Abstract
In patients with various cancers, modified Glasgow prognostic score (mGPS) before treatment has predicted prognoses after antitumor therapy. This study aimed to assess whether pretreatment ...mGPS also has predictive value in patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) after radiotherapy. A retrospective review accumulated 98 consecutive MIBC patients treated with definitive 3D-conformal radiotherapy from January 2011 to December 2016 in a single center. It included cT2-4bN0-3M0 patients with a median age of 79 years (range: 49 to 95 years). Radiotherapy was delivered at 60–66 Gy for bladder cancer. Patients were categorized in terms of their pretreatment serum albumin and C-reactive protein (CRP) values as mGPS_0, mGPS_1, and mGPS_2. Among them, cumulative overall survival (OS) rates were compared by Kaplan–Meier plots with log-rank tests. The number of patients with mGPS_0, mGPS_1, and mGPS_2 were 40, 40, and 18, respectively. The median follow-up time for all patients was 19 months (range: 2–73 months). The 2-year OS rate for all patients was 75.7%. The 2-year OS rates for mGPS_0, mGPS_1, and mGPS_2 were 85.1%, 71.3%, and 60.9%, respectively. Kaplan–Meier curves revealed a significantly higher cumulative OS rate for mGPS_0 compared with mGPS_1 and mGPS_2 (P = 0.003). Using multivariate Cox regression analysis, mGPS_0 and good performance status were associated with favorable OS rates, of which mGPS_0 was more significant (Hazard ratio 2.74, 95% CI 1.30–5.57, P = 0.008). Modified Glasgow prognostic score may be a novel biomarker that can predict survival in patients with MIBC after radiotherapy.
Background
Peritoneovenous shunts (PVS) are widely used for palliation of intractable ascites caused by peritoneal carcinomatosis (PC) or liver cirrhosis (LC). Some patients who need PVS have renal ...dysfunction. However, renal dysfunction is considered a relative contraindication. Therefore, it is important to assess renal function before PVS placement.
Purpose
To evaluate the relationship between PVS and renal function.
Material and Methods
Between October 2007 and July 2015, 60 patients (PC = 47; LC = 10; others = 3) underwent PVS placement for intractable ascites. Changes in estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) and other adverse events (AEs) were retrospectively analyzed.
Results
Changes in eGFR before, one day after, and one week after PVS placement could be evaluated in 46 patients. The median eGFR before, one day after, and one week after was 56.5, 59.1, and 64.7 mL/min/1.73 m2, respectively (P < 0.05). These values were 61.6, 72, and 67.1 mL/min/1.73 m2, respectively, in PC patients (n = 34; P < 0.05) and 28.5, 27, and 37.2 mL/min/1.73 m2, respectively, in LC patients (n = 10; P < 0.05). In 17 patients with moderate to severe renal dysfunction (eGFR < 45), these values were 23.4, 23.7, and 30.5 mL/min/1.73 m2, respectively. The most frequent AE was PVS catheter obstruction, which occurred in 12 patients (20.7%). Clinical disseminated intravascular coagulation occurred in six patients (10.3%) and caused death in three patients (5.2%).
Conclusion
PVS placement for intractable ascites is associated with various AEs. However, PVS appeared to promote renal function, especially in patients with renal impairment.
Secure dose escalation is required to compensate avoidance of concurrent chemotherapy in radiotherapy for increasing elderly bladder cancer. We aimed to evaluate the efficacy of lipiodol submucosally ...injected as a fiducial marker during image-guided radiotherapy (Lip-IGRT) for muscle invasive bladder cancer (BC).
Twenty-three patients with T2a-4aN0-1M0 BC underwent whole-bladder irradiation of 46 Gy and Lip-IGRT of 20 Gy, conventionally. The bladder volume exposed to 19 Gy (
V
:%) on Lip-IGRT was referred as an index predicting cystitis.
Lipiodol consistently highlighted the boundaries of 20 tumors (88%) on planning and portal verification images. Three of 4 patients under oral anticoagulant agents usage were complicated with grade ≥2 hematuria for 3 days (a patient with a
V
of >50%) or more than a year (2 patients with
V
of <50%) after the injection. The 3-year overall survival and disease-free survival rates were 70.4% and 71.1%, respectively.
Lipiodol marking is an effective way of demarcating BC. However, it is necessary to address the comorbidities of elderly patients.
Microcapsules that release antigen-capturing nanoparticles (AC-NPs) with macrophage inflammatory protein-3 alpha (MIP-3
α
) and anti-programmed death-1 (PD-1) antibody are developed, and these ...microcapsules have the ability to enhance immunoresponses through cross-priming of cluster of differentiation 8+ (CD8+) T cells by dendritic cells (DCs) in vivo in BALB/c mice.
Lipid protamine hyaluronic acid nanoparticles containing AC-NPs generated via nanoprecipitation of 4 mg/mL of polylactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA), 1,000 ng/mL of MIP-3
α
and 400
μ
g of anti-PD-1 were mixed with 1 mL of 4.0% alginate and 3.0% of hyaluronate and then sprayed with 0.5 mM of ferrous chloride. These capsules were injected subcutaneously around LM17 tumor in the left hind legs of BALB/c mice. The tumors were exposed to a radiation dose of 10 or 20 Gy from 100 keV soft X-ray radiation. PLGA AC-NPs and MIP-3
α
were released in response to the radiation dose.
PLGA AC-NPs captured tumor-derived protein antigens are released by exposure to radiation, and these antigens were transported to DCs that were recruited and activated by MIP-3
α
, intensifying the DC-associated cross-priming of CD8+ T cells. These treatments resulted in increased antitumor effect and reduced metastasis by abscopal effect. Our targeted immunotherapy may lead to better tumor therapy.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
A highly permselective nanofiltration membrane was engineered via zwitterionic copolymer assembly regulated interfacial polymerization (IP). The copolymer was molecularly synthesized using ...single-step free-radical polymerization between 2-methacryloyloxyethyl phosphorylcholine (MPC) and 2-aminoethyl methacrylate hydrochloride (AEMA) (PMPC-co-AEMA). The dynamic network of PMPC-co-AEMA served as a regulator to precisely control the kinetics of the reaction by decelerating the transport of piperazine toward the water/hexane interface, forming a polyamide (PA) membrane with ultralow thickness of 70 nm, compared to that of the pristine PA (230 nm). Concomitantly, manipulating the phosphate moieties of PMPC-co-AEMA integrated into the PA matrix enabled the formation of ridge-shaped nanofilms with loose internal architecture exhibiting enhanced inner-pore interconnectivity. The resultant PMPC-co-AEMA-incorporated PA membrane exhibited a high water permeance of 15.7 L·m–2·h–1·bar–1 (more than 3-fold higher than that of the pristine PA 4.4 L·m–2·h–1·bar–1), high divalent salt rejection of 98.3%, and competitive mono-/divalent ion selectivity of 52.9 among the state-of-the-art desalination membranes.
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IJS, KILJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM
Abstract
Topological Dirac semimetals (TDSs) offer an excellent opportunity to realize outstanding physical properties distinct from those of topological insulators. Since TDSs verified so far have ...their own problems such as high reactivity in the atmosphere and difficulty in controlling topological phases via chemical substitution, it is highly desirable to find a new material platform of TDSs. By angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy combined with first-principles band-structure calculations, we show that ternary compound BaMg
2
Bi
2
is a TDS with a simple Dirac-band crossing around the Brillouin-zone center protected by the C
3
symmetry of crystal. We also found that isostructural SrMg
2
Bi
2
is an ordinary insulator characterized by the absence of band inversion due to the reduction of spin–orbit coupling. Thus,
X
Mg
2
Bi
2
(
X
= Sr, Ba, etc.) serves as a useful platform to study the interplay among crystal symmetry, spin–orbit coupling, and topological phase transition around the TDS phase.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Abstract
Quasiparticle - a key concept to describe interacting particles - characterizes electron-electron interaction in metals (Fermi liquid) and electron pairing in superconductors. While this ...concept essentially relies on the simplification of hard-to-solve many-body problem into one-particle picture and residual effects, a difficulty in disentangling many-body effects from experimental quasiparticle signature sometimes hinders unveiling intrinsic low-energy dynamics, as highlighted by the fierce controversy on the origin of Dirac-band anomaly in graphene and dispersion kink in high-temperature superconductors. Here, we propose an approach to solve this fundamental problem - the Bayesian modelling of quasiparticles. We have chosen a topological insulator TlBi(S,Se)
2
as a model system to formulate an inverse problem of quasiparticle spectra with semiparametric Bayesian analysis, and successfully extracted one-particle and many-body characteristics, i.e. the intrinsic energy gap and unusual lifetime in Dirac-quasiparticle bands. Our approach is widely applicable to clarify the quasiparticle dynamics of quantum materials.
We have performed scanning angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy with a nanometer-sized beam spot (nano-ARPES) on the cleaved surface of Pb5Bi24Se41, which is a member of the (PbSe)5(Bi2Se3)3m ...homologous series (PSBS) with m = 4 consisting of alternate stacking of the topologically trivial insulator PbSe bilayer and four quintuple layers (QLs) of the topological insulator Bi2Se3. This allows us to visualize a mosaic of topological Dirac states at a nanometer scale coming from the variable thickness of the Bi2Se3 nanoislands (1–3 QLs) that remain on top of the PbSe layer after cleaving the PSBS crystal, because the local band structure of topological origin changes drastically with the thickness of the Bi2Se3 nanoislands. A comparison of the local band structure with that in ultrathin Bi2Se3 films on Si(111) gives us further insights into the nature of the observed topological states. This result demonstrates that nano-ARPES is a very useful tool for characterizing topological heterostructures.
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IJS, KILJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM
Multi-grain koji (MGK), an enzyme-rich food, is produced by solid-state fermentation of a mixture of seven types of grains. In this study, we aimed to assess the effects of MGK on body composition in ...rats fed a high fat diet, and in young women. Twenty human participants had a body fat percentage >28 %. These participants were blindly divided into test and placebo groups, with 0.5 g/day of MGK and autoclaved (inactivated) MGK consumed, respectively. The weights of liver and visceral fat were lower in rats fed a high-fat diet supplemented with MGK than those provided the autoclaved MGK. After 3 months, body weight and body mass index, and the percentage of body fat (in test group only) were significantly reduced compared to the values recorded before MGK intake. Thus, we demonstrate that MGK supplementation is effective in decreasing body fat in women.
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