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Evaluation Of The Survival Effect For Various Treatment Modalities Among Stage Ii And Iii Rectal Cancer Patients In California, 1994-2009, Myung Mi Cho

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Background: European trials evaluating the effect of preoperative (PreOP) versus postoperative chemoradiotherapy (PostOP CRT) found no survival benefit. However, the effect of a change from PostOP to PreOP CRT has not been evaluated in a population-based setting. We sought to evaluate multimodal treatment changes and overall survival for perioperative (PeriOP) CRT versus surgery alone and for PreOP versus PostOP CRT from 1994 through 2009 among patients receiving radical surgery for stage II and III rectal cancer (RC).

Patients and Methods: We conducted a nonconcurrent cohort study evaluating demographic predictors of multimodal therapy for stage II and III RC using …

The Morbidity & Mortality Of Prevalent Heart Failure, Jennifer Kwon

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

The first study population included 292 unselected consecutive patients from the LLUMC heart failure clinic who were enrolled in the study from January to July 2006 and were followed up through the end of December 2010. The treatment policy at the clinic was to uptitrate dosages of beta-adrenergic blockade (β-blockers), angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitors (ACEi) and angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARB) to the most tolerable levels in order to reach target dosages, as recommended by the Heart Failure Society of America (HFSA). Patients were classified into systolic heart failure (ejection fraction (EF) < 40%) or diastolic heart failure (EF≥40%). All dosages of β-blockers, ACEi and ARB were extracted through chart reviews and were used as the main predictors of the patients' survival. Results from analyses showed that reaching target dosages of β-blockers and ACEi/ARB may increase survival when compared to not reaching target among the systolic HF population (HR_{β_biockers}= 0.64, 95% CI 0.26-1.56 and HR_ACEi/ARB=0.50, …