BACKGROUND The treatment given to patients with lung cancer and survival vary between and within countries. The National Lung Cancer Audit (NLCA) linked to Hospital Episode Statistics was used to quantify the extent to which these outcomes are influenced by patient features and/or hospital facilities and performance indicators. METHODS All patients with a histological diagnosis of non-small c...

THE isolation of the mental hospital, which was practically absolute before the Mental Treatment Act of 1930, is rapidly disappearing, and more and more psychiatric patients are being treated in the community instead of in the hospital. The hospital’s first link with the community was the outpatient department. Later liaison was gradually established with outside services such as probation depa...

BACKGROUND Multicentre randomized controlled trials (RCTs) routinely use randomization and analysis stratified by centre to control for differences between centres and to improve precision. No consensus has been reached on how to best analyze correlated continuous outcomes in such settings. Our objective was to investigate the properties of commonly used statistical models at various levels of ...

background: there are thirteen who collaborating centres in iran which no mechanism or model has ever been foreseen for the evaluation of them. this original research is innovative in iran, which has been offered by the researcher through a joint research project with who. methods: the aforesaid model has been approved by the international relation department of ministry of health& education. t...

OBJECTIVES There is currently no consensus on best practice in systemic sclerosis (SSc). To determine if variability in treatment and investigations exists, practices among Canadian Sclerodermia Research Group (CSRG) centres were compared. METHODS Prospective clinical and demographic data from adult SSc patients are collected annually from 15 CSRG treatment centres. Laboratory parameters, sel...

The study examines the management and outcomes of women with early invasive breast cancer treated in rural and metropolitan centres over a nine-year observation period. A prospective audit of the treatment and outcomes of 2081 women with early breast cancer who underwent potentially curative surgery between 1997 and 2006 in metropolitan Canberra or in the surrounding rural region was completed....

BACKGROUND International guidelines do not provide uniform recommendations regarding the use of antiplatelet treatment in the perioperative period in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). METHODS A questionnaire was sent to all 16 cardiothoracic centres in the Netherlands to determine which antiplatelet treatment is used in the perioperative setting. Furthermore, a singl...

BACKGROUND We hypothesized that the economic status of a region might influence quality of care and outcome of patients with severe brain trauma. METHODS Between January 2001 and December 2005, 13 centres enrolled patients with severe brain trauma. Data on accident, treatment and outcomes were collected prospectively. The regions were classified as 'high income' (Austria, five centres), 'uppe...