(1) Background: Patients’ experiences and satisfaction with their treatment are becoming increasingly important in the context of quality assurance, but the measurement of these parameters is accompanied by several disadvantages such as poor cross-country comparability and methodological problems. The aim of this review is to describe and summarize the process of measuring, publishing, and utilizing patient experience and satisfaction data in countries with highly developed healthcare systems in Europe (Germany, Sweden, Finland, Norway, the United Kingdom) and the USA to identify possible approaches for improvement. (2) Methods: Articles published between 2000 and 2021 that address the topics described were identified. Furthermore, patient feedback in social media and the influence of sociodemographic and hospital characteristics on patient satisfaction and experience were evaluated. (3) Results: The literature reveals that all countries perform well in collecting patient satisfaction and experience data and making them publicly available. However, due to the use of various different questionnaires, comparability of the results is difficult, and consequences drawn from these data remain largely unclear. (4) Conclusions: Surveying patient experience and satisfaction with more unified as well as regularly updated questionnaires would be helpful to eliminate some of the described problems. Additionally, social media platforms must be considered as an increasingly important source to expand the range of patient feedback.

Objective: To obtain structured information on the diagnostic delay in patients with Cushing's disease (CD) from the patients perspective to provide leverage points for earlier diagnosis.Design: The study includes 176 patients with ACTH-dependent CD who had received pituitary surgery completed a self-developed questionnaire on their symptomatology before the illness was diagnosed, the course and length of the diagnostic process, and the role of the involved health care professionals.Methods: Data were analyzed statistically. Answers in free text options were categorized and counted.Results: The overall diagnostic process took 3.8±4.8 years (median 2 years), during which 4.6±3.8 (1–30) physicians were consulted, most frequently the family physician (FP; 83.0%). The presented symptoms were various and often vague, e.g. ‘poor general condition’ (at FPs), or very common in the field of the visited specialist (i.e. ‘skin changes’ at dermatologists). Women recognized the first CD symptoms themselves significantly more frequently than men, whereas physicians recognized CD symptoms significantly more frequently in males.Conclusion: A clear difficulty of diagnosing CD seems that patients describe isolated symptoms to the FP or the respective specialists according to their fields of specialization. As FPs are contacted most frequently, they should be trained to recognize the broad spectrum of CD symptoms, especially in female patients with weight gain, and initiate endocrinological referral.

Neovascularization and peritumoral edema are hallmarks of glioblastoma (GBM). Programmed cell death 10 (PDCD10) plays a pivotal role in regulating apoptosis, neoangiogenesis and vessel permeability and is implicated in certain tumor signaling pathways. However, little is known about PDCD10 in GBM. We aimed to investigate the expression pattern of PDCD10 and to identify the association of its expression with some molecular and clinical parameters in human GBM. mRNA and protein expression of PDCD10 were examined respectively by real-time RT-PCR and Western blotting in GBM (n = 27), astrocytoma grade II (n = 13) and control (n = 11). The protein level of p-Akt and GFAP was detected by Western blot. Double-imunofluorecent staining was performed to reveal the cellular expression profile of PDCD10. Brain edema and microvascular density (MVD) were respectively analyzed based on pre-operative MRI and after laminin immnostaining. MGMT promoter methylation was detected by methylation specific PCR. mRNA and protein levels of PDCD10 were significantly downregulated in GBM, concomitantly accompanied by the activation of Akt. PDCD10 immunoreactivity was absent in proliferating tumor cells, endothelial cells and GFAP-positive cells, but exclusively present in the hypoxic pseudopalisading cells which underwent apoptosis. Moreover, loss of PDCD10 was associated with a higher MVD and a more severe peritumoral edema but not with MGMT promoter methylation in GBM. We report for the first time that PDCD10 expression is downregulated in GBM, which is associated with the activation of Akt signaling protein. PDCD10 is potentially implicated in tumor proliferation and apoptosis, hyperangiogenesis and peritumoral edema in GBM.