidence of problematic (missing, incoherent, etc.) data is low, any multivariate analysis which would be based only on complete subjects would rely on a too small sample, which would not necessarily be representative of the studied population. Results could thus be biased. METHODS: Our dealing with problematic data includes RESULTS: We looked at the number of individuals on which an analysis on 19 variables could be undertaken. The management of missing data made exploitable one fourth of the cohort, i.e.74.6% of individuals instead of 50.5%. Moreover, for 89.0% of subjects, one variable at most (out of the 19 studied) has missing datum. CONCLUSIONS: The main difficulty does not stand so much in the choice and implementation of methods to deal with problematic data than in the identification of their process of existence. Most of what was gained was due to the simplest methods: cold-deck and deductive method.

Cohort Studies↗