University of Lund

WEDNESDAY, March 26, 2025 -- Urine glycosaminoglycan profiles (GAGomes) have high sensitivity for nonmetastatic clear-cell renal cell carcinoma (M0ccRCC) recurrence, according to a study presented at the 40th annual European Association of Urology Congress, held from March 21 to 24 in Madrid. Saeed Dabestani, M.D., Ph.D., from Lund University in Sweden, and colleagues conducted a prospective, multicenter diagnostic test cohort study to evaluate GAGomes for postsurgical recurrence detection in patients with M0ccRCC and Leibovich Score ≥5. Radiological recurrence was assessed using standard-of-care follow-up imaging up to 18 months, and urine GAGomes were measured every three months. One hundred thirty-four of the 393 patients screened met the inclusion criteria. The researchers found that 15.7 percent of the participants had a recurrence at a median follow-up of 15 months. The GAGome score had 90 and 51 percent sensitivity and specificity, respectively, for radiological recurrence, with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve score of 0.73. The positive predictive value was 26 percent, and the negative predictive value was 97 percent. The median lead time (time difference between the first positive GAGome score and radiological recurrence) was 4.2 months. A 10-point increase in GAGome score was associated with a hazard ratio of 1.62 for recurrence. There was a linear correlation seen for GAGome scores with the probability of radiological recurrence; at the last visit, there was reasonable goodness-of-fit versus observed probability. "If you have a urine test that can accurately show whether the cancer has actually returned then you can better assess risk levels and reduce the frequency of the scans required," Dabestani said in a statement. "Based on the results we have so far, it's likely that we could safely halve the number of scans that patients have to undergo." Press Release More Information Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.

Dr. Sacharias von Koch of the dept. of cardiology and clinical sciences at Lund University, Skåne University Hospital in Sweden presented findings from the Swedish Coronary Angiography and Angioplasty Registry (SCAAR) at Cardiovascular Research Technologies (CRT) 2025 in Washington, D.C. Findings demonstrated comparable outcomes with Prevail compared to other contemporary DCBs used in the study. This suggests Prevail is an effective treatment for a variety of complex coronary lesions. SCAAR included 1,797 patients. it compared Prevail to other DCBs in a complex patient population. That included 61% patients with acute coronary syndrome, 31.8% with diabetes, 55.3% with complex lesions, 22.8% with bifurcation lesions and 28% in-stent restenosis (ISR). Outcomes included all-cause mortality, myocardial infarction (MI), new revascularization with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), target lesion definite thrombosis and target lesion revascularization. Prevail demonstrated low mortality event rates at one year (4.7%) and two years (7.2%) post-procedure. Outcomes showed a 98.7% procedure success rate with Prevail as well. It had low rates of target lesion thrombosis (0.8% at two years compared to 1.3% with other DCBs). Prevail currently has availability in more than 80 countries, including across Europe, where it launched in 2021. The medtech giant won FDA investigational device exemption (IDE) picked up in October. Medtronic announced the first enrolled patient in the Prevail Global study to support U.S. and Japanese approval last month. “As physicians encounter and treat an increasing number of patients with complex lesions, it is crucial to continuously gather data on our Prevail DCB,” stated Jason Weidman, SVP and president of the Coronary and Renal Denervation business at Medtronic. “With its differentiated design, Prevail has seen strong market adoptions since 2021, and we are eager to see how this new data will further advance the Prevail DCB in the market. These findings reaffirm Medtronic’s dedication to advancing complex PCI solutions, ultimately bringing this procedure to patients worldwide.”

THURSDAY, Feb. 13, 2025 -- Artificial intelligence (AI) contributes to early detection of clinically relevant breast cancer, according to a study published online Feb. 3 in The Lancet Digital Health . Veronica Hernström, M.D., from Lund University in Sweden, and colleagues conducted a randomized, controlled, parallel-group, noninferiority trial within the Swedish national screening program involving women recruited at four screening sites who were eligible for mammography screening. Participants were randomly assigned to AI-supported screening, which was used to triage screening examinations to single or double reading, or to standard double reading. The researchers found that AI-supported screening among 53,043 participants resulted in 338 cancers detected and 1,110 recalls, while standard screening among 52,872 participants resulted in 262 cancers detected and 1,027 recalls. Cancer detection rates were 6.4 and 5.0 per 1,000 screened participants in the intervention and control groups (ratio, 1.29), respectively. AI-supported screening yielded increased detection of invasive cancers (270 versus 217; proportion ratio, 1.24), which were mostly small lymph node-negative cancers. There was also an increased detection of in situ cancers with AI-supported screening (68 versus 45; proportion ratio of 1.51); about half of the increased detection was high-grade in situ cancer. Compared with the control group, the intervention group had significantly higher positive predictive value of recall, with a ratio of 1.19. There were 61,248 and 109,692 screen readings in the intervention and control groups, respectively, resulting in a 44.2 percent reduction in the screen-reading workload. "The use of AI did not negatively influence the rates of recalls, false positives, or consensus meetings and the screen-reading workload was reduced by almost half," the authors write. One author disclosed ties to the pharmaceutical and medical technology industries. Abstract/Full Text Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.