Photoproduction of η -Mesic He 3 Pfeiffer, M.; Ahrens, J.; Annand, J. R. M. ...
Physical review letters,
06/2004, Letnik:
92, Številka:
25
Journal Article
Validation of a U.S.-derived nomogram for individual prediction of disease-specific gastric cancer survival at a European institution.
One major issue of modern cancer treatment is the ...individualization of therapy. For gastric cancer, Kattan et al, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, developed a nomogram, allowing to predict individual patient risk of tumor-related death after R0 resection from basic patient-related variables. The validity of the nomogram has not yet been shown in patients from other institutions. The accuracy of the nomogram when applied to patients after having undergone R0 gastric cancer resection at a European high-volume center was investigated.
Clinical data from patients who underwent R0 gastric cancer resection at Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technical University of Munich, Germany and fitted the respective derivation criteria were used for external validation (n = 862). Nomogram predictions for 60- and 108-month disease-specific survival were calculated for each patient and compared with actual survival. The concordance index was used as an accuracy measure.
The bootstrap-corrected concordance index was 0.77 and was superior when compared with the predictive ability of International Union Against Cancer tumor stage (P < 0.008). Nomogram calibration was excellent for 60-month disease-specific survival. Nomogram predictions showed the trend to underestimate survival in stage II/III disease of the MRI patients.
The use of the nomogram created by Kattan et al is not only confined to the institution where it was created, but it can be adopted by other institutions with similar surgical strategies.
Introduction. A 27-year-old female patient with known tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC), polycystic kidneys with multiple large bilateral angiomyolipomas, and failing renal functions with ...prehemodialysis values (urea: 19 mmol/L; creatinine: 317 μmol/L; CKD-EPI 0,27) was admitted to our department for pre-renal transplant evaluation. The patient was placed on the transplant waiting list as the living donor did not pass pretransplant workup and was subsequently contraindicated. Patient was placed on the “cadaverous kidney transplant waiting list”. Method. Computed tomography angiography revealed symptomatic PSA in the right kidney angiomyolipoma (AML). The patient underwent urgent transarterial embolisation of the PSA’s feeding vessel in the right kidney AML. Based on the “kidney transplant waiting list” order patient underwent a bilateral nephrectomy combined with transperitoneal renal allotransplantation of a cadaverous kidney graft through midline laparotomy, appendectomy, and cholecystectomy. Results. Postoperative period was complicated by delayed graft function caused by acute tubular necrosis requiring postoperative hemodialysis. The patient was discharged on the 17th postoperative day with a good renal graft function. Patient’s follow-up is currently 23 months with good graft function (urea: 9 mmol/L; creatinine: 100 μmol/L). Conclusion. Renal transplantation combined with radical nephrectomy provides a definitive treatment for TSC renal manifestations.
Purpose
Secondary peritonitis remains challenging to manage and some recent evidence suggests that on-demand relaparotomy is more appropriate than planned relaparotomy. This study was designed to ...validate the predictive power of postoperative procalcitonin (PCT) changes in relation to elimination of the septic abdominal focus.
Methods
In this prospective trial, postoperative PCT serum levels were monitored in 234 surgical patients with secondary peritonitis. The PCT ratio on postoperative days (PODs) 1 and 2 (focus index; FI) was calculated and correlated with the success of the operation.
Results
A cutoff value of 1.1 was calculated for the FI. Values below 1.1 indicated insufficient elimination of the focus and values above 1.1 correlated with effective treatment. The optimal time for first PCT sampling was found to be 12–24 h after the index operation. After the respective data cleanup, successful elimination of the intraabdominal focus could be confirmed, with a sensitivity of 93 % and a specificity of 71 %.
Conclusions
The FI is a single parameter-based reliable predictor of successful surgical eradication and strengthens the on-demand relaparotomy concept as the method of choice to treat secondary peritonitis.
Because neural invasion (NI) is still inconsistently reported and not well characterized within gastrointestinal malignancies (GIMs), our aim was to determine the exact prevalence and severity of NI ...and to elucidate the true impact of NI on patient's prognosis.
The union internationale contre le cancer (UICC) recently added NI as a novel parameter in the current TNM classification. However, there are only a few existing studies with specific focus on NI, so that the distinct role of NI in GIMs is still uncertain.
NI was characterized in approximately 16,000 hematoxylin and eosin tissue sections from 2050 patients with adenocarcinoma of the esophagogastric junction (AEG)-I-III, squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the esophagus, gastric cancer (GC), colon cancer (CC), rectal cancer (RC), cholangiocellular cancer (CCC), hepatocellular cancer (HCC), and pancreatic cancer (PC). NI prevalence and severity was determined and related to patient's prognosis and survival.
NI prevalence largely varied between HCC/6%, CC/28%, RC/34%, AEG-I/36% and AEG-II/36%, SCC/37%, GC/38%, CCC/58%, and AEG-III/65% to PC/100%. NI severity score was uppermost in PC (24.9±1.9) and lowest in AEG-I (0.8±0.3). Multivariable analyses including age, sex, TNM stage, and grading revealed that the prevalence of NI was significantly associated with diminished survival in AEG-II/III, GC, and RC. However, increasing NI severity impaired survival in AEG-II/III and PC only.
NI prevalence and NI severity strongly vary within GIMs. Determination of NI severity in GIMs is a more precise tool than solely recording the presence of NI and revealed dismal prognostic impact on patients with AEG-II/III and PC. Evidently, NI is not a concomitant side feature in GIMs and, therefore, deserves special attention for improved patient stratification and individualized therapy after surgery.
Nowadays there is a growing interest and demand in the development of new types of scintillation materials for experimental high energy physics. Future detector developments will focus on cheap, ...fast, and radiation hard materials, especially for application in collider experiments. The most recent results obtained by the Giessen group in close cooperation with colleagues from different institutes will be presented. The new start of the mass production of high quality lead tungstate crystals (PbWO4, PWO) for electromagnetic calorimetry was started by the company CRYTUR (Turnov, Czech Republic). We will present a detailed progress report on the research program of lead tungstate performed in the last two years. The latest results in the development of LuAG:Ce, YAG:Ce and LYSO:Ce inorganic fibers, grown by the micro pulling down method and cut with the heated wire technique as well as new glass ceramics material BaO*2SiO2 (DSB) doped by Ce and Gd will be presented. In addition, different samples of the organic plastic scintillator EJ-260 produced by the company Eljen Technology (Sweetwater, USA) have been characterized. The study has focused on the change of performance after irradiation with 150 MeV protons up to an integral fluence of 5-1013 protons cm2 as well as with a strong 60Co gamma-source accumulating an integral dose of 100 Gy.
Even at present time there is a strong interest and demand for high quality lead tungstate crystals (PbWO4, PWO) for electromagnetic (EM) calorimetry. PWO is implemented into the EM calorimeter of ...the CMS-ECAL detector at LHC 1 and required for the completion of the PANDA EMC 2 and various ongoing detector projects at Jefferson Lab. The successful mass production of PWO using the Czochralski method was stopped after bankruptcy of the Bogoroditsk Technical Chemical Plant (BTCP) in Russia as major producer so far. The Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Science (China) was considered as an alternative producer using the modified Bridgman method. The company CRYTUR (Turnov, Czech Republic) with good experience in the development and production of different types of inorganic oxide crystals has restarted at the end of 2014 the development of lead tungstate for mass production based on the Czochralski method. An impressive progress was achieved since then. The growing technology was optimized to produce full size samples with the quality meeting the PANDA-EMC specifications for PWO-II. We will present a detailed progress report on the research program in collaboration with groups at Orsay and JLab. The full size crystals will be characterized with respect to optical performance, light yield, kinetics and radiation hardness.
The early impact behaviour of single and multi-ply Kevlar
® 129 fabric armour systems is investigated using an explicit finite element code, TEXIM, developed in-house. This numerical model is ...carefully validated using continuous temporal data obtained from an instrumented experimental setup. The model is then used to explore the loss in ballistic efficiency of woven fabric targets, as experienced early in the impact event, when either the number of layers in the panel or the yarn denier is increased.
To date, only limited information about the influence of ovarian hormones on canine immune system cells has been available. The study investigated the in vitro influence of progesterone and ...estradiol-17β on the activity of canine neutrophils. Treatment of cells by both hormones led to a significant decrease in phagocytosis-induced oxidative burst as detected using luminometry after stimulation with opsonised zymosan. The increase in oxidative burst, not connected with phagocytosis, was recorded after stimulation with a soluble stimulator. Using flow cytometry, the tendency of both hormones to decrease the production of reactive oxygen species associated with phagocytosis of Escherichia coli was also evident, although not significant. Suppression of canine neutrophil activity is not connected with pathogen recognition capabilities, since the expression of Toll-like receptor 4 was unaffected. This study reveals that both hormones have a suppressive effect on the activity of canine neutrophils and thus might contribute to the aetiology of pyometra.
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