Test-Retest Reliability and Precision of GripAble: A Multipurpose Exergaming Device.

Four randomized trials concluded that overall survival for patients with advanced ovarian cancer is similar regardless of whether they receive neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) or primary cytoreductive surgery. However, some observational studies have found that NACT is associated with inferior survival. Furthermore, patients who achieve complete cytoreduction before receiving any chemotherapy have a particularly favorable prognosis. The survival advantage observed among patients who undergo primary cytoreductive surgery in routine practice could be affected by baseline health status, which may influence both treatment selection and overall survival. Comorbidities and poor functional status impart a poor prognosis to patients, irrespective of treatment strategy, and are often considered an indication for NACT. Studies of ovarian cancer based on administrative data sources, like health insurance claims or hospital discharge records, frequently adjust for confounding due to baseline health status using the Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI), a score calculated by identifying the presence of select comorbidities present before the cancer diagnosis. For data sources based on (ICD) codes, the CCI considers only limited conditions that may appear in a patient’s health claims history. If the diagnosis and procedure codes ignored by the CCI are informative about health status, using CCI, and similar methods to control for health status may lead to residual confounding. Machine learning methods may allow for a richer representation of health status in observational studies by making more effective use of information encoded in patients’ claims histories, and aid in comparative effectiveness studies in which health status is an important confounder.