Background
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is an unprecedented public health crisis, but its effect on suicide deaths is little understood.
Methods
We analyzed data from monthly suicide statistics between January 2017 and October 2020 and from online surveys on mental health filled out by the general population in Japan.
Results
Compared to the 2017–19 period, the number of suicide deaths during the initial phase of the pandemic was lower than average but exceeded the past trend from July 2020. Female suicides, whose numbers increased by approximately 70% in October 2020 (incidence rate ratio: 1.695, 95% confidence interval: 1.558–1.843), were the main source of this increase. The largest increase was found among young women (less than 40 years of age). Our survey data indicated that the status of young women’s mental health has been deteriorating in recent months and that young female workers were more likely to have experienced a job or income loss than any other group, suggesting adverse economic conditions surrounding them.
Conclusions
Continuous monitoring of mental health, particularly that of the most vulnerable populations identified in this study, and appropriate suicide prevention efforts are necessary during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As anti-cancer therapies designed to target specific molecular pathways have been developed, it has become critical to develop methods to assess the response induced by such agents. While traditional, anatomic CT and MRI exams are useful in many settings, there is increasing evidence that these methods cannot answer the fundamental biological and physiological questions essential for assessment and, eventually, prediction of treatment response in the clinical trial setting, especially in the critical period soon after treatment is initiated. To optimally apply advances in quantitative imaging methods to trials of targeted cancer therapy, new infrastructure improvements are needed that incorporate these emerging techniques into the settings where they are most likely to have impact. In this review, we first elucidate the needs for therapeutic response assessment in the era of molecularly targeted therapy and describe how quantitative imaging can most effectively provide scientifically and clinically relevant data. We then describe the tools and methods required to apply quantitative imaging and provide concrete examples of work making these advances practically available for routine application in clinical trials. We conclude by proposing strategies to surmount barriers to wider incorporation of these quantitative imaging methods into clinical trials and, eventually, clinical practice. Our goal is to encourage and guide the oncology community to deploy standardized quantitative imaging techniques in clinical trials to further personalize care for cancer patients, and to provide a more efficient path for the development of improved targeted therapies.
The purpose of this editorial is to provide a brief history of National Institutes of Health National Cancer Institute (NCI) workshops as related to quantitative imaging within the oncology setting. The editorial will then focus on the recently supported NCI initiatives, including the Quantitative Imaging Network (QIN) initiative and its organizational structure, including planned research goals and deliverables. The publications in this issue of Translational Oncology come from many of the current members of this QIN research network.
Optical spectroscopy shows promise for the detection of pre-cancerous cervical lesions in vivo. The fluorescence and reflectance methods are complementary in their ability to differentiate different tissue types, making the use of the two techniques together more diagnostic than the use of either method separately.
Background: The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is an unprecedented public health crisis, but its effect on suicide deaths is little understood.
Method: We analyzed data from monthly suicide statistics between January 2017 and August 2020 and online surveys on mental health among the general population during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan.
Results: Compared to the last three years (2017-2019), the number of suicide deaths was lower during the initial phase of the pandemic but subsequently exceeded the past trend. By August 2020, the total number of suicides was 7.72% higher than the average number of suicides in the same month of the previous three years. The largest increase was found in suicides by young women (less than 40 years of age), with a 63.1% increase in August 2020 compared to the same month in the past three years. The number of suicides among students and housekeepers in summer months was notably larger in 2020. The survey data indicated that the status of mental health among young women was worse than that of women in other age groups. In addition, young female workers were more likely to have experienced a job or income loss in recent months compared to any other groups, suggesting adverse economic conditions surrounding some of these young female workers.
Conclusion: Our results strongly indicate that continuous monitoring of mental health, particularly that of the most vulnerable populations identified in this study, and appropriate suicide prevention efforts are necessary during and in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The editors introduce the Biomedical Optics Express feature issue on “Phantoms for the Performance Evaluation and Validation of Optical Medical Imaging Devices.” This topic was the focus of a technical workshop that was held on November 7–8, 2011, in Washington, D.C. The feature issue includes 13 contributions from workshop attendees.
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