The consistent focus of 'Advances in Neuroblastoma Research' congresses on the topic neuroblastoma sets it as a model for a circumscribed scientific community.

There are many parameters that could be used to evaluate the quality of scientific meetings such as publication rates of meeting abstracts as full-text articles after the meeting or scoring with validated quality scales/tools that evaluate individual papers, project proposals, or submitted abstracts. This study aimed to determine the full-text publication rates for abstracts presented at Turkish National Medical Education Congresses and Symposia and to assess the quality of given abstracts. Abstracts presented at national medical education congresses and symposia between 2010 and 2014 in Türkiye were evaluated. Initially, the abstracts were evaluated if they were published as full-text articles in international and national peer-reviewed journals following the meeting. Secondly, the quality of presented abstracts was assessed with the Medical Education Research Study Quality Instrument (MERSQI) scale. Overall publication rate for the abstracts was 11.3%. The publication rate of oral and poster presentations were 26.6% and 8.1%, respectively. Oral presentations had a statistically higher publication rate than poster presentations (p = .000). The mean MERSQI score for abstracts was 7.73 ± 2.59. The oral presentations had higher MERSQI mean scores than poster presentations (8.28 ± 2.46 vs. 7.61 ± 2.6; p = .032). Similarly, published abstracts had a significantly higher score compared to unpublished abstracts (10.07 ± 2.74 vs. 7.43 ± 2.41; p = .000). Interestingly, there was no statistical difference between the mean MERSQI scores of the published oral and poster presentations (9.33 ± 2.45 vs. 10.61 ± 2.72; p = .101). This study showed that the main factor for a meeting abstract to be published as a full-text article is the scientific quality of the study. The quality of presentations at annual medical education meetings in Türkiye were low compared with international meetings which did not improve over five years. An institutional policy that would set quality standards for medical education research and increase the awareness of researchers on the topic might help improve the design, execution, and reporting of such studies in Türkiye. The MERSQI could be a valuable tool to monitor the quality of submitted abstracts and to increase the awareness of novice researchers on high quality research.

Scientific congresses have become the most expedient method to communicate novel findings on any research topic. However, an important question is whether this information will be published in peer-reviewed journals. Our aim was to determine the publication rate of the abstracts presented at the European Society for Surgery of the Shoulder and Elbow Congress and analyze factors that may influence this rate.

Out of nearly 70,000 bills introduced in the U.S. Congress from 2001 to 2015, only 2,513 were enacted. We developed a machine learning approach to forecasting the probability that any bill will become law. Starting in 2001 with the 107th Congress, we trained models on data from previous Congresses, predicted all bills in the current Congress, and repeated until the 113th Congress served as the test. For prediction we scored each sentence of a bill with a language model that embeds legislative vocabulary into a high-dimensional, semantic-laden vector space. This language representation enables our investigation into which words increase the probability of enactment for any topic. To test the relative importance of text and context, we compared the text model to a context-only model that uses variables such as whether the bill's sponsor is in the majority party. To test the effect of changes to bills after their introduction on our ability to predict their final outcome, we compared using the bill text and meta-data available at the time of introduction with using the most recent data. At the time of introduction context-only predictions outperform text-only, and with the newest data text-only outperforms context-only. Combining text and context always performs best. We conducted a global sensitivity analysis on the combined model to determine important variables predicting enactment.

There is large variation in individual patient care for endometriosis. A uniform approach to measure outcomes could be incorporated into routine clinical practice to personalize and monitor treatments and potentially improve the quality of care. The aim of this study is to identify a group of patient-centered outcomes for use in routine endometriosis care which are relevant to all patient profiles.

While investigative ophthalmologists access peer-reviewed journals as part of their daily routine, and while they regularly visit scientific congresses, they rarely peruse patent documents as an information source. Among the reasons for this negligence are the incompatibility of patent search algorithms with those known from journal databases, a legalistic and frequently redundant language, and misconceptions about the nature of the patenting system. Here we present key data and analyses from the ophthalmology module of a patent database system that we are developing to address some of these problems. We show that international patent applications consistently reflect developer interest in the ocular drug and diagnostics field; that they are technically focused lead indicators of developments that frequently feature in peer-reviewed patenting only much later; and that patenting targets are well aligned with the unmet therapeutic needs of populations in industrialized countries. Most applications (74%-78% in years since 2006) are supported with experimental data, and most (on average, 80%-90%) faced at least one objection to patentability during their initial stage of examination. In contrast to the peer-reviewed scenery that is highly diverse, the corresponding patenting arena shows a pronounced focus on the United States.

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is suggested to progress faster in children and young people vs type 1 diabetes (T1D) in the same age group and T2D in adults. We reviewed the evidence base for this. A literature search was performed of PubMed-indexed publications between 2000 and 2018, for the terms "pediatric" and "T2D." Results were combined and filtered for those relating to "progression." Searches of abstract books from Latin American and Asian congresses were performed to include these populations. Pediatric populations were defined as <25 completed years of age. Of the articles and congress abstracts found, 30 were deemed relevant. Dividing the studies into categories based on how T2D progresses, we found the following: (a) yearly beta-cell function deterioration was shown to be 20% to 35% in children with T2D compared with 7% to 11% in adults with T2D, despite similar disease durations; (b) retinopathy progression was likely dependent on diabetes duration rather than diabetes type; however, nephropathy, neuropathy and probably hypertension progressed faster in youth-onset T2D vs T1D. Nephropathy progression was similar to adults with T2D, allowing for disease duration. Youth with T2D had a worse cardiovascular (CV) risk profile than youth with T1D, and a faster progression to CV death. (c) Progression to treatment failure was faster in youth-onset T2D vs adult-onset T2D. Substantial evidence exists for faster progression of T2D in pediatric patients vs T1D or adult-onset T2D. New treatments targeting the pathology are needed urgently to address this issue.

This study describes the epidemiological, clinical, patient-reported and economic burden of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), including Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), in Spain.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is common among children and adolescents who are exposed to trauma, and it is often associated with significant negative impacts on their psychosocial functioning and quality of life. Many types of psychotherapies have been found to be effective for PTSD in children and adolescents. However, due to the lack of direct comparisons between different psychotherapies, the hierarchy of treatment efficacy is still unclear. Therefore, we plan to conduct a systematic review and network meta-analysis to evaluate the efficacy and acceptability of various types of psychotherapies for PTSD in children and adolescents.

As part of the PIONEER (Prostate Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment Enhancement Through the Power of Big Data in Europe) Consortium, we will explore which diagnostic and prognostic factors (DPFs) are currently being researched to previously defined clinical and patient-reported outcomes for prostate cancer (PCa).

Self-management is an important strategy for cancer survivors. Evaluating self-management is essential for planning nursing interventions that promote self-management and for measuring the contribution of nursing to health outcomes. Many patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) have been designed and used to assess self-management in cancer survivors. However, it is unclear which PROM has the best reliability and validity. Therefore, the goal is to systematically review the psychometric properties of existing self-management PROMs and determine which PROM is best for cancer survivors.

Multiple studies have been conducted on correlates of dietary behavior in adults, but a clear overview is currently lacking.

Introduction: Health care interventions for middle-old and oldest-old individuals (75 years or older) are often economically evaluated using the EuroQol questionnaire (EQ-5D) to measure health-related quality of life. However, the psychometric performance of the EQ-5D in this population has been questioned, as it probably does not adequately capture relevant aspects of quality of life in the older population. Because the results of economic evaluations using the EQ-5D often guide decision-makers, it is important to know whether the EQ-5D has satisfactory psychometric properties in the middle-old and oldest-old population. Therefore, studies assessing the psychometric properties of the EQ-5D in this population should be synthesized by a systematic review. Methods and Analysis: A systematic review of studies providing empirical evidence of reliability, validity, and/or responsiveness of the EQ-5D in a sample with a mean age ≥75 years will be conducted. The databases PubMed, Web of Science, and EconLit will be searched. In addition, reference lists of included studies will be hand-searched. Two independent reviewers will select studies and assess their risk of bias with the COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement Instruments (COSMIN) Risk of Bias checklist. Relevant data will be extracted by one reviewer and cross-checked by a second reviewer. Potential disagreements in any phase will be resolved through discussion with a third person. The guidelines for systematic reviews of measurement properties proposed by the COSMIN group, including criteria of good measurement properties, will guide the synthesis and interpretation of the results. Discussion: The review's results could facilitate the making of recommendations for the use of the EQ-5D in a population of middle-old and oldest-old people and thereby being of interest for decision-makers or for researchers designing new intervention studies for older people. Heterogeneity of individual studies regarding the population under study could limit the possibility of making a synthesized statement on the appropriateness of the EQ-5D for the middle-old to oldest-old population.

Using specific tools to assess the measurement properties of health status instruments is recommended both to standardise the review process and to improve the methodological quality of systematic reviews. However, depending on the measurement standards on which these tools are developed, the approach to appraise the measurement properties of instruments may vary. For this reason, the present meta-review aims to: (1) identify systematic reviews assessing the measurement properties of instruments evaluating health-related quality of life (HRQoL); (2) identify the tools applied to assess the measurement properties of HRQoL instruments; (3) describe the characteristics of the tools applied to assess the measurement properties of HRQoL instruments; (4) identify the measurement standards on which these tools were developed or conform to and (5) compare the similarities and differences among the identified measurement standards.

The prevention and relief of suffering are regarded as a goal at the end of life; therefore, suffering assessment at the end of life is essential. In this regard, we need instruments that allow us to evaluate this construct for gathering more evidence, as the assessment of suffering is increasingly used in research and the clinical setting. Many measures have been designed to assess this construct, and the selection of the most appropriate instrument is crucial. The aims of this systematic review are to (1) identify the measures assessing suffering in patients with advanced disease and their psychometric properties and (2) evaluate the methodological quality of studies on measurement properties.

Health professionals are often involved in the process of breaking bad news (BBN), which remains a difficult challenge, as it requires not only theoretical knowledge, but also the development of humanistic, emotional and communication skills. Therefore, optimal BBN assessment is essential. In this regard, sound measurement instruments are needed to evaluate BBN properly in research, teaching and clinical settings. Several instruments have been designed and validated to assess BBN. In this context, choosing the most appropriate instrument for assessing health professionals' skills in BBN is essential. The aims of this systematic review are to: (1) identify all the instruments used for assessing health professionals' skills in BBN; and (2) critically appraise their measurement properties.