BACKGROUND: Adjuvant chemotherapy after curative resection for rectal cancer is the standard of care in several American and European guidelines. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to examine the differences in health-related quality of life over time between patients with rectal cancer who were treated with adjuvant chemotherapy or observation. DESIGN: This is a randomized controlled phase III trial. SETTINGS: Health-related quality-of-life assessments were conducted in Dutch patients from 43 institutes. PATIENTS: Patients with stage II or III rectal cancer who underwent preoperative (chemo)radiotherapy followed by curative surgery (the SCRIPT trial) were included. INTERVENTIONS: Patients were randomly assigned to adjuvant capecitabine monotherapy for 8 cycles or observation. Health-related quality of life was assessed using the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer C30 and CR38 questionnaires at 1 month after surgery (before the start of chemotherapy), and 3, 6, and 12 months after surgery. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The primary outcome measure was the difference in quality of life at 6 months after surgery, just after completion of adjuvant chemotherapy for patients in the treatment group. Second, the difference in health-related quality of life at 12 months after surgery was examined. A statistically significant difference of 5 points was considered clinically relevant. RESULTS: Health-related quality-of-life results of 226 of 233 patients were available. At T3, overall quality of life (C30 summary score) was worse for patients treated with chemotherapy compared with observation (mean 82.3 versus 86.9, p = 0.006), but the difference was not clinically relevant. Patients treated with adjuvant chemotherapy reported clinically relevant worse physical functioning (mean 78.3 versus 87.0, p < 0.001) and more reports of fatigue and dyspnea (35.7 versus 21.0 and 17.1 versus 6.7, p < 0.001). All differences were resolved at 12 months postsurgery. LIMITATIONS: A selection of relatively fit patients willing to be randomly assigned may limit the generalizability of the results. CONCLUSIONS: Although inferior health-related quality of life was reported just after completion of adjuvant chemotherapy, no persistent deterioration in quality of life was detected. See Video Abstract at http://links.lww.com/DCR/A907.@en

BACKGROUND: Radiostereometric analysis (RSA) is a highly accurate tool to detect implant migration and predict loosening following total knee arthroplasty (TKA). However, little is known about the predisposing risk factors for implant migration, nor which migration profile should be considered physiological (i.e., merely part of an implant-settling phase) and which should be considered pathological (i.e., having a high probability for implant loosening). By pooling individual participant data from long-term follow-up RSA studies, we aimed to identify predisposing risk factors for tibial component loosening. METHODS: Individual data were collected for 630 patients from 11 RSA studies. The repeated measurements were analyzed with use of a linear mixed-effects model, determining the effect of age, sex, body mass index, diagnosis, preoperative and postoperative limb alignment, and prosthesis characteristics on tibial component migration over time, taking into account the clustering of patients within studies. RESULTS: High initial migration was found to result in early mechanical loosening in 18 cases (2.9%) and septic loosening in 2 cases (0.3%), whereas stabilization of high initial migration occurred in 17 cases (2.7%). Late loosening occurred in 13 cases (2.1%). All other 580 cases (92.1%) showed early stabilization and remained stable over time. Mixed-effects model analyses showed that for cemented prostheses, sex, diagnosis, and posterior cruciate ligament type had an effect on migration, but these differences were nonsignificant when analyzing migration from 3 months onwards. Uncemented prostheses aligned in varus showed more migration than neutrally and valgus-aligned TKAs (p = 0.031), and this difference increased over time (p < 0.001). Significantly higher migration was observed following uncemented TKA without an osseointegration-promoting surface (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: For cemented prostheses, increased migration during the first 3 postoperative months was observed for female patients, patients with rheumatoid arthritis, and patients who underwent a posterior-stabilized TKA. For uncemented prostheses, both postoperative varus alignment of the lower limb and the absence of an osseointegration-promoting surface significantly increased postoperative tibial component migration. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Prognostic Level IV. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.@en

Aims The optimal method of tibial component fixation remains uncertain in total knee arthroplasty (TKA). Hydroxyapatite coatings have been applied to improve bone ingrowth in uncemented designs, but may only coat the directly accessible surface. As peri-apatite (PA) is solution deposited, this may increase the coverage of the implant surface and thereby fixation. We assessed the tibial component fixation of uncemented PA-coated TKAs versus cemented TKAs. Patients and Methods Patients were randomised to PA-coated or cemented TKAs. In 60 patients (30 in each group), radiostereometric analysis of tibial component migration was evaluated as the primary outcome at baseline, three months post-operatively and at one, two and five years. A linear mixed-effects model was used to analyse the repeated measurements. Results After five years of follow-up, one (cemented) component was revised due to ligament instability. Overall, uncemented PA-coated tibial components migrated significantly more (p = 0.003), with the mean maximum total point motion (MTPM) at five years being 0.62 mm (95% confidence intervals (CI) 0.49 to 0.76) for cemented tibial components and 0.97 mm (95% CI 0.81 to 1.15) for PA-coated tibial components in TKA. However, between three months and five years the cemented TKAs migrated significantly more (p = 0.02), displaying a MTPM of 0.27 mm (95% CI, 0.19 to 0.36) versus 0.13 mm (95% CI, 0.01 to 0.25) for PAcoated tibial components. One implant in each group was considered at risk for aseptic loosening due to continuous migration after five years of follow-up, albeit with different migration patterns for each group (i.e. higher initial migration but diminishing over time for the PA-coated component versus gradually increasing migration for the cemented component). Conclusion The tibial components of PA-coated TKAs showed more overall migration compared with the tibial components of cemented TKAs. However, post hoc analysis showed that this difference was caused by higher migration of PA-coated components in the first three months, after which a stable migration pattern was observed. Clinically, there was no significant difference in outcome between the groups.@en