Ambulatory 5-Fluorouracil Infusors: Experiences of Patients Diagnosed with Gastrointestinal Cancer
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Treatment for advanced gastrointestinal (GI) cancer frequently requires continuous administration of 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) over 46-hours through an ambulatory infusor. While convenient, evidence suggests that infusors may impact day-to-day activities and health-related quality of life (HRQL). There is limited research on the impact of this technology on patients' health, or if current practices meet their health needs. This study aimed to explore patient experiences receiving 5-FU through an ambulatory infusor at home for GI cancers. Methods: A qualitative descriptive design was employed. Participants were patients diagnosed with a GI cancer who had received 5-FU through an ambulatory infusor for 46 hours within the last twelve months at a cancer centre in Southwestern Ontario. Semi-structured interviews were conducted by telephone, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using content analysis methods to code data and identify relevant patterns and themes. Results: Ten patients with four types of GI cancers participated in the study. Their experience with ambulatory infusors ranged from 8 to 54 treatment cycles. Common themes included the psychosocial impact of having an infusor, the intense work of patient self-management, and supporting patients in self-management. Conclusions: Results indicate that use of an infusor may have a more negative effect on patients' mental health than previously understood. Psychosocial assessment and support should be routinely utilized, and significant efforts should be made to prepare patients for living with an infusor. Streamlining services and reducing the number of cancer care-related appointments would also lessen the burden currently placed on patients.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.007 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".