Background: Telephone assessment of depression for research purposes is increasingly being used. The Patient Health Questionnaire 9‐item depression module (PHQ‐9) is a well‐validated, brief, self‐reported, diagnostic, and severity measure of depression designed for use in primary care (PC). To our knowledge, there are no available data regarding its validity when administered over the telephone. Objective: The aims of the present study were to evaluate agreement between self‐administered and telephone‐administered PHQ‐9, to investigate possible systematic bias, and to evaluate the internal consistency of the telephone‐administered PHQ‐9. Methods: Three hundred and forty‐six participants from two PC centers were assessed twice with the PHQ‐9. Participants were divided into 4 groups according to administration procedure order and administration procedure of the PHQ‐9: Self‐administered/Telephone‐administered; Telephone‐administered/Self‐administered; Telephone‐administered/Telephone‐administered; and Self‐administered/Self‐administered. The first 2 groups served for analyzing the procedural validity of telephone‐administered PHQ‐9. The last 2 allowed a test–retest reliability analysis of both self‐ and telephone‐administered PHQ‐9. Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and weighted κ (for each item) were calculated as measures of concordance. Additionally, Pearson's correlation coefficient, Student's t‐test, and Cronbach's α were analyzed. Results: Intraclass correlation coefficient and weighted κ between both administration procedures were excellent, revealing a strong concordance between telephone‐ and self‐administered PHQ‐9. A small and clinically nonsignificant tendency was observed toward lower scores for the telephone‐administered PHQ‐9. The internal consistency of the telephone‐administered PHQ‐9 was high and close to the self‐administered one. Conclusions: Telephone and in‐person assessments by means of the PHQ‐9 yield similar results. Thus, telephone administration of the PHQ‐9 seems to be a reliable procedure for assessing depression in PC.

No abstract

Here, we investigated for the first time the frequency and number of circulating tumor plasma cells (CTPC) in peripheral blood (PB) of newly diagnosed patients with localized and systemic plasma cell neoplasms (PCN) using next-generation flow cytometry (NGF) and correlated our findings with the distinct diagnostic and prognostic categories of the disease. Overall, 508 samples from 264 newly diagnosed PCN patients, were studied. CTPC were detected in PB of all active multiple myeloma (MM; 100%), and smoldering MM (SMM) patients (100%), and in more than half (59%) monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) cases (p <0.0001); in contrast, CTPC were present in a small fraction of solitary plasmacytoma patients (18%). Higher numbers of CTPC in PB were associated with higher levels of BM infiltration and more adverse prognostic features, together with shorter time to progression from MGUS to MM (p <0.0001) and a shorter survival in MM patients with active disease requiring treatment (p ≤ 0.03). In summary, the presence of CTPC in PB as assessed by NGF at diagnosis, emerges as a hallmark of disseminated PCN, higher numbers of PB CTPC being strongly associated with a malignant disease behavior and a poorer outcome of both MGUS and MM.