scholarly journals The Use of Narrow Diameter Implants in the Molar Area

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Saad ◽  
A. Assaf ◽  
E. Gerges
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Trials ◽  
Clinical Study ◽  
Bone Resorption ◽  
Gold Standard ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Bone Augmentation ◽  
Narrow Diameter Implants ◽  
Bone Height

Implant rehabilitations in the posterior jaw are influenced by many factors such as the condition of the remaining teeth, the force factors related to the patient, the quality of the bone, the maintenance of the hygiene, the limited bone height, the type and extent of edentulism, and the nature of the opposing arch. The gold standard is to place a regular diameter implant (>3.7 mm) or a wide one to replace every missing molar. Unfortunately, due to horizontal bone resorption, this option is not possible without lateral bone augmentation. In this situation, narrow diameter implant (NDI < 3.5 mm) could be the alternative to lateral bone augmentation procedures. This paper presents a clinical study where NDIs were used for the replacement of missing molars. They were followed up to 11 years. Special considerations were observed and many parameters were evaluated. NDI could be used to replace missing molar in case of moderate horizontal bone resorption if strict guidelines are respected. Yet, future controlled prospective clinical trials are required to admit their use as scientific evidence.

Efficacy of acupuncture in the management of fatigue related to breast cancer antineoplastic treatment: a systematic review

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 264-272
Author(s):  
Ana Carolina Moraes Costa ◽  
Alena Peixoto Medrado
Keyword(s):  
Breast Cancer ◽  
Systematic Review ◽  
Clinical Trials ◽  
Randomized Clinical Trials ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Total Sample ◽  
Inclusion Criteria ◽  
Antineoplastic Treatment

INTRODUCTION: Breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer among women worldwide. Similar to chemotherapy, antineoplastic treatment is associated with many side effects, with fatigue being one of the most common. It is important to investigate potential treatments, especially non-pharmacological alternatives, to control symptoms that directly affect women’s quality of life. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to provide scientific evidence to verify the efficacy of acupuncture in the management of fatigue in patients with breast cancer. METHODS: This study involved a systematic review based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) methodology. Randomized clinical trials published in indexed scientific journals were compiled. The literature search was performed using the electronic databases, PubMed, PEDro, and BIREME, using the descriptors ‘breast cancer’, ‘fatigue’, ‘acupuncture’, and ‘randomized trial’. Inclusion criteria included fully available online articles that were classified as randomised clinical trials published from 2012 to 2017 in either English or Portuguese. Study eligibility was based on the Population, Intervention, Control, Outcome, and Study (PICO) design criteria, in which the (1) population included women 18–65 years of age with breast cancer, (2) intervention was acupuncture, (3) comparison referred to standard care or sham acupuncture, and (4) outcome was the evaluation of fatigue. The PEDro scale was applied to evaluate the quality of the studies. WebQualis was also used to evaluate the quality of the journals of the selected articles. RESULTS: In total, 66 articles were selected, but only four fulfilled all inclusion criteria, giving a total sample size of 620 women. All trials evaluated the effect of acupuncture on fatigue and other symptoms related to the treatment of breast cancer with different treatment durations. Three articles reported statistically significant results, and all articles described clinical improvement in fatigue after the application of acupuncture. The average PEDro score of the manuscripts was 6.25. All articles were published in non-Brazilian journals with WebQualis scores that ranged from B2 to A1. CONCLUSION: Scientific evidence confirms the efficacy of acupuncture in the management of fatigue reported by women with breast cancer. Acupuncture was effective in reducing fatigue in the studies selected for this review.

scholarly journals Oral Immunotherapy for Food-Allergic Children: A Pro-Con Debate

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca Mori ◽  
Mattia Giovannini ◽  
Simona Barni ◽  
Rodrigo Jiménez-Saiz ◽  
Daniel Munblit ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Clinical Trials ◽  
Food Allergy ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Standard Of Care ◽  
Oral Immunotherapy ◽  
Patient Reported

The prevalence of food allergy has increased in recent years, especially in children. Food allergen avoidance and symptomatic drugs in case of an allergic reaction remain the standard of care in food allergy. Nevertheless, increasing attention has been given to the possibility to treat food allergy, through immunotherapy, particularly oral immunotherapy (OIT). Several OIT protocols and clinical trials have been published. Most of them focus on children allergic to milk, egg, or peanuts, although recent studies developed protocols for other foods, such as wheat and different nuts. OIT efficacy in randomized controlled trials is usually evaluated as the possibility for patients to achieve desensitization, while the issue of a possible long-term sustained unresponsiveness has not been completely addressed. Here, we evaluated current OIT knowledge, focusing on the results of clinical trials and current guidelines. Specifically, we wanted to highlight what is known in terms of OIT efficacy and effectiveness, safety, and impact on quality of life. For each aspect, we reported the pros and the cons, inferable from published literature. In conclusion, even though many protocols, reviews and meta-analysis have been published on this topic, OIT remains a controversial therapy and no definitive generalized conclusion may be drawn so far. It should be an option provided by specialized teams, when both patients and their families are prone to adhere to the proposed protocol. Efficacy, long-term effectiveness, possible role of adjuvant therapies, risk of severe reactions including anaphylaxis or eosinophilic esophagitis, and impact on the quality of life of both children and caregivers are all aspects that should be discussed before starting OIT. Future studies are needed to provide firm clinical and scientific evidence, which should also consider patient reported outcomes.

scholarly journals Influence of Voxel Size on CBCT Images for Dental Implants Planning

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ricardo Kehrwald ◽  
Hebert Sampaio de Castro ◽  
Samira Salmeron ◽  
Ricardo Alves Matheus ◽  
Gustavo Machado Santaella ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gold Standard ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Reference Points ◽  
Bone Thickness ◽  
Voxel Size ◽  
Significance Level ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Bone Height ◽  
Digital Caliper

Abstract Objective This study was developed to evaluate the influence of voxel size on bone measurements for implant planning. Materials and Methods The research was performed by using edentulous synthetic human mandibles with different levels of bone resorption. For each mandible, height and bone thickness were measured with a digital caliper. The PaX-i3d device was used to acquire the volumes of the five mandibles, with 50kVp, 4 mA, and a voxel size of 0.08 mm. After the acquisition, the images were reconstructed in the software CS three-dimensional Imaging, with four different sizes of voxels: 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4 mm. All volumes were analyzed by a single evaluator who performed measurements to obtain bone height and thickness, using the reference points that were considered in obtaining the gold standard. The data were analyzed by ANOVA with a significance level of 5%. Results There was no significant difference in the measurements obtained with different voxel sizes, both for bone height measurements and bone thickness. There was no statistically significant difference in measurements in thickness in comparison to the gold standard. Conclusion When necessary, to measure height and bone thickness, it is possible to recommend voxel images of larger size (0.40 mm) without compromising the quality of the patient's clinical planning.

Extensive selective reporting of quality of life in clinical study reports and publications of placebo-controlled trials of antidepressants

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Asger Sand Paludan-Müller ◽  
Tarang Sharma ◽  
Kristine Rasmussen ◽  
Peter C. Gøtzsche
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Clinical Trials ◽  
Case Report ◽  
Clinical Study ◽  
Regulatory Agencies ◽  
Selective Reporting ◽  
Controlled Trials ◽  
Sf 36 ◽  
Clinical Study Reports

BACKGROUND: Selective reporting of trial results is common. OBJECTIVE: To study selective reporting in clinical study reports, company trial registers and publications of quality of life in placebo-controlled trials of antidepressants. METHODS: We compared clinical study reports of four antidepressants (fluoxetine, duloxetine, paroxetine and sertraline) obtained from two European drug regulators, data from online company registers, and publications received or retrieved from Eli Lilly and GlaxoSmithKline. Pfizer was also contacted but did not provide any publications. RESULTS: We included 15 trials (19,015 pages) and 4717 patients. Six trials had used SF-36, seven EQ-5D and two both instruments. Nine of the 15 CSRs (60%) displayed selective reporting. In the companies’ online registers, there was selective reporting for all 15 trials (100%). We received 20 publications from Eli Lilly and retrieved six from the GlaxoSmithKline register. There was selective reporting in 24 of the 26 publications (92%). Despite extensive selective reporting, we found only small differences between placebo and active drugs. CONCLUSIONS: Access to the full raw data from clinical trials and to case report forms for all patients are needed to evaluate the effect of antidepressants on quality of life. Regulatory agencies should refuse to approve drugs or new indications based on incomplete reporting.

scholarly journals Technology for Measuring and Monitoring Treatment Compliance Remotely

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Richard H. Christie ◽  
Anzar Abbas ◽  
Vidya Koesmahargyo
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Trials ◽  
Clinical Study ◽  
Neurological Disorders ◽  
Treatment Compliance ◽  
Quality Of Data ◽  
Efficacy Data ◽  
Safety And Efficacy ◽  
Study Sites ◽  
Monitoring Treatment

Medication non-adherence during clinical trials is an ongoing challenge that can result in insufficient safety and efficacy data. For patients with Parkinson’s disease and other neurological disorders, symptomatology such as forgetfulness compounds traditional obstacles to adherence. Today, sponsors and clinical study sites can call upon various technology tools that improve adherence by monitoring and confirming dosage in near real-time. These tools have the potential to improve the quality of data gleaned from these studies.

scholarly journals Assessment of presentation quality of the results of clinical trials in accordance with the standards of CONSORT

2019 ◽  
Vol 100 (3) ◽  
pp. 469-475 ◽  
Author(s):  
L V Kisar’ ◽  
A U Ziganshin ◽  
L E Ziganshina
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Trials ◽  
Gold Standard ◽  
Randomized Clinical Trials ◽  
Visual Presentation ◽  
Medical Community ◽  
Efficacy And Safety ◽  
Medical Journals ◽  
Medical Interventions

Randomized clinical trials (RCTs) are currently recognized as the gold standard for evaluating the efficacy and safety of medical interventions. However, often the presentation of the results of RCTs in reports and articles does not give a complete and reliable description of all the results of the test, which often leads to incorrect conclusions and guidelines. In order to comply with certain uniform requirements for reporting documents based on materials of the conducted RCT, a group of authors and editors of medical journals in the early 1990s came out with a proposal to the medical community about using common standards for presenting RCT results, which they called CONSORT (CONsolidated Standards Of Reporting). The first version of CONSORT, however, caused a lot of criticism from both authors and editors of journals. The accumulated critical comments were taken into account by the developers of the revised and published in 2010 version of CONSORT, which is currently accepted as a reference for presenting the results of RCT in the world's leading medical journals. CONSORT 2010 contains a statement, supplemented with a set of questions on the conducted RCT, requiring a clearly formalized answer, and a flowchart for visual presentation of the results. In addition, the CONSORT developers submitted a separate document to clarify the terms in order to clarify the cases of application of this methodology. It is important to understand that CONSORT does not include recommendations for developing, conducting and analyzing the trials. It contains only reports on what and how it was done, what was eventually established, and only indirectly affects the design and conduct of RCT. However, authors who are familiar with the requirements of CONSORT will strive to meet these requirements when planning and conducting RCTs. As an example, the article presents a case of assessing the quality of the presentation of one of the RCTs according to CONSORT 2010 standards.

scholarly journals Validation of a Search Strategy for Randomized Clinical Trials Related to Periodontitis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Oliveira Lyrio ◽  
Simone Seixas da Cruz ◽  
Isaac Suzart Gomes-Filho ◽  
Viviane Seixas Silva Silveira ◽  
Elivan Silva Souza ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Trials ◽  
Systematic Reviews ◽  
Gold Standard ◽  
Search Strategy ◽  
Randomized Clinical Trials ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Clinical Issue ◽  
Electronic Search

Abstract Background: Systematic reviews, considered the gold standard for the assessment of scientific evidence, may present conflicting findings for the same clinical issue, and such dissent may be justified, for example, by the forms of elaboration of the electronic search strategy. The aim of this paper is to validate a search strategy to identify randomized clinical trials related to periodontitis. Results: The search strategy under evaluation compared to the gold-standard showed a sensitivity of 93.2% (95%CI, 83.8-97.3), specificity of 99.9% (95%CI 99.8-99.9) and a precision of 77.5% (95%CI, 66.48-85.63). In addition, the needed number of articles to read was 1.3. Conclusion: According to the proposed methodological approach, the search strategy under evaluation performed well in the identification of randomized clinical trials related to periodontitis.

scholarly journals Oral Immunotherapy for Food-Allergic Children: A Pro-Con Debate

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca Mori ◽  
Mattia Giovannini ◽  
Simona Barni ◽  
Rodrigo Jiménez-Saiz ◽  
Daniel Munblit ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Clinical Trials ◽  
Food Allergy ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Standard Of Care ◽  
Oral Immunotherapy ◽  
Patient Reported

The prevalence of food allergy has increased in recent years, especially in children. Allergen avoidance, and drugs in case of an allergic reaction, remains the standard of care in food allergy. Nevertheless, increasing attention has been given to the possibility to treat food allergy, through immunotherapy, particularly oral immunotherapy (OIT). Several OIT protocols and clinical trials have been published. Most of them focus on children allergic to milk, egg, or peanut, although recent studies developed protocols for other foods, such as wheat and different nuts. OIT efficacy in randomized controlled trials is usually evaluated as the possibility for patients to achieve desensitization through the consumption of an increasing amount of a food allergen, while the issue of a possible long-term sustained unresponsiveness has not been completely addressed. Here, we evaluated current pediatric OIT knowledge, focusing on the results of clinical trials and current guidelines. Specifically, we wanted to highlight what is known in terms of OIT efficacy and effectiveness, safety, and impact on quality of life. For each aspect, we reported the pros and the cons, inferable from published literature. In conclusion, even though many protocols, reviews and meta-analysis have been published on this topic, pediatric OIT remains a controversial therapy and no definitive generalized conclusion may be drawn so far. It should be an option provided by specialized teams, when both patients and their families are prone to adhere to the proposed protocol. Efficacy, long-term effectiveness, possible role of adjuvant therapies, risk of severe reactions including anaphylaxis or eosinophilic esophagitis, and impact on the quality of life of both children and caregivers are all aspects that should be discussed before starting OIT. Future studies are needed to provide firm clinical and scientific evidence, which should also consider patient reported outcomes.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document