Background: The combination of capecitabine (CAP) with temozolomide (TEM) chemotherapy in advanced pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (PanNET) relies on limited evidence. We compared TEM-CAP to TEM alone in patients with advanced PanNET. Methods: Consecutive patients with advanced PanNET treated with TEM or TEM-CAP between 2004 and 2017 in three expert centers were included. Progression-free survival (PFS), tolerance, tumor response, and overall survival were compared between the two groups. Propensity-based analyses were performed to reduce confounding bias due to the nonrandomized setting. Results: TEM and TEM-CAP were administered to 38 patients and 100 patients, respectively, with a median age of 58 years. The patients in the TEM group more often had hormonal syndromes (p = 0.03), a longer median delay to diagnosis (p = 0.001), and a higher number of pretreatment lines (p < 0.001). The performance status was 0 in 58% versus 65% of the patients, and tumor’s median Ki-67 index was 8% versus 11%, respectively. Tolerance was similar, except that there were more cases of asthenia in the TEM group (p = 0.017) and more cases of hand-foot syndrome in the TEM-CAP group (p = 0.025). The objective response rate was 34% versus 51% (p = 0.088). The raw median PFS was similar with TEM and with TEM-CAP (21.4 vs. 19.8 months, p = 0.84). Although CAP tended to decrease the risk of progression in Cox multivariate analysis (HR 0.65, p = 0.12), it had no effect after adjustment for the propensity score (HR 1.06, p = 0.80). Conclusions: TEM-CAP might not prolong PFS but might achieve a higher response rate than TEM alone. Hence, TEM-CAP might be preferred when tumor shrinkage is the main therapeutic objective. Otherwise, TEM might be adequate for patients with an impaired performance status or in case of extrahepatic metastases.

Introduction: Although chemotherapy combining 5-fluorouracil (5FU)-dacarbazine (DTIC) or temozolomide (TEM)-capecitabine (CAP) is extensively used in patients with neuroendocrine tumors (NET), they were never compared. We compared their tolerance and efficacy in advanced NET. Methods: We evaluated the records of consecutive patients with pancreatic or small-intestine advanced NET who received 5FU-DTIC or TEM-CAP between July 2004 and December 2017 in 5 French centers. Tolerance, tumor response and progression-free survival (PFS) were compared. Factors associated with PFS were analyzed using Cox multivariate regression model. To reduce the confounding bias of the nonrandomized design, PFS was compared using propensity score analyses. Results: Ninety-four (5FU-DTIC) patients and 153 (TEM-CAP) patients were included. Pancreatic NET represented 82.3% of cases and 17.1, 61.8 and 10.9% of patients had G1, G2 or G3 NET respectively. Progression at baseline was reported in 92.7% of patients with available data. Grades 3–4 adverse events occurred in 24.7 and 8.5% of TEM-CAP and 5FU-DTIC patients respectively (p = 0.002). The overall response rate was 38.3 and 39.2% respectively (p = 0.596). Median PFS on raw analysis was similar to 5FU-DTIC and TEM-CAP (13.9 vs. 18.3 months, respectively p = 0.86). TEM-CAP was associated with an increased risk of progression on the raw multivariate analysis (hazard ratio [HR] 1.90, 95% CI [1.32–2.73], p = 0.001) and when adjusted on propensity score (HR 1.65, 95% CI [1.18–2.31], p = 0.004). Conclusion: PFS may be longer with 5FU-DTIC than TEM-CAP in patients with advanced NET. Although patients often prefer oral chemotherapy, 5FU-DTIC is a relevant alternative. A randomized comparison is needed to confirm these results.

The existence of a notoriety bias has an impact on measures of disproportionality. The detection of pharmacovigilance signals might be delayed. It is advisable to list all drugs being taken when an adverse drug reaction occurs, and not only those known to be associated with the observed reaction.

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Objective: Physician-modified fenestrated stent grafts (PMSGs) are a useful option for urgent or semiurgent treatment of complex abdominal aortic aneurysms (CAAAs). The aim of this study was to describe in-hospital outcomes of custommade fenestrated stent grafts (CMSGs) and PMSGs for the treatment of CAAAs and thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysms (TAAAs).Methods: In this single-center, retrospective study, all consecutives patients with CAAAs or TAAAs undergoing endovascular repair using Zenith CMSGs (Cook Medical, Bloomington, Ind) or PMSGs between January 2012 and November 2017 were included. End points were intraoperative adverse events, in-hospital mortality, postoperative complications, reinterventions, target vessel patency, and endoleaks.Results: Ninety-seven patients were included (CMSGs, n ¼ 69; PMSGs, n ¼ 28). The PMSG group included more patients assigned to American Society of Anesthesiologists class 4 (n ¼ 14 [50%] vs n ¼ 16 [23%]; P ¼ .006) and more TAAAs (n ¼ 17 [61%] vs n ¼ 10 [15%]; P < .0001). Intraoperative adverse events were recorded in eight (11%) patients in the CMSG group vs six (21%) patients in the PMSG group. No intraoperative death or open conversion occurred. In-hospital mortality rates were of 4% (n ¼ 3) in the CMSG group and 14% in the PMSG group (n ¼ 4). Chronic renal failure was an independent preoperative risk factor of postoperative death or complications (odds ratio, 4.88; 95% confidence interval, 1.65-14.43; P ¼ .004). Rates of postoperative complications were 22% (n ¼ 15) and 25% (n ¼ 7) in the CMSG and PMSG groups. Spinal cord ischemia rates were 4% (n ¼ 3) and 7% (n ¼ 2) in the CMSG and PMSG groups. Reintervention rates were 16% (n ¼ 11) in the CMSG group and 32% (n ¼ 9) in the PMSG group. At discharge, target vessel patency rate in CMSGs was 98% (n ¼ 207/210). All target vessels (n ¼ 98) were patent in the PMSG group. Endoleaks at discharge were observed in 24% of the CMSG group (n ¼ 16) vs 8% of the PMSG group (n ¼ 2). Conclusions:Our study showed clinically relevant differences of several important in-hospital outcomes in the CMSG and PMSG groups. Larger cohorts and longer follow-up are needed to allow direct comparison. PMSGs may offer acceptable in-hospital results in patients requiring urgent interventions when CMSGs are not available or possible. (J Vasc Surg 2019;-:1-9.)

Background and Objectives: Hallucinations are sensory perceptions which occur without external stimuli. There are associated with psychiatric disease but also can be related to organic disease and drug or toxic exposure. The purpose of our study was to investigate the association between exposure to medications and the reporting of hallucinations using data from the spontaneous-reporting French Pharmacovigilance Database (FPVD). Methods: We used the case/noncase method in the FPVD. Cases were all the observations of hallucination with the LLT term "perception disturbances", registered into the FPVD from January 1985 to Jan 2013. Data were expressed as odds ratio (OR) with their 95% confidence intervals. Results: Among the 469,181 reports of adverse effects recorded between 1985 and 2013, 4,086 are hallucinations. For about 50% of these hallucinations were experimented by patient older than 65 years old. A statistically significant OR was found with several medications included rasagiline (OR 17.6 [95%CI 10.4-29.8]), zolpidem (OR 12.9 [95%CI 11.3-14.8]), methylphenidate (OR 9.3 [95%CI 5.9-14.6]) and baclofene (OR 5.4 [95%CI 3.7-7.8]). An increased risk of hallucinations was also observed with non central nervous system drugs, including ertapenem (OR 24.0 [95%CI 14.2-40.5]), voriconazole (OR 12.9[95%CI 10.2-16.5]) and valacyclovir (OR 9.1 [95%CI 6.9-11. 9]). Conclusions: This pharmacoepidemiological study describes an association between drugs and hallucinations. This relationship involves not only some already suspected drugs but also other drugs less known to induce such an adverse reaction. Despite the mandatory limits of this kind of study, these data should lead to special precautions in patient at risk.

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Risk of malnutrition and presence of delirium are risk factors for mortality at 36 months in subjects aged 90 years and over hospitalized through the emergency department.