This paper reports the detection of okadaic acid (OA) as a Diarrheic Shellfish Poisoning (DSP) toxin with an acoustic wave platform in real-time. According to the FDA, the threshold for safe ...consumption of shellfish is 20μg of OA for 100g of shellfish tissue. The high gravimetric sensitivity of Love wave acoustic devices allow, in liquid media, immuno-detection thanks to immobilized specific antibodies. The biosensor is composed of two lines, one for the test and one used as a reference. Sensitive films were deposited through a PolyDiMethylSiloxane (PDMS) microfluidic chip. On both lines, anti-okadaic acid antibodies (OA-Ab) and saturating agents were successively injected under continuous flow with controlled flow rate. On the test line, okadaic acid (OA) was injected while an unspecific peptide (6×Histidine, 6×His) was used on the control line. On both lines, polyclonal OA-Ab were re-injected a second time to reveal previously fixed OA on the test line. Measured frequency shifts were three times higher on test lines than on control lines. In these conditions, for only 2μg of OA used for detection, the acoustic wave platform could detect DSP toxins with only 10g of shellfish tissue.
The concept of intermittent androgen deprivation therapy (IADT) for prostate cancer (PCa) was introduced in order to improve treatment tolerance with the same carcinological efficiency as continuous ...androgen deprivation therapy (CADT). Furthermore, studies have shown that PCa prognosis during CADT was correlated to the extent of testosterone collapse. The aim of this study was to assess the link between testosterone levels at the end of the first off-treatment phase and time to occurrence of castrate-resistant prostate cancer.
We retrospectively analyzed the files of 69 patients having undergone IADT. Intermittence was offered to the patients showing PSA<4ng/mL after at least six months of androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) using a LHRH analog. CRPC was defined according to the AFU oncological guidelines. Patients were sorted into three groups according to their testosterone levels at the end of the first off-treatment phase T<0.5ng/mL, 0.5<T<3.4ng/mL and T>3.4ng/mL. CRPC free-survival, metastasis-free survival and overall survival as well as adverse events frequency were compared between the groups. The impact of initial ADT duration on CRPC occurrence, mean off-treatment phase duration and IADT duration was also studied.
Testosterone levels at the end of the first and second off-treatment phases were not linked to time to CRPC occurence (p=0.5), mestastasis occurence (p=0.4) or death (p=0.3). It was associated neither with adverse effects frequency (p=0.2) nor with cancer-related complications (p=0.6). Initial ADT duration was not linked to CRPC occurrence (p=0.6), mean off-treatment phase duration (p=0.5) or mean IADT duration (p=0.6).
This study did not show any link between testosterone levels at the end of the first off-treatment phase (before reintroducing ADT) and overall survival, metastasis-free survival and CRPC-free survival. Likewise, it was not associated with the frequency of adverse events or cancer-related complications. Initial ADT duration was not linked to CRPC occurrence or IADT chronological parameters.
Abstract Purpose Although obesity has been shown to paradoxically increase dialysis patient survival, its impact has not been clearly defined on renal transplantation. We assessed outcomes of obesity ...renal transplant patients by evaluating graft and patient survivals. Patients and Methods A single-institution, retrospective study was performed on 202 renal transplant recipients from January 2004 to December 2008 excluding two combined kidney and liver transplantations. Recipients were classified based on body mass index (BMI) at the time of transplantation: obese (BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2 ) and nonobese recipients (BMI < 30 kg/m2 ). The comparative analysis included surgical complications, hospital stay, onset of delayed graft function (DGF), acute rejection episodes and graft patient survivals. Results Twenty-one renal transplants were performed in obese recipients versus 179 in the control group. Obese patients were older (53.3 ± 11.2 versus 46.4 ± 14.4 years old; P = .035) and more often diabetic (29% ± 0.46 versus 60% ± 0.24, P = .001), but there were no differences among other combidities of high blood pressure, arteriopathy, thrombophilia, and smoking. Obesity did not appear to be a risk factor for urinary or vascular as well as parietal complications, but did tend to augment lymphatic complications (14.3% ± 0.36 versus 4.5% ± 0.21; P = .065). DGF occurred more frequently in obese patients (38% ± 0.50 versus 14% ± 0.34; P = .004) and hospital stays were therefore longer in this group (24.9 ± 23.53 days versus 15.6 ± 13.67 days; P = .008). Graft (hazard ratio HR 1.22; 95% confidence interval CI 0.25–6.0, P = .63) and patient survivals (HR:0,81; 95% CI 0.12– 5.3, P = .83) were comparable between the groups. Conclusion Obese patients seeking renal transplantation are usually older and more often diabetic compared with nonobese recipients. The higher rate of lymphatic complications and DGF lead to longer hospital stays among the group with BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2 . However, long-term results showed similar graft and patient survivals as nonobese patients. Consequently, there seemed to be no reason to avoid renal transplantation in obese recipients.
Abstract Purpose We report herein the incidence of and factors predisposive to surgical complications (SC) after renal transplantation. Methods Between 2004 and 2008, we performed 200 renal ...transplantation. We retrospectively studied recipient and donor characteristics, cold ischemia time, surgical revision in the month after transplantation, delayed graft function, surgical complications (vascular, urologic, wound, or bleeding), as well as graft and patient 5-year survival rates. Results Sixty-six surgical complications were reported among 49 patients with a preponderance of urologic complications. We noted 6.1% Clavien I, 1.5% Clavien II, 30.3% Clavien IIIa, 53% Clavien IIIb, and 9.1% Clavien IVa SCs. Vascular complications showed a worse prognosis. Among recipients, dialysis duration before transplantation (40.3 ± 50.8 months in SCs versus 28 ± 26.5 months in the control unaffected group, P = .032) and anti-HLA immunization (34.7 ± 48% versus 21.2 ± 41%, P = .05) appeared to be risk factor. No significant factor was identified among donors, although patients with surgical complications received older transplants than the control popuation (49.7 ± 14.5 years versus 45.5 ± 15.1 years, P = .08). A greater percentage of delayed graft function (30.6 ± 46.6% versus 11.4 ± 31.9%; P = .001) and graft rejection episodes (34.7 ± 48.1% versus 17.9 ± 38.4%, P .013) were observed among the SC compared with the control group. No significant difference in patient (89.5% versus 95.6% confidence interval, CI 95% 0.7–10.0; P = .14) or graft survival (88.7% versus 91.8%, CI 95% 0.4–3.9 P = .63) was observed between the groups. Conclusion Surgical complications, especially urologic complications appear frequently after renal transplantation. Dialysis duration and pre-transplant immunization were linked to the occurrence of a surgical complication, which did not affect graft or patient survival.
A minimum delay of 4 to 6 weeks between biopsy and multiparametric prostatic MRI (mpMRI) is admitted due to post-biopsy hemorrhage that can impact MRI reading without strong scientific evidence. The ...objective of the study was to evaluate the best period between prostate biopsy and 3Tesla mpMRI and searching for predictive factors of intraprostatic blood.
A prostate biopsy followed by a 4-week prostate MRI (MRIp M1) was performed. In case of hemorrhage, MRI was rescheduled at 8 and 12 weeks (M2/M3). We analyzed the persistant bleeding to identify risk factors: anticoagulant/antiaggregant, post-biopsy side effects, histological criteria.
In this prospective, single-center study, we included 40 patients followed for suspected prostate cancer between December 2014 and March 2016. At the MRIpM1, blood was found for 97.5 % of the patients. The rates were 90.9 % and 88.9 % respectively at the M2 and M3 mpMRI. Compared to initial blood volume on MRIpM1, a significant decrease in blood volume was observed between M1 and M2 (55 %; P=0.0091). We showed a 75 % decrease between M1 and M3 (P=0.0003). Low urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) suggesting urinary infection at 4 weeks were significantly correlated with blood volume on MRIpM1 (P=0.0063). The blood volume was higher in case of unconformity between biopsy and mpMRI results for detection of significant tumors (11.3 vs. 2.3; P=0.0051).
A minimum of 8-week biopsy and mpMRI period would limit post-biopsy hemorrhage, predicted by LUTS suggesting urinary infection. A delay of 12 weeks would be optimal without delaying the management of the patient.
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Ex-rayon carbon yarns have been prepared according to an original route characterized by a fast pyrolysis step in the presence of an organosilicon compound. The evolution of the mechanical and ...physicochemical properties of the fibres throughout the transformation of cellulose into carbon showed that the organosilicon additive was necessary to obtain carbon yarns exhibiting satisfactory mechanical behaviour and to improve significantly the fracture properties of the ex-rayon carbon fibres.
Stabilization of naphthalene-derived synthetic mesophase pitch was achieved by controlled oxidation or reaction with phenanthrenequinone (PHQ) in order to suppress the swelling during ...high-temperature treatments. The modified pitches were characterized and their carbonization behaviour was studied by thermogravimetry–mass spectrometry. The results show that naphthenic groups are involved in the stabilization process. PHQ reacts via cycloaddition reactions, yielding oxygen-containing non-planar structures, a feature that accounts for the loss of anisotropic properties of the final material.
Supercritical extraction of Tarfaya's oil shale by toluene revealed that the solvent proportion has a significant effect on the yield and the composition of the obtained oils. The analyses carried ...out on the recovered oils allowed to establish the optimal operating conditions giving the highest oil yields. In addition, it was observed that these oils contain a large proportion of aromatics compounds.
The NA60 experiment at the CERN SPS has studied low-mass muon pairs in 158 A GeV In–In collisions. A strong excess of pairs is observed above the yield expected from neutral meson decays. The ...unprecedented sample size close to 400000 events and the good mass resolution of about 2% made it possible to isolate the excess by subtraction of the decay sources. The shape of the resulting mass spectrum shows some non-trivial centrality dependence, but is largely consistent with a dominant contribution from π+π-→ϱ→μ+μ- annihilation. The associated ϱ spectral function exhibits considerable broadening, but essentially no shift in mass. The pT-differential mass spectra show the excess to be much stronger at low pT than at high pT. The results are compared to theoretical model predictions; they tend to rule out models linking hadron masses directly to the chiral condensate.
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