Weight loss and anorexia are common symptoms in cancer patients that occur prior to initiation of cancer therapy. Inflammation in the brain is a driver of these symptoms, yet cellular sources of ...neuroinflammation during malignancy are unknown. In a mouse model of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), we observed early and robust myeloid cell infiltration into the brain. Infiltrating immune cells were predominately neutrophils, which accumulated at a unique central nervous system entry portal called the velum interpositum, where they expressed CCR2. Pharmacologic CCR2 blockade and genetic deletion of
both resulted in significantly decreased brain-infiltrating myeloid cells as well as attenuated cachexia during PDAC. Lastly, intracerebroventricular blockade of the purinergic receptor P2RX7 during PDAC abolished immune cell recruitment to the brain and attenuated anorexia. Our data demonstrate a novel function for the CCR2/CCL2 axis in recruiting neutrophils to the brain, which drives anorexia and muscle catabolism.
An exacerbated proliferation of B-cell progenitors in bone marrow can evolve to a Precursor B-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (B-ALL). Molecular and chromosomal abnormalities affect differentiation ...and proliferation of lymphoid precursors. Chromosomal alterations (hypodiploidy and hyperdiploidy), rearrangements involving KMT2A gene and the translocations BCR-ABL (Ph+), TCF3-PBX1 and ETV6-RUNX1 can be used as biomarkers to predict prognostic. The association of hyperdiploidy with chromosomal translocations is observed in 1%‒4% of hyperdiploidy patients in B-ALL. The aim of this study was to describe a rare case of B-ALL in an adolescent with BCR-ABL and hyperdiploidy.
Immunophenotyping was used to characterize the leukemia type. Molecular tests were performed to investigate the presence of recurrent chromosomal translocations in B-ALL. G-banding and Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) were carried out to characterize the karyotype.
A 16-year-old girl was admitted in Hospital Sarina Rolim, São Paulo in February 2019 after experiencing 3 months of recurrent limb pain along with loss of weight, skin pallor and muscle weakness. The peripheral blood count showed 8.800 white blood cells/mm3, platelets count 90.000, hemoglobin 10 g/dL and hematocrit 30%. The immunophenotyping showed: CD19++/+++, CD20−/+/++, CD10+/++/+++, CD66C+/++/+++, CD123−/+/++, CD9+/++/+++, CD127−/+, CD44+++. The RT-PCR was negative for TCF3-PBX1, ETV6-RUNX rearrangements. It was detected the presence of Ph+ (P190). The results were consistent with B-ALL. The karyotype was: 58≍61,XX,+2,+4,+6,+8,t(9;22)(q34;q22),+10,+11,+12,+13,+19,+20,+21,+22,+22,+der(22)cp16/46,XX1. The patient was treated according to ALL BFM 2009 protocol associated with imatinib 400 mg/day. During the follow-up of minimal residual disease (D33), the patient presented hematological and infectious toxicity stage IV, requiring hospitalization due to febrile neutropenia and sepsis. Also, exhibited aseptic necrosis of the femoral head and underwent orthopedic surgery. The treatment has been completed in February 2021. In July 2022, the patient had no evidence of disease recidive but she acquired modest motor sequelae due to the orthopedic surgery.
Hyperdiploidy occurs in 30% of pediatric B-ALL. The most frequent chromosome gains are X, 4, 6, 10, 14, 17, 18 and 21. However, BCR-ABL translocation comprises 2%‒5% of childhood ALL. There are only a few case reports of patients presenting BCR-ABL associated to hyperdiploidy. The outcome of patients can change according to these variations in genetic factors. Although BCR-ABL is associated with poor prognosis, the outcome has improved with implementation of tyrosine kinase inhibitors in Ph+ patients'therapy.
We described an unusual case of pediatric B-ALL with hyperdiploid and Ph+ karyotype. This study and the literature review demonstrate the importance of cytogenetic and molecular tests during the diagnosis aiding to choose the treatment and improving the survival for ALL pediatric patients.
A longitudinal study of malariometric indicators and their association with potential risk factors was conducted during August 1997-July 1998 at Padre Cocha, a village of 1,400 residents in the ...Peruvian Amazon. The incidence of Plasmodium falciparum infections during the study year was 166/1,000 persons; that of P. vivax was 826/1,000 persons. The mean duration of symptoms prior to diagnosis was 2 days; presenting geometric mean parasite densities were 3,976 parasites/microl for P. falciparum infections and 2,282 parasites/microl for P. vivax. There were no malaria-associated deaths. Consistent with the epidemic nature of malaria in the area, the incidence of both parasite species increased with age and there were no age-specific differences in mean parasite densities. No specific occupational risks for malaria were identified. Activities significantly associated with malaria risk reflected local vector behavior and included strolling outdoors after 6:00 PM and arising before 6:00 AM for adults, and attending evening church services for children.
Effective image retrieval by shape saliences Torres, R.S.; Picado, E.M.; Falcao, A.X. ...
16th Brazilian Symposium on Computer Graphics and Image Processing (SIBGRAPI 2003),
2003
Conference Proceeding
Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) systems have been developed aiming at enabling users to search and retrieve images based on their properties such as shape, color and texture. We are concerned ...with shape-based image retrieval. Here, we discuss a recently proposed shape descriptor, called contour saliences, defined as the influence areas of its higher curvature points. We introduce a robust approach to estimate contour saliences by exploiting the relation between a contour and its skeleton, modifies the original definition to include the location and the value of saliences along the contour, and proposes a new metric to compare contour saliences. We also evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed descriptor with respect to Fourier descriptors, curvature scale space and moment invariants.
WOODSS and the Web Medeiros, C. B.; Perez-Alcazar, J.; Digiampietri, L. ...
SIGMOD record,
09/2005, Letnik:
34, Številka:
3
Journal Article
This paper discusses ongoing research on scientific workflows at the Institute of Computing, University of Campinas (IC - UNICAMP) Brazil. Our projects with bio-scientists have led us to develop a ...scientific workflow infrastructure named WOODSS. This framework has two main objectives in mind: to help scientists to specify and annotate their models and experiments; and to document collaborative efforts in scientific activities. In both contexts, workflows are annotated and stored in a database. This "annotated scientific workflow" database is treated as a repository of (sometimes incomplete) approaches to solving scientific problems. Thus, it serves two purposes: allows comparison of distinct solutions to a problem, and their designs; and provides reusable and executable building blocks to construct new scientific workflows, to meet specific needs. Annotations, moreover, allow further insight into methodology, success rates, underlying hypotheses and other issues in experimental activities.The many research challenges faced by us at the moment include: the extension of this framework to the Web, following Semantic Web standards; providing means of discovering workflow components on the Web for reuse; and taking advantage of planning in Artificial Intelligence to support composition mechanisms. This paper describes our efforts in these directions, tested over two domains - agro-environmental planning and bioinformatics.
Shape description by image foresting transform Torres, R.S.; Falcao, A.X.; Costa, L.F.
2002 14th International Conference on Digital Signal Processing Proceedings. DSP 2002 (Cat. No.02TH8628),
2002, Letnik:
2
Conference Proceeding
The image foresting transform (IFT) is a unified and effective graph-based approach to the design of image-processing operations, often with considerable efficiency gains over published algorithms. ...This paper extends the applications of the Euclidean IFT to two recently proposed shape descriptors: saliences and multiscale fractal dimension. It explains how to obtain the salience information and the multiscale fractal dimension of contours and skeletons and presents their comparison in terms of robustness and separability.
Objectives
To aid the development of treatment for cognitive impairment in bipolar disorder, the International Society for Bipolar Disorders (ISBD) convened a task force to create a consensus‐based ...guidance paper for the methodology and design of cognition trials in bipolar disorder.
Methods
The task force was launched in September 2016, consisting of 18 international experts from nine countries. A series of methodological issues were identified based on literature review and expert opinion. The issues were discussed and expanded upon in an initial face‐to‐face meeting, telephone conference call and email exchanges. Based upon these exchanges, recommendations were achieved.
Results
Key methodological challenges are: lack of consensus on how to screen for entry into cognitive treatment trials, define cognitive impairment, track efficacy, assess functional implications, and manage mood symptoms and concomitant medication. Task force recommendations are to: (i) enrich trials with objectively measured cognitively impaired patients; (ii) generally select a broad cognitive composite score as the primary outcome and a functional measure as a key secondary outcome; and (iii) include remitted or partly remitted patients. It is strongly encouraged that trials exclude patients with current substance or alcohol use disorders, neurological disease or unstable medical illness, and keep non‐study medications stable. Additional methodological considerations include neuroimaging assessments, targeting of treatments to illness stage and using a multimodal approach.
Conclusions
This ISBD task force guidance paper provides the first consensus‐based recommendations for cognition trials in bipolar disorder. Adherence to these recommendations will likely improve the sensitivity in detecting treatment efficacy in future trials and increase comparability between studies.
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