Background and Purpose-Proxy informants can provide information on patients who are limited in ability to self-assess health-related quality of life (HRQL) after stroke. One alternative is to exclude assessments of such patients and attenuate generalizability. The purpose of this study was to examine patient-proxy agreement on the domains and summary scores of the EQ-5D and Health Utilities Index Mark 3 (HUI3) after stroke. Methods-An observational longitudinal cohort of 124 patients hospitalized after ischemic stroke and their family caregivers completed the HRQL measures at baseline and were followed up for 6 months. Patient and proxy agreement was assessed by use of weighted or the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). Results-At baseline, the more observable domains of HRQL demonstrated greater agreement than the more subjective components. Cross-sectional point estimates of agreement were generally acceptable (ICC Ͼ0.70) for the EQ-5D Index and HUI3 summary scores when assessed Ն1 month after baseline. Agreement between change scores was generally poor to fair (ICC Ͻ0.60), but systematic bias was not observed for the indirect preference-based summary scores between baseline and 6 months. Conclusions-Results suggest that proxy assessments obtained 6 months after stroke are more reliable than those obtained within 2 to 3 weeks after stroke. Although proxy-assessed change scores for indirect preference-based summary scores of the EQ-5D and HUI3 provided suboptimal agreement with patient assessment, limited systematic bias may support their consideration as alternatives to missing data or statistical imputation. Further research into the validity and reliability of proxy assessments is suggested.

Endoscopic resection might not be inferior to surgery with respect to OS in patients with EGC lesions that meet the absolute or expanded criteria. However, DFS, RFS, and metachronous RFS might be lower after endoscopic resection than after surgery.

Limited data are available regarding the prognostic factors for patients with nontuberculous mycobacterial pulmonary disease (NTM-PD). We investigated the prognostic factors associated with long-term mortality in NTM-PD patients after adjusting for individual confounders, including aetiological organism and radiological form.A total of 1445 patients with treatment-naïve NTM-PD who were newly diagnosed between July 1997 and December 2013 were included. The aetiological organisms were as follows: Mycobacterium avium (n=655), M. intracellulare (n=487), M. abscessus (n=129) and M. massiliense (n=174). The factors associated with mortality in NTM-PD patients were analysed using a multivariable Cox model after adjusting for demographic, radiological and aetiological data.The overall 5-, 10- and 15-year cumulative mortality rates for the NTM-PD patients were 12.4%, 24.0% and 36.4%, respectively. On multivariable analysis, the following factors were significantly associated with mortality in NTM-PD patients: old age, male sex, low body mass index, chronic pulmonary aspergillosis, pulmonary or extrapulmonary malignancy, chronic heart or liver disease and erythrocyte sedimentation rate. The aetiological organism was also significantly associated with mortality: M. intracellulare had an adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) of 1.40, 95% CI 1.03–1.91; M. abscessus had an aHR of 2.19, 95% CI 1.36–3.51; and M. massiliense had an aHR of 0.99, 95% CI 0.61–1.64, compared to M. avium. Mortality was also significantly associated with the radiological form of NTM-PD for the cavitary nodular bronchiectatic form (aHR 1.70, 95% CI 1.12–2.59) and the fibrocavitary form (aHR 2.12, 95% CI 1.57–3.08), compared to the non-cavitary nodular bronchiectatic form.Long-term mortality in patients with NTM-PD was significantly associated with the aetiological NTM organism, cavitary disease and certain demographic characteristics.