Background: This is a randomized, double-blind, dose-ranging study in patients receiving highly emetogenic chemotherapy (HEC) to evaluate the safety, efficacy, and pharmacokinetics of palonosetron, ...in combination with dexamethasone. Materials and methods: We randomized 233 patients to receive palonosetron as a single i.v. bolus dose of 0.075, 0.25, or 0.75 mg before administration of HEC. Dexamethasone (12–16 mg i.v. on day 1, 8 mg i.v. on day 2, and 4–8 mg i.v. on day 3) was administered for prophylactic antiemesis. Pharmacokinetics of palonosetron was analyzed in 24 patients. Results: In this study, all patients were given ≥50 mg/m2 cisplatin, which was considered to be HEC. No significant differences in complete response (CR: no emesis and no rescue medication) rates were found in the first 24 h between the 0.075-, 0.25-, and 0.75-mg groups (77.6%, 81.8%, and 79.5%, respectively). In the 120-h period of overall observation, CR rates increased in a dose-dependent manner. In the 0.75-mg group, we observed a significantly longer time to treatment failure than in the 0.075-mg group (median time >120 versus 82.0 h, P = 0.038). Palonosetron was tolerated well and did not show any dose-related increase in adverse effects. Conclusions: Palonosetron at doses of 0.25 and 0.75 mg was shown to be effective in preventing chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting with high CR rates of patients treated with HEC in Japan. All tested doses of palonosetron were tolerated well.
Aim: To assess efficacy and complications of trans-Tenon’s retrobulbar infusion of triamcinolone acetonide for posterior uveitic inflammation. Methods: Non-randomised, uncontrolled, retrospective ...study of 51 eyes of 37 patients who underwent triamcinolone infusion for vitritis, cystoid macular oedema (CMO), or posterior retinal vasculitis using a long blunt cannula via an incision made through conjunctiva and Tenon’s capsule. Results: Overall clinical efficacy was 86%; 96% for vitritis, 82% for CMO, and 33% for posterior retinal vasculitis. Mean visual acuity improved within 1 month after triamcinolone infusion (p <0.05). Cataract progression and intraocular pressure elevation were observed in 31% and 27% of eyes, respectively. Conclusion: Trans-Tenon’s retrobulbar triamcinolone infusion may be a safe and effective treatment for posterior uveitic inflammation.
Contents: A Quarter Century of White Noise Theory (H-H Kuo)Integral Transform and Segal-Bargmann Representation Associated to q-Charlier Polynomials (N Asai)Notions of Independence in Algebraic ...Probability Theory and Set Partition Statistics (Y Hashimoto)Some Thoughts on the Infinite Dimensional Harmonic Analysis (T Hida & Y Hara-Mimachi)A Treatment of Quantum Baker's Map by Chaos Degree (K Inoue et al.)Poisson Noise Analysis Based on the Lévy Laplacian (A Ishikawa et al.)A Hausdorff-Young Inequality for White Noise Analysis (H-H Kuo et al.)The Clark Formula of Generalized Wiener Functionals (Y-J Lee & H-H Shih)Inverse S-Transform, Wick Product and Overcompleteness of Exponential Vectors (N Obata)Topics on Complex Gaussian Random Fields (S Si & W W Htay)Quantum Information in Space and Time and Theory of Stochastic Processes (I V Volovich)Readership: Pure and applied probabilists, functional analysts, mathematical physicists, theoretical physicists and mathematical biologists.
To evaluate the relationship between mutations of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene and the effectiveness of gefitinib treatment in patients with recurrent lung cancer after pulmonary ...resection.
We sequenced exons 18-21 of the EGFR gene using total RNA extracted from 59 patients with lung cancer who were treated with gefitinib for recurrent lung cancer. Gefitinib effectiveness was evaluated by both imaging studies and change in serum carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) levels.
EGFR mutations were found in 33 patients (56%). Of these mutations, 17 were deletions around codons 746-750 and 15 were point mutations (12 at codon 858, three at other codons), and one was an insertion. EGFR mutations were significantly more prevalent in females, adenocarcinoma, and never-smokers. Gefitinib treatment resulted in tumor shrinkage and/or CEA decrease to less than half of the baseline level in 26 patients, tumor growth and/or CEA elevation in 24 patients, and gefitinib effect was not assessable in nine patients. Female, never-smoking patients with adenocarcinoma tended to respond better to gefitinib treatment. Gefitinib was effective in 24 of 29 patients with EGFR mutations, compared with two of 21 patients without mutations (P < .0001). Of note, del746-750 might be superior to L858R mutations for prediction of gefitinib response. Patients with EGFR mutations survived for a longer period than those without the mutations after initiation of gefitinib treatment (P = .0053).
EGFR mutations were a good predictor of clinical benefit of gefitinib in this setting.
Colour fundus photographs and fluorescein angiography late images of an eye in a 65 year old patient with age related macular degeneration and small subfoveal choroidal neovascularisation before (A, ...B; best corrected visual acuity 0.3) and 3 months after triamcinolone infusion (C, D; best corrected visual acuity 0.7). The effect of corticosteroids in inhibiting inflammatory cells that participate in the neovascular response probably has a prominent role. 5, 6 Triamcinolone acetonide has specifically been shown to inhibit basic fibroblast growth factor induced migration and tube formation of choroidal microvascular endothelial cells. 7 Furthermore, triamcinolone acetonide inhibits choroidal neovascularisation induced by laser trauma in a rat model. 8 Finally, triamcinolone acetonide may decrease vascular permeability, thereby decreasing influx of serum proteins that may contribute to an angiogenic microenvironment. 9 Longer follow up and greater numbers of cases in a randomised clinical trial are needed to confirm these results.
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