Archives of gynecology and obstetrics
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Arch. Gynecol. Obstet. · May 2012
ReviewVaginal estrogen therapy in postmenopausal breast cancer patients treated with aromatase inhibitors.
Breast cancer is the most frequent cancer among women with about 1.38 million new cases worldwide every year. Most of these patients are postmenopausal and suffer from hormone receptor positive breast tumors. About 50% of postmenopausal women between 50 and 60 years and 72% of women over 70 years suffer from vulvovaginal athrophy (VVA). Adjuvant treatment with aromatase inhibitors (AIs) improves outcomes in postmenopausal women with hormone receptor positive early stage breast cancer compared with tamoxifen. A frequent side effect of AI use is VVA with symptoms like vaginal dryness, vaginitis, pruritus, dyspareunia and cystitis. ⋯ Vaginal administration of estradiol is a well known and safe alternative to systemic estrogen therapy, but studies demonstrated significant increases in plasma concentrations of estradiol. Such observations have also been reported in postmenopausal breast cancer patients treated with AIs. Further studies are needed to explore risk of breast cancer recurrence after vaginal estrogen application for patients on adjuvant endocrine therapy with AIs.
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Arch. Gynecol. Obstet. · May 2012
Timing of antibiotic administration and infectious morbidity following cesarean delivery: incorporating policy change into workflow.
To evaluate the success of a multidisciplinary approach to policy change regarding timing of antibiotic administration for the prevention of surgical-site infection after cesarean delivery. ⋯ A multidisciplinary approach was successful in achieving 100% adherence to our institution's policy change regarding timing of prophylactic antibiotics. This approach was necessary in order to incorporate this type of change into the labor and delivery workflow and may serve as a paradigm for success in implementing labor and delivery quality improvement projects. In addition, administration of prophylactic antibiotics before skin incision resulted in fewer surgical-site infections following cesarean delivery. As the clinical and economic impact of surgical-site infections is considerable, the once common practice of administering antibiotics after cord clamping should be avoided.