Risk factors and negative consequences of patient's delay for penile carcinoma.

BACKGROUND: Delayed first medical consultation (patient's delay) is quite common in cases of penile carcinoma (PC), but its reasons and impacts remain unclear. We conducted this study to ascertain risk factors resulting in delayed treatment seeking and evaluate its influence on prognosis. METHODS: From 2004 to 2010 at 4 centers, 254 patients were enrolled into this study from 262 consecutive PC cases. Patients' sexual performance was investigated using the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF)-15 at the sixth-month end after treatment. Data for prognostic analyses was obtained via a 5-year follow-up. RESULTS: A multivariate model ascertained 4 risk factors (single, living in rural areas, heavy drinking alcohol, and aspecific initial symptoms) and 1 protective factor (history of condyloma) significantly associated with patient's delay. Delay >3 months led to significant risks for adverse clinical characteristics, low penis-sparing rate, and poor sexual function restoration. Although patient's delay was not found to impact on postoperative relapses and 5-year overall survival (OS), patients with delay >6 months had significantly inferior 2-year OS. CONCLUSIONS: Single, living in rural areas, heavy drinking alcohol, and aspecific initial symptoms are significant risk factors of PC associated with patient's delay. Delay >3 months will lead to significantly inferior clinical consequences. Minimizing patient's delay is the key to avoid amputation and retain superior sexual potency. Improving patient education on initial symptoms of PC is necessary in men of >40 years old.

Glans preservation contributes to postoperative restoration of male sexual function: a multicenter clinical study of glans preserving surgery.

PURPOSE: We evaluated whether glans preserving surgery would be more helpful for patients to regain satisfactory sexual competency postoperatively than conventional partial amputation. MATERIALS AND METHODS: From 2004 to 2012 at 4 centers a total of 135 men treated with glans preserving surgery and 36 treated with partial amputation were selected for evaluation from a total of 273 consecutive patients with penile cancer. Subjective evaluation for patient sexual performance was investigated using the IIEF-15. Objective evaluation was done using the audiovisual sexual stimulation test with the RigiScan® Plus. The degree of satisfaction with penile appearance, and patient confidence and partner acceptability for intercourse were evaluated by 5-point scales. RESULTS: Patients treated with glans preserving surgery had better performance in 4 IIEF-15 domains (erectile function, orgasmic function, intercourse satisfaction and overall satisfaction) and 1 RigiScan parameter (tip rigidity) (each p <0.01). They also had significantly higher appearance satisfaction (64.4% vs 13.9%) and intercourse confidence (55.6% vs 5.6%) than men who underwent partial amputation. Sexual partners in the glans preserving group also showed significantly higher appearance satisfaction (51.1% vs 5.6%) and intercourse acceptability (37.8% vs 16.7%) than in the partial amputation group. CONCLUSIONS: Glans preserving surgery effectively preserves the functional anatomy and cosmetic appearance of the glans penis. Glans preservation contributes to minimizing postoperative erectile dysfunction and negative psychological impediments, and promotes return to satisfactory sexual performance. Patients treated with glans preservation have more advantages in obtaining sexual acceptance from their partners than those who undergo amputation.

The first case of phaeohyphomycosis caused by Rhinocladiella basitona in an immunocompetent child in China.

We present the first case of phaeohyphomycosis caused by Rhinocladiella basitona (R. basitona) in China and describe the mycological characteristics of this pathogen. A 11-year-old girl was presented with plaque on her face for 3 years. Diagnosis was based on histopathology, mycology, and molecular identification. The patient was treated with terbinafine and itraconazole. This case is the second of phaeohyphomycosis caused by R. basitona in the world (previously belonging to Geniculosporium).

Nomograms for predicting the prognosis of patients with penoscrotal extramammary Paget's disease: A retrospective study in the SEER database and two medical centers.

Background: Extramammary Paget' s disease (EMPD) is a rare cutaneous malignant tumor, and the prognostic factors associated with penoscrotal EMPD remains unclear. The purpose of this study is to investigate prognostic factors and construct nomograms to predict the outcome of patients with EMPD located in the penis or scrotum. Methods: From the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database, we extracted 95 patients with primary EMPD located in the penis or scrotum as the training cohort. Forty-nine penoscrotal EMPD patients were included from two medical centers as the external validation cohort. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression model were applied to investigating risk factors of cancer-specific survival (CSS) and overall survival (OS). Based on the results of multivariate Cox regression analysis, the nomograms were constructed for predicting CSS and OS of patients with penoscrotal EMPD. The concordance index (C-index), receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and calibration curves were applied to evaluate the practicability and accuracy of the nomograms. Results: In the training cohort, multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that marital status and tumor stage were independent factors of CSS, and marital status, tumor stage and surgery are associated with OS independently in patients with penoscrotal EMPD. Based on these results, we developed nomograms to predict CSS and OS respectively. The C-index values were 0.778 for CSS, and 0.668 for OS in the training set, which displayed the good discriminations. In the external validation set, the C-index values were 0.945 for CSS, and 0.703 for OS. The areas under the curve (AUC) values of nomogram predicting 1-, 3-, and 5-year CSS were 0.815, 0.833, and 0.861 respectively, and 0.839, 0.654, and 0.667 for nomogram predicting 1-, 3-, and 5-year OS respectively. In the validation set, the AUC values of nomogram predicting 1-, 3-, and 5-year CSS were 0.944, 0.896, and 0.896 respectively, and 0.777, 0.762 and 0.692 for nomogram predicting 1-, 3-, and 5-year OS respectively. Additionally, the internal calibration curves also proved that our nomograms have good accuracy. Conclusions: By incorporating marital status, tumor stage and/or surgery, our nomograms can efficiently predict CSS and OS of patients with penoscrotal EMPD.

The efficacy and safety of DermalaxTM DEEP in the correction of moderate to severe nasolabial folds: a multicenter, randomized, double-blind clinical study.

BACKGROUND: To investigate the efficacy and safety of Dermalax in the correction of moderate to severe nasolabial folds (NLFs) compared to Restylane. METHODS: A total of 324 subjects with moderate to severe NLFs were enrolled in this multicenter, randomized, double-blind, active-controlled clinical study. Eligible subjects were randomly assigned to the test group received Dermalax injection (n = 162) or control group received Restylane injection (n = 162). Clinical efficacy and safety were assessed based on the Wrinkle Severity Rating Scale (WSRS) and the Global Esthetic Improvement Scale(GAIS) at weeks 2, 8, 16, 24, 36 and 48 weeks after injection. RESULTS: At week 24, similar improvements of effective rate were obtained on the Dermalax group (93.75%) and Restylane group (89.44%). Significances were found at 36 weeks and 48 weeks after injection, Dermalax seemed be better than Restylane in maintaining the effect in the later period. The improvement of mean WSRS score for test group was superior to that of control group with significance. GAIS scores rated at week 24 were 1.65 VS 1.94 (p < .001) and 2.10 VS 2.27 (p = .060), seperately. CONCLUSIONS: Dermalax was no inferior to or better than that of the control filler Restylane in correcting of moderate to severe NLFs in Chinese subjects.