OBJECTIVES To study the functional outcome in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who tolerate second line drug therapy for five years. METHODS We enrolled into prospective controlled trials, 190 patients with rheumatoid arthritis who tolerated 'disease modifying' antirheumatic drug therapy for five years. Demographic data were recorded. Disease activity was measured every six months for ...

In recent years, diagnosis and treatment of patients with advanced lung cancer have undergone transformational changes. The current paradigm for prescribing novel targeted therapies is based on selecting patients according to the presence of specific oncogenic abnormalities in the tumor. The efficacy of therapy targeted at a specific oncogene is convincing evidence of “oncogene addiction”, or t...

BACKGROUND With improved access to pediatric antiretroviral therapy (ART) in resource-limited settings, more children could experience first-line ART treatment failure. METHODS We performed a retrospective cohort analysis using electronic medical records from HIV-infected children who initiated ART at McCord Hospital's Sinikithemba Clinic in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, from August 2003 to De...

BACKGROUND Switch from first line antiretroviral therapy (ART) to second-line ART is common in clinical practice. However, there is limited knowledge of to which extent different reason for therapy switch are associated with differences in long-term consequences and sustainability of the second line ART. MATERIAL AND METHODS Data from 869 patients with 14601 clinical visits between 1999-2014 ...

A series of 14 patients suffering from tuberculosis of the sternum with a mean follow-up of 2.8 years (2 to 3.6) is presented. All were treated with antitubercular therapy: ten with primary therapy, two needed second-line therapy, and two required surgery (debridement). All showed complete healing and no evidence of recurrence at the last follow-up. MRI was useful in making the diagnosis at an ...

The standard of care in metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is to treat patients with a platinum doublet for 4 to 6 cycles and to offer second-line therapy upon progression. Maintenance therapy in NSCLC is defined as a therapeutic agent which is administered after first-line chemotherapy is complete, but before the disease progresses. While maintenance therapy is not yet universally a...

Correspondence to: Battal Altun Department of Internal Medicine, Kasımpasa Military Hospital, Yesilkoy, Istanbul 34149, Turkey Tel: +90-5415429657, E-mail: [email protected] Received on November 30, 2014. Revised on January 6, 2015. Accepted on January 7, 2015. Published online June 19, 2015 pISSN 1976-2283 eISSN 2005-1212 http://dx.doi.org/10.5009/gnl14469 To the Editor: We read the articl...

introduction: due to its immunosuppressive properties, local graft irradiation (lgi) has been proposed as a second line therapy for treatment of acute kidney rejection. case presentation: in this case-series we report 6 patients with biopsy proven acute kidney allograft rejection refractory to conventional antirejection therapy who underwent lgi for treatment of acute rejection at our center. t...

This paper develops a real options approach to the optimal sequencing of antiretroviral drug cocktails for HIV/AIDS patients in resource-poor settings. The analysis focuses on the implications of endogenous resistance mutations in the virus that reduce or eliminate the effectiveness of individual drugs within a cocktail when lack of laboratory equipment prevents these from being identified. Usi...