BACKGROUNDFatigue is the most common symptom negatively affecting the quality of life of patients with cancer. The objective of the current study was to evaluate the preliminary efficacy and safety of 10.6‐μm infrared laser moxibustion for cancer‐related fatigue (CRF).METHODSThe authors conducted a randomized, placebo‐controlled trial among 78 patients with cancer who were diagnosed with CRF. The group treated with infrared laser moxibustion received 10.6 μm of infrared laser moxibustion on the ST36 (bilateral), CV4, and CV6 acupoints. Each participant received a 20‐minute treatment session 3 times per week for 4 weeks. The sham group received the same treatment duration on the same acupoints, but without infrared laser output. The outcome was change in fatigue as measured by the Chinese version of the Brief Fatigue Inventory between groups at week 4 with additional evaluation at week 8 for durability of treatment effects. A mixed effects model was used to evaluate the difference in treatment effect over time.RESULTSAmong those randomized, 61 patients (78%) completed the entire study. At the end of the intervention, the individuals in the group treated with the laser were found to have significantly less fatigue than those in the sham group (3.01 vs 4.40; P = .002). The improvement in fatigue persisted to week 8, favoring the group treated with laser moxibustion (3.03 vs 4.26; P = .006). Laser moxibustion was safe, with 3 cases of mild local erythema that resolved without medical intervention reported.CONCLUSIONSInfrared laser moxibustion appeared to be safe and efficacious for improving CRF in a Chinese patient population. Larger studies in more racial/ethnically diverse populations are needed to confirm the benefit of this technique for fatigue in patients with cancer. Cancer 2016;122:3667‐72. © 2016 The Authors. Cancer published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of American Cancer Society. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution‐NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
Background:Malnutrition and tuberculosis (TB) tend to interact with each other. TB may lead to nutrition deficiencies that will conversely delay recovery by depressing immune functions. Nutrition support can promote recovery in the subject being treated for TB. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of nutrition support on promoting the recovery of adult pulmonary TB patients with anti-TB drug therapy.Methods:English database of the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, PubMed, EMBASE, and Chinese database of CBM, CNKI, VIP, and WANFANG were searched. Randomized controlled trials comparing nutrition support (given for more than 2 weeks) with no nutrition intervention, nutrition advice only, or placebo-control for TB patients being anti-TB treated were included. Two reviewers conducted data extraction, assessed the quality of the studies independently, and any discrepancies were solved by the third reviewer. Data were entered and analyzed by RevMan 5.2 software, and meta-analysis was done using risk ratios (RRs) for dichotomous variables and mean differences (MDs) for continuous variables with 95% confidence intervals (CIs).Results:A total of 19 studies (3681 participants) were included. In nutritional support for TB patients, pooled RR and its 95% CI of sputum smears- or culture-negative conversion rate and chest X-ray (CXR) absorption rate were 1.10 (1.04, 1.17) and 1.22 (1.08, 1.39), respectively, the pooled MD and its 95% CI of body mass index (BMI) and time of sputum smears or culture negativity were 0.59 (0.16, 1.2) and − 5.42 (−7.93, −2.92), respectively, compared with the control group. The differences in outcomes of CXR zone affected, TB score, serum albumin, and hemoglobin were not statistically significant (P = 0.76, 0.24, 0.28, and 0.20, respectively) between the intervention group and the control group. No systemic adverse events were recorded.Conclusions:During anti-TB course, nutrition support may be helpful in treatment of TB patients by improving both sputum smears- or culture-negative conversion rate and BMI, shortening the time of sputum conversion negative. Whether it can improve the final clinical effect, there still needs high-level quality studies to confirm in the future.
Decreased total testosterone (TT) is the recommended metric to identify age-related hypogonadism. However, average TT and the extent to which it varies by age, can vary substantially among different populations. Population-specific reference ranges are needed to understand normal versus abnormal TT levels. Therefore, the goal for this study was to describe androgen concentrations and their correlates among Western Chinese men. We completed a population-based, cross-sectional study including 227 young adults (YA) (20–39 years) and 939 older adults (OA) (40–89 years). We measured TT, sex-hormone binding globulin (SHBG), luteinizing hormone (LH), testosterone secreting index (TSI), and calculated free testosterone (cFT). Reference ranges for this population were determined using average YA concentrations. Multivariable regression models were used to predict hormone concentrations adjusting for age, waist-to-height ratio (WHR), marital status, education, occupation, smoking, alcohol, blood glucose, and blood pressure. Among OA, 3.8% had low TT, 15.2% had low cFT, 26.3% had low TSI, 21.6% had high SHBG, and 6.1% had high LH. Average cFT was significantly lower in OA (0.30 nmol/L; standard deviation (SD): 0.09) versus YA (0.37; SD: 0.11) but TT was not different in OA (16.82 nmol/L; SD: 4.80) versus YA (16.88; SD: 5.29). In adjusted models increasing age was significantly associated with increased SHBG or LH, and decreased cFT or TSI; however, TT was not significantly associated with age (β = 0.02 nmol/L; 95% confidence interval (CI): -0.01, 0.04). Higher WHR was associated with significantly decreased TT, SHBG, TSI, and LH. The only variable significantly related to cFT was age (β = -0.0033; 95% CI:-0.0037, -0.0028); suggesting that cFT measurements would not be confounded by other lifestyle factors. In conclusion, cFT, but not TT, varies with age in this population, suggesting cFT may be a better potential marker for age-related androgen deficiency than TT among Western Chinese men.
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