Younger age, completion of five to six cycles of Ra-223, lower alkaline phosphatase and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio are predictors of overall survival. This is the first study to report neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio as an independent predictor of overall survival in a Ra-223 cohort. Good performance status and higher baseline haemoglobin predict the completion of five to six cycles of Ra-223.

From 1999, the NHS Ayrshire and Arran Health Board implemented an innovative nurse-led collaborative care model for the management of patients with prostate cancer (PC). This article describes the model and presents the results of a local evaluation to assess its impact. The evaluation comprised a retrospective audit of the service against national standards for PC management, undertaken in 2012. Seventy-one patients, who were under the care of the service during June 2008, were included. Patient and staff satisfaction were also assessed using questionnaires distributed to 75 patients undergoing outpatient or telephone reviews during April 2012 and 7 one-to-one semi-structured staff interviews. The patient audit showed good compliance with standards relating to selection of appropriate PC treatments according to tumour stage and grade; radiotherapy dosing and referral-to-treatment times. Areas requiring improvement were the documentation of patients' risk and performance status and provision of verbal and written information to patients and carers. Seventy-three per cent of the patient questionnaires were returned, with 96% of respondents rating their overall care as 'excellent' or 'very good'. Staff satisfaction was also high and interviewees described many benefits of the service for patients, hospital staff, GPs and the NHS/health board. Negative responses related mainly to demand/capacity issues. Overall, the evaluation showed good compliance with many national standards and high levels of patient and staff satisfaction. This suggests that with trained and competent nursing staff and collaborative multidisciplinary team working, safe and appropriate care can be achieved for more complex, as well as very stable PC patients.

Docetaxel chemotherapy in hormone-naïve mPC has significant toxicities, but has a similar effect on time to progression and overall survival as seen in randomised trials. Chemotherapy should be started at ≥3 weeks after ADT.

Free-listing is a quick, semi-quantitative methodology commonly used by anthropologists to uncover information within a cultural domain. In this method note, we review how anthropologists have used free-listing in a variety of research settings. We then apply the social-ecological framework to describe how free-listing can be used for formative, process, outcome, and impact stages of program evaluation. Each type of evaluation includes a set of example free-list prompts to help researchers begin using this tool. We propose that free-listing is a beneficial data collection method in program evaluation. The free-listing method has identified barriers to treatment within our own work with clients recovering from either substance use disorder (SUD) or opioid use disorder (OUD) and has aided in providing flexible, individualized services. We conclude by providing recommendations for collecting free-list data and demonstrating the ease of computing free-list results by providing instructions and an example on how to analyze free-list responses.

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