Publications by authors named "Ronald D Barr"

Purpose: The association of nutritional intervention and health-related quality of life (HRQL) was examined in children with cancer.

Methods: Undernourished children with cancer (N = 260) were randomized 1:1 to standard nutritional therapy (SNT) or SNT + Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF). HRQL was assessed using the Health Utilities Index® (HUI) at study entry and 6 weeks later.

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Background: Increases in colon and colorectal cancer incidence among adolescents and young adults have been reported progressively. Most of the increase may be because of an artifact caused by reclassifying appendiceal carcinoids and neuroendocrine tumor (NET) as malignant.

Methods: Age-adjusted incidence and survival data were obtained from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results SEER22 database.

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Background: In children with cancer, poor nutritional status adversely affects outcomes. Hypoalbuminemia is common in pediatric oncology patients, and in some groups is associated with inferior survival rates. We sought to determine if serum albumin associates with body mass index (BMI) percentile and if combining serum albumin and BMI is associated with survival.

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Background: Neuroblastomas account for 8-10 % of all cancer diagnoses among children. Most patients present with advanced, high-risk disease and 90 % are less than five years old. The burden of morbidity and mortality is high and is quantifiable by measures of health-related quality of life (HRQL).

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Acute leukemia commonly occurs in young children with peak incidence at the age of 2-5 years. However, the etiology is still unclear and many preventable risk factors still deserve to be reviewed. The focus of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to summarize the evidence concerning early life nourishment (breastfeeding, early life diet), neonatal vitamin K administration and the risk of acute leukemia.

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The therapeutic approach to Wilms tumor (WT) is multidisciplinary and leads to significant patient impairment, increasing the risk of nutritional compromise and malnutrition. Children with cancer are vulnerable to sarcopenia which has been recognized as a negative impact of anticancer therapy. Recent studies have highlighted the reduction in the total psoas muscle area (TPMA) to be associated with a poor prognosis in many pediatric diseases, including cancer.

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Purpose: In the absence of a standardized tool to assess the quality of pediatric hematology/oncology training programs, the Education Program Assessment Tool (EPAT) was conceptualized as a user-friendly and adaptable tool to evaluate and identify areas of opportunity, pinpoint needed modifications, and monitor progress for training programs around the world.

Methods: The development of EPAT consisted of three main phases: operationalization, consensus, and piloting. After each phase, the tool was iteratively modified based on feedback to improve its relevance, usability, and clarity.

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To examine the factors associated with females attending a fertility consultation within 30 days of cancer diagnosis. This is a retrospective cohort study, including females, 15 to 39 years of age, diagnosed with cancer in Ontario, Canada. Administrative data were used from the Institute of Clinical and Evaluative Sciences for the period 2006 to 2019.

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Acute lymphoblastic leukemia is the commonest form of cancer in children and adolescents worldwide, and asparaginase is an essential component of successful chemotherapy for this disease associated with long-term survival rates often exceeding 90% in high-income countries. Demonstrably defective preparations of asparaginase, distributed from China and India, increase the burden of morbidity and mortality, reducing attainable survival rates. This adverse outcome is enabled by inadequate regulation and oversight, especially in resource-poor settings in low- and middle-income countries where the great majority of children and adolescents with cancer live.

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There is a lack of metrics to monitor and evaluate fertility care in adolescents and young adults with cancer. This study evaluated the indicator "proportion of cases attending a fertility consult visit ≤30 days from diagnosis of cancer" using the National Quality Forum (NQF) criteria. This was a retrospective cohort study using administrative data available through the Institute of Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Ontario, Canada.

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Many studies have investigated the etiology of acute leukemia, one of the most common types of cancer in children; however, there is a lack of clarity regarding preventable risk factors. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to summarize the current evidence regarding the role of maternal dietary factors in the development of childhood leukemia. All epidemiological studies published until July 2022 that evaluated maternal dietary risk factors for childhood acute leukemia were identified in two electronic databases (PubMed and Web of Science) without limits of publication year or language.

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Introduction: Health research is particularly important in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where improvements must be achieved with limited resources, and where the great majority of the world's population, especially children, live. Improvements in public health detection in Brazil have resulted in cancer becoming the most prevalent cause of death by disease in the group aged 1 to 19 years, hence, delivering cost-effective care to the group is a priority. Preference-based measures of health status and health-related quality of life (HRQL) integrate morbidity and mortality and provide utility scores for the estimation of quality-adjusted life years to be used in cost-effectiveness analyses and economic evaluation.

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Background: Low bone mineral density is encountered in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) before, during, and after treatment. Prior experience with alendronate, an oral bisphosphonate, demonstrated high tolerability and evident clinical efficacy. However, concerns have been expressed about the long-term safety and utility of such agents in children.

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Background: Adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer survivors face physical and psychological sequelae related to having cancer decades after treatment completion. It is unclear if AYA cancer survivors are at increased risk for late psychiatric disorders.

Methods: We used the Alberta AYA Cancer Survivor Study that includes 5-year survivors of cancer diagnosed at age 15-39 years during 1991 to 2013.

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Survivors of pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) often have altered body composition secondary to treatment effects, including sarcopenic obesity (SO), which increases the risk of both metabolic complications and frailty. SO is difficult to detect without using advanced imaging techniques to which access is often limited. To explore whether common clinical indices can reliably identify the presence of SO in a cohort of long-term survivors of ALL, the discriminatory capacity of body mass index (BMI) or triponderal mass index (TMI, kg/m 3 ) for detecting SO was assessed.

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Objective: : The primary purpose of this review is to investigate the relationships between cancer and nutrition in children and adolescents living in resource-poor, low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in order to explore potential opportunities for interventions which could improve clinical outcomes in this population.

Method: : The implications of overlapping age groups of children and adolescents with cancer are examined, as are the adverse influences of under-nutrition and socio-economic deprivation on the efficacy of treatment and cancer survival. Evidence suggestive of novel avenues to enhance prospects for cure, based on increased understanding of the dynamic of nutrition and cancer, is evaluated.

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Cancer and its treatment can impair fertility in men. It is recommended that they be referred for fertility consultation before the start of treatment. This study examined factors associated with men attending a fertility consultation within 30 days of diagnosis.

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To describe the cancer incidence burden and trends among adolescent and young adults (AYAs) in Alberta, Canada over a 35-year period. We obtained data from the Alberta Cancer Registry on all first primary cancers, excluding non-melanoma skin cancer, diagnosed at ages 15-39 years among residents in Alberta from 1983 to 2017. Cancers were classified by using Barr's AYA cancer classification system.

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Background: The normal interrelationship of body composition with bone health is less clear in the context of disease. Survivors of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) exhibit sarcopenic obesity and osteopenia. The impact of body composition on bone health in such survivors was examined.

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Risk factors associated with late effects in survivors of adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer are poorly understood. We conducted a systematic scoping review to identify cohort studies published in English from 2010-2020 that included: (1) cancer survivors who were AYAs (age 15-39 years) at diagnosis and (2) outcomes of subsequent malignant neoplasms (SMNs), chronic conditions, and/or late mortality (>5 years postdiagnosis). There were 652 abstracts identified and, ultimately, 106 unique studies were included, of which 23, 34, and 54 studies related to the risk of SMNs, chronic conditions, and mortality, respectively.

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