Klinikum Chemnitz

Left panel: Scheme of the XPAG-immune thrombocytopenia trial. The dexamethasone (DEX) arm consisted of DEX 40 mg/day for days 1-4 for one to three cycles every 28 days to a maximum of 12 weeks, cycles 2 + 3 were optional. Patients randomised to eltrombopag (ETB) + DEX received eltrombopag in combination with a short course of high-dose DEX beginning on day 1 (40 mg/day during days 1-4). The starting dose of ETB was 50 mg/day for 2 weeks; thereafter, the ETB dose was increased by 25 mg for all patients who did not achieve the target platelet count of ≥50 × 109/L. The ETB tapering was performed by decreasing the dose by 25 mg every 2 weeks to a minimum dose of 25 mg every other day for all patients. Right upper panel: Clinical outcomes in patients treated with first-line ETB + DEX. Patients displayed a qualitatively longer response duration and qualitatively reduced usage of rescue medication. Right lower panel: The immunological T-cell response was different in treatment responders and non-responders. Patients with sustained response (responders) displayed a high T-cell clonality at baseline. Clones are depicted as bubbles (right side).

An 83-year-old woman with follicular thyroid cancer (FTC) presented with elevated thyroglobulin levels 5 years after second ablative radioiodine therapy (RAI). A subsequent 18F-FDG PET/CT revealed small pulmonary nodules and a lesion of the right breast with pathologically increased FDG-uptake. Unexpectedly, the lesion also showed radioiodine uptake under a performed third RAI and was visually absent after a fourth course of treatment. Histologically after core and excisional biopsy, a benign adenomyoepithelioma was confirmed. This is, to our knowledge, the first reported iodine avide adenomyoepithelioma and highlights a rare diagnostic pitfall.

Anthracyclines are an essential component of induction therapy for acute myeloid leukemia (AML), but their optimal dosing and the associated risk for cardiotoxicity remain under debate. The DaunoDouble trial compared daunorubicin at 60 (Dauno60) versus 90 mg/m2 (Dauno90) in combination with cytarabine (100 mg/m2 for 7 days) in newly diagnosed AML patients aged 18-65 years. Cardiac function was assessed by left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) and cardiac biomarkers (high-sensitivity troponin T [hsTnT], NT-proBNP) before treatment and on Day 15 in 317 randomized patients. Median LVEF declined significantly from 65% [IQR 60%-68.5%] to 61% [IQR 58%-67.8%] across all patients (p < 0.01), without significant differences between treatment arms. NT-proBNP levels measured after induction therapy correlated negatively with LVEF at the same time point (ρ = -0.24, p = 0.02), but did not change significantly during induction-neither between Day 1 and 15 nor between treatment arms. HsTnT levels increased significantly from 5 [IQR 4-8] to 8 ng/L [IQR 6-14] across all patients (p < 0.01), with higher post-induction values in the Dauno90 group (9.5 ng/L [IQR 7-14]) compared to Dauno60 (7 ng/L [IQR 5-14]; p < 0.01). In exploratory subgroup analyses, post-induction hsTnT levels were also significantly higher in patients with obesity and arterial hypertension. These findings provide evidence of a dose-dependent cardiotoxic effect of daunorubicin, already apparent at standard induction doses, and underscore the importance of early cardiac monitoring. Long-term follow-up will be essential to determine the clinical significance of these early changes. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02140242.

Counselling regarding a planned provision of medical aids is currently neither reimbursed nor regulated in Germany. It is offered by a range of providers with employees with varying levels of qualification and may be provided in a personal conversation, by phone, or remotely. In many cases, counselling is omitted entirely between the prescription and trial use or delivery of the product. The quality of medical aids counselling, which plays a key role in temporary, supportive or palliative care for urinary incontinence, is therefore considered problematic.In 2019, the working group "Geriatric Urology" of the German Society for Urology published the first guideline on the counselling process related to the provision of medical aids. An updated version is currently available and has been listed by the Association of the Scientific Medical Societies. The underlying idea was to define quality standard in Germany for the individual components of the counselling process - from identifying the type of incontinence and its severity to product trial use, the counselling setting, the counselling itself, the qualification of the counselling personnel, and the communication between prescribing physicians, service providers, and patients.This article presents the published guideline sections regarding the content of the medical aids prescription, the characteristics of the counselling setting, and the quality of counselling and product trial use.As medical aids counselling is expected to be financed from the low reimbursement rates provided by statutory health insurers for what is defined as an "appropriate and sufficient" supply - typically amounting to less than EUR 15 a month - more and more providers are withdrawing entirely from the sector of medical aids provision. Others continue to supply medical aids but offer no counselling at all or only to a very limited extent. The guideline "Medical Aids Counselling for Urinary Incontinence" developed by the working group "Geriatric Urology" of the German Society for Urology is meant to define quality standards, also with a view to a political discussion on reimbursement rates.

Background: High social support is easily assessed and associated with a healthier lifestyle, including vaccination adherence. Similarly, immunization is a widely available public health statistic associated with healthier behaviors. However, the link between the hepatitis immunization status and social support needs to be explored. Methods: We assessed the association between levels of social support and hepatitis immunization status using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), a cross-sectional multidisciplinary database publicly available for researchers. With 2005–2006 data, 2997 participants were included. Statistical analyses were conducted using STATA18.5v software, including the odds ratio of both univariable logistic regression and multivariable logistic regression. After adjusting for clinically relevant confounders, two distinct models were designed: 1) full immunization, and 2) incomplete immunization. Results: Multivariable analysis revealed significantly greater odds of high social support for participants fully or partially immunized against both hepatitis A and B: 3.15 (95% CI 1.03–9.66,p=0.04) and 3.35 (95% CI 1.15–9.75,p=0.03), respectively. Conclusion: Our findings show an association between vaccination and social support in both adjusted models. Individuals not vaccinated at all may behave differently from those willing to be, at least partially, immunized. It seems that a similar behavior that may lead to vaccination may also lead to increased social support. Therefore, our study suggests that hepatitis vaccination could perhaps be a surrogate marker for public-health-related outcomes.

HER2-low breast cancer is an important new diagnostic tumor category with promising therapeutic options. The aim of this study was to evaluate the quality of HER2-low determination in a national prospective external quality assessment (EQA) and to identify pitfalls and options for improvement. Slides were distributed to 66 pathology institutions for diagnostic assessment according to pre-defined HER2-low categories. After local staining and evaluation, slides were collected for central re-evaluation for quality parameters. Endpoints included the percentage of correct HER2-assessments and subgroup analyses for selected technical parameters. Within this prospective proficiency test, a total of 659 individual HER2 evaluations were performed by 66 participating institutions with 86% correct results. Of the incorrect results, 82% (73 of 89) reported a HER2 category that was too high, and only 18% reported a category that was too low. A successful participation was achieved by 71% of 66 pathology institutions. In central re-evaluation, technical limitations were identified as the most important parameters for suboptimal results. In defined institutional subgroups with optimal technical parameters (antibodies, automation platforms and detection systems) a success rate of up to 86-91% was achieved. In this prospective EQA assessment, the concordance rate of pathology institutions is now much higher compared to previous retrospective studies. However, the quality assurance results are still lower compared to classical HER2 proficiency tests focusing on HER2 3 + tumors, and further optimization is necessary. The results will contribute to further improve the reliability of HER2 testing, which could also be applied to HER2-ultralow in the future.