The concept of induction treatment followed by long-term maintenance treatment in multiple sclerosis (MS) has attracted considerable attention. The combination of mitoxantrone as the induction therapy followed by an immunomodulatory drug (e.g., interferon beta or glatiramer acetate) as the maintenance therapy is of particular interest. This approach is suitable for patients with particularly ag...

Lung cancer has become a leading cause of cancer-related death in the world. Patient survival has improved with the introduction of new chemotherapy regimens and targeted drugs, but still, because of tumour progression or deterioration in performance status, a high percentage of patients do not receive more than one line of treatment. Given this situation, studies of maintenance therapies have ...

Most randomised trials of newer and established medications in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) enrol patients who have already been treated, often with drugs of the same class or even with the very same drugs that are to be studied. Some trials such as UPLIFT evaluated the effect of a drug as an add-on, with patients continuing their existing treatments [1]. Other trials, such as O...

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) invited the manufacturer of rituximab (RTX) [Roche] to submit evidence for the clinical and cost effectiveness of RTX as first-line maintenance treatment for patients with follicular non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (fNHL) whose disease has responded to induction therapy with RTX plus cytotoxic chemotherapy (R-CTX) in accordance with the In...

Three age- and sex-matched groups of 30 patients with chronic plaque psoriasis were treated by photochemotherapy (PUVA). Groups I and II received routine maintenance PUVA therapy at different intervals and Group III had no maintenance treatment. The remission time after the clearance treatment with PUVA is compared with the total cumulative dose of long wave ultraviolet light (UVA). A lower mea...

OBJECTIVES To determine whether intravesical bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) administration reduces recurrence after transurethral resection of superficial bladder cancer using a meta-analysis. METHODS Published data of randomized clinical trials comparing transurethral resection plus intravesical BCG to either resection alone or resection plus another treatment were analyzed, considering poss...

Background: This comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis were performed to assess the associated factors of maintenance in patients with methadone therapy in the world.Methods: A systematic literature review was performed from several scientific databases; these include PubMed, Scopus, ISI Web of Science, and MEDLINE. We searched the following keywords: “Methadone”, “Maintenance”, “Re...

Background: Substance abusers are not able to withdraw drugs eternally despite the abundance of different treatments; therefore, withdrawal programs are not quite successful and notwithstanding all the successes of methadone maintenance therapy, there are some defects found in the manner this treatment is applied. Thus, this study was conducted to explore the experience of drug abusers regardin...