Validation of a sternal skin conductance criterion for measuring hot flashes in breast cancer patients

Savard, Marie‐Hélène; Savard, Josée; Ivers, Hans

doi:10.1097/gme.0b013e3182947af3

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 14 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…

In their editorial, Carpenter and Yu 1 commented on our article, BRelationship between objectively recorded hot flashes and sleep disturbances among breast cancer patients: investigating hot flash characteristics other than frequency. 5 Besides, Carpenter and Yu questioned our use of hot flash parameters other than frequency based on their own work, which showed that sternal skin conductance intensity (magnitude) is not significantly correlated with subjective reports of bother and severity of hot flashes. Our sample was composed of women who had variable sleep quality.

…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…5 Besides, Carpenter and Yu questioned our use of hot flash parameters other than frequency based on their own work, which showed that sternal skin conductance intensity (magnitude) is not significantly correlated with subjective reports of bother and severity of hot flashes. These reservations are legitimate and expected, given that the new criterion challenges a long-established practice in this field.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Letter to the Editor

Savard

Ivers

2014

Menopause

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In their editorial, Carpenter and Yu 1 commented on our article, BRelationship between objectively recorded hot flashes and sleep disturbances among breast cancer patients: investigating hot flash characteristics other than frequency.[ 2 We believe that it is important to correct some of their assertions, which are inexact, and we would like to respond to some comments with which we disagree.First, it is erroneous to say that all our participants met the criteria for insomnia. Our sample was composed of women who had variable sleep quality. It is also inexact to say that, BWhether nighttime hot flash frequency was related to sleep parameters was not presented.[ Actually, these findings were reported in Table 3, which presents the correlations between hot flash frequency and all the sleep parameters measured in our study.More crucial are their misleading comments on the interpretation of our data. Indeed, we did not conclude in any way that, Bno relationship between hot flash frequency and sleep parameters exists,[ as Carpenter and Yu claimed. Instead, we concluded that Ba greater number of nocturnal hot flashes was not significantly associated with more sleep disturbances among this sample of breast cancer patients.[ Hence, our conclusions were far less strong than what Carpenter and Yu would have the readers believe.Carpenter and Yu also raised some questions regarding our use of a new, more liberal criterion (1.2 Kmho instead of 2 Kmho) for the detection of hot flashes in breast cancer patients. These reservations are legitimate and expected, given that the new criterion challenges a long-established practice in this field. However, we believe that Carpenter and Yu should concur with us and other researchers 3 that the level of available evidence supporting the standard criterion of 2 Kmho is not that strong. Furthermore, given previous findings indicating that the standard criterion is not optimal for detecting hot flashes in prostate cancer patients, 4 we believe that they should rather commend us on our efforts to first empirically validate the detection criterion, specifically in breast cancer patients, before conducting our study. 5 Besides, Carpenter and Yu questioned our use of hot flash parameters other than frequency based on their own work, which showed that sternal skin conductance intensity (magnitude) is not significantly correlated with subjective reports of bother and severity of hot flashes. However, we argue that more than a single study is needed before researchers can conclude that alternative objective parameters are of no clinical use. Although we fully agree with Carpenter and Yu that the clinical significance of our proposed parameters needs to be confirmed in future studies, we believe that they should not discourage other researchers from using such new parameters, which are likely to better account for sleep disturbances.In addition, Carpenter and Yu raised some reservations about the number of correlations performed in our article, implicitly suggesting that we should have controlled ...

show abstract

“…

In their editorial, Carpenter and Yu 1 commented on our article, BRelationship between objectively recorded hot flashes and sleep disturbances among breast cancer patients: investigating hot flash characteristics other than frequency. 5 Besides, Carpenter and Yu questioned our use of hot flash parameters other than frequency based on their own work, which showed that sternal skin conductance intensity (magnitude) is not significantly correlated with subjective reports of bother and severity of hot flashes. Our sample was composed of women who had variable sleep quality.

…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Letter to the Editor

Savard

Ivers

2014

Menopause

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In their editorial, Carpenter and Yu 1 commented on our article, BRelationship between objectively recorded hot flashes and sleep disturbances among breast cancer patients: investigating hot flash characteristics other than frequency.[ 2 We believe that it is important to correct some of their assertions, which are inexact, and we would like to respond to some comments with which we disagree.First, it is erroneous to say that all our participants met the criteria for insomnia. Our sample was composed of women who had variable sleep quality. It is also inexact to say that, BWhether nighttime hot flash frequency was related to sleep parameters was not presented.[ Actually, these findings were reported in Table 3, which presents the correlations between hot flash frequency and all the sleep parameters measured in our study.More crucial are their misleading comments on the interpretation of our data. Indeed, we did not conclude in any way that, Bno relationship between hot flash frequency and sleep parameters exists,[ as Carpenter and Yu claimed. Instead, we concluded that Ba greater number of nocturnal hot flashes was not significantly associated with more sleep disturbances among this sample of breast cancer patients.[ Hence, our conclusions were far less strong than what Carpenter and Yu would have the readers believe.Carpenter and Yu also raised some questions regarding our use of a new, more liberal criterion (1.2 Kmho instead of 2 Kmho) for the detection of hot flashes in breast cancer patients. These reservations are legitimate and expected, given that the new criterion challenges a long-established practice in this field. However, we believe that Carpenter and Yu should concur with us and other researchers 3 that the level of available evidence supporting the standard criterion of 2 Kmho is not that strong. Furthermore, given previous findings indicating that the standard criterion is not optimal for detecting hot flashes in prostate cancer patients, 4 we believe that they should rather commend us on our efforts to first empirically validate the detection criterion, specifically in breast cancer patients, before conducting our study. 5 Besides, Carpenter and Yu questioned our use of hot flash parameters other than frequency based on their own work, which showed that sternal skin conductance intensity (magnitude) is not significantly correlated with subjective reports of bother and severity of hot flashes. However, we argue that more than a single study is needed before researchers can conclude that alternative objective parameters are of no clinical use. Although we fully agree with Carpenter and Yu that the clinical significance of our proposed parameters needs to be confirmed in future studies, we believe that they should not discourage other researchers from using such new parameters, which are likely to better account for sleep disturbances.In addition, Carpenter and Yu raised some reservations about the number of correlations performed in our article, implicitly suggesting that we should have controlled ...

show abstract