We developed a highly accurate tool that uses basic clinical and analytical information to predict the probability of survival at 15, 30, and 60 days in terminally ill cancer patients. This tool can help physicians making decisions on clinical care at the end of life.

Different SCs can be identified in patients with advanced cancer. These SCs are influenced by primary cancer site, gender, age, and Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status, and they can have prognostic value.

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An increase in the prevalence of constipation during pregnancy has been suggested to occur. We designed a prospective study to evaluate the prevalence of constipation during pregnancy and puerperium, to investigate possible associations with eating habits and lifestyle, and to evaluate the frequency of laxative use. A structured questionnaire was developed addressing demographics, obstetric characteristics, lifestyle, eating habits, variables required for the diagnosis of constipation, and laxative use to evaluate the prevalence of constipation during pregnancy and puerperium. The questionnaire was administered in the obstetric clinic in the first trimester of pregnancy, and by telephone in the second and third trimesters, and in the puerperal period. The prevalence of self-reported constipation in these time periods was 45.4, 37.1, 39.4, and 41.8%, respectively. Prevalence defined by the Rome II criteria for the same time periods was 29.6, 19, 21.8, and 24.7%. These values were similar to the data previously reported for the female population. Agreement between the self-reported and Rome II results was moderate. The self-reported criterion showed high sensitivity in all time periods, using the Rome II criterion as gold-standard. No factor was associated with variations in the prevalence of constipation during pregnancy, though an increase was recorded in the consumption of fruit, vegetables, fiber, and water. The prevalence of constipation during pregnancy and puerperium is similar to that recorded among the female population from the same geographic area.

qRT-PCR reproduced the results obtained with microarrays for a prognostic gene profile in women with early-stage breast cancer.

We should know more frequent symptoms affecting terminal cancer patients and any factor contributing to it to provide more comfort in the final phases of life.

This paper is the first to discuss the design of futures hedging strategies in European natural gas markets (NBP, TTF and Zeebrugge). A common feature of energy prices is that conditional mean and volatility are driven by seasonal trends due to weather, demand, and storage level seasonalities. This paper follows and extends the Ederington and Salas (2008)

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