Recents results in conventional and exotic heavy hadron spectroscopy with the CMS detector are presented. They include Λ**b and B(*)c (2S) excited states, the search for exotic states in ϒ(1S) μ+μ− ...final states, the first observation of the B0s → X(3872) ϕ decay mode and the evidence of X(3872) production in Heavy Ion collisions.
Lacosamide (LCM) is an antiepileptic drug (AED) that has demonstrated a good efficacy in controlling seizures as an add-on in adult epilepsy. To date, there have been no studies on LCM in patients ...with brain tumor-related epilepsy (BTRE). To evaluate efficacy and tolerability of LCM as an add-on in BTRE, we followed 14 patients suffering from BTRE who had already been treated with other AEDs and who had not experienced adequate seizure control. Eleven patients underwent chemotherapy while being treated with LCM. Mean duration of follow up was 5.4 months (min < 1 max 10 months). Mean seizure number in the last month prior to the introduction of LCM had been 15.4. At last follow-up, the mean seizure number was reduced to 1.9/month. Lacosamide mean dosage was of 332.1 mg/day (min 100 max 400 mg/day). Responder rate was 78.6%. One patient discontinued LCM because of side-effects. There were no other reported side-effects. Preliminary data on the use of LCM in add-on in patients with BTRE indicate that this drug may represent a valid alternative as an add-on in this particular patient population. However, larger samples are necessary in order to draw definitive conclusions.
Case summary Three diabetic cats presented with polyuria, polydipsia, polyphagia and poor glycemic control. Cat 1 displayed prognathia inferior and had a body condition score (BCS) of 4/5; cat 2 had ...a BCS of 5/5; and cat 3 had broad facial features. Serum insulin-like growth factor 1 concentrations were compatible with hypersomatotropism in cat 1 and cat 2 (>1500 ng/ml and 1200 ng/ml, respectively) and just below the cut-off of 1000 ng/ml (947 ng/ml) in cat 3; in this last cat diagnosis was further supported by the presence of pituitary enlargement on MRI. Oral cabergoline (10 µg/kg q48h) was initiated. Insulin requirements progressively reduced, as evidenced by daily blood glucose monitoring and weekly blood glucose curves. Diabetic remission occurred in all three cats between the second and third months of cabergoline treatment. At the time of writing, remission has persisted thus far (cat 1: 23 months; cat 2: 14 months; cat 3: 38 months). Relevance and novel information To our knowledge, these are the first reported cases of diabetic remission in cats with hypersomatotropism after cabergoline treatment, despite previous reports of this being an ineffective treatment. Further work is indicated to determine why some cats do, and others do not, respond to this treatment.
Epilepsy in brain tumor patients is often refractory to pharmacological treatments and can complicate the therapeutic management of these patients. We conducted a prospective, observational study. ...The aim of this study was to investigate the efficacy and tolerability of topiramate (TPM) in brain tumor associated epilepsy. We studied 47 patients with brain tumors and epilepsy. The entire group was administered AEDs. TPM was the first therapeutic choice in 14 patients, while in the remaining 33 patients previous AEDs were modified and TPM was introduced due to side effects or inefficacy of the first drug. Follow-up ranged from 3 to 48 months (mean 16.5 months). Considering the final follow-up of each patient who assumed TPM for at least 3 months, we observed 45 patients: 25 were seizure free (55.6%), 9 had a reduction of seizure frequency (SF) higher than 50% (20%) and 11 were stable (24.4%). TPM responder rate was 75.6%. Three patients (6.4%) discontinued TPM for severe side effects (1 after 4 months and 2 after 1 month) and 4 (8.5%) had mild and reversible side effects. In the group of patients who had been in therapy with other AEDs prior to entering the study (
n
= 33), 19 patients had side effects (57.6%). During follow-up, the haematological parameters were in the normative ranges. Tumor-related seizures are difficult to control with AEDs; the precise reasons for this difficulty are not yet clear. Using TPM, we obtained good seizure control with a low incidence of side effects.
INTRODUCTION: Malignant gliomas are the most unfavourable brain tumours. Recent evidence suggests that extensive tumour removal is associated with better survival. The current treatment is complete ...as possible resection of the contrast-enhancing tumour tissue, followed by adjuvant treatment with radiotherapy and chemotherapy. As it appears difficult to distinguish between infiltration tumour and normal tissue, specially in recurrent tumours, the radical removal becomes harmful. Techniques to visualize the borderline tumour intraoperatively are helpful. More recently, fluorescence guidance has taken advantage of intrinsic metabolic and structural changes that occur within malignant glioma by exploiting the eme biosynthetic pathway and a natural biochemical in that pathway, 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA). METHODS: Since the end of 2009, in our Institute 54 patients were operated on using fluorescence guided tumour resection. Preoperatively, all enrolled patients had MRI showing contrast enhancing lesions. MRI within 72 hours after surgery and thereafter at 3-month interval was performed. 32 patients were newly diagnosed tumour, 22 were recurrent malignant glioma. An oral dose of 20 mg 5-ALA /kg body weight was administered to each patient. By a NC4 OPMI Pentero operating microscope (Zeiss), enabled switching from xenon light to violet-blue light for visualizing fluorescence, the surgical resection was performed. Histology was in 48 glioblastoma (1 gliosarcoma), in 4 anaplastic oligodendroglioma, in 1 oligodendroglioma I WHO and in 1 pleomorphic xanthoastrocytoma. All the patients, as first line treatment, were submitted to radiotherapy and chemotherapy; in recurrent tumours second and in some cases third line treatments were administered. The follow-up ranged from 2 years to 8 months. RESULTS: In all cases the yellow fluorescence due to 5-ALA in cortical vessels was seen. In 47 glioblastoma, 4 anaplastic oligodendroglioma and 1 xanthoastrocytoma the tumour tissue showed intraoperative red fluorescence. Specially in recurrent tumours, the fluorescence-guided surgery was helpful to identify, inside the gliotic tissue, some areas with active tumour from perilesional "healthy" brain. Furthermore, after surgery no relevant neurological deficit caused by 5-ALA guided resection were observed. Early postoperative MRI confirmed gross total resection without contrast enhancment in 80 % of patients. At the follow-up 24 patients are still alive. CONCLUSIONS: The 5-ALA was helpful to localize the tumour on the cortex and extended resection of infiltrating tumour, specially in recurrence. Patients affected by glioblastoma are elctive for this technique. Extended resections by 5-ALA fluorescence guide does not impair neurological functions and can impact on the overall survival of patients affected by malignant glioma.
BACKGROUND: Therapeutic (or palliative) sedation in the context of palliative medicine is the monitored use of medications intended to induce a state of decreased or absent awareness ...(unconsciousness) in order to relieve the burden of otherwise intractable suffering in a manner that is ethically acceptable to the patient, family and health-care providers. There is a large debate about the use of palliative sedation, sometime defined as terminal sedation. There are very few data about the role of palliative sedation in brain tumor patients at the end of life. However, in brain tumor patients palliative sedation may be necessary in case of uncontrolled delirium, agitation, death rattle or refractory seizures. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed the clinical records of patients assisted at home until death by the Regina Elena Cancer Institute Palliative Home Care for brain tumor patients. All patients died for brain tumor in the last 2 years (2012-2013) were included in this study. RESULTS: Out of 190 brain tumor patients assisted at home in 2012-2013, 108 died and were included in this study. All patients were affected by malignant glioma. Palliative sedation was utilized in 12 cases (11%). In 8 cases for the control of refractory seizures and in 4 cases for delirium. Given the lack of advanced directives and low competence of patients, the decision about sedation was discussed by the care team with caregivers and family members. Palliative sedation was started with midazolam 0.5-1 mg/hr and prolonged until symptoms' control. CONCLUSION: The use of palliative sedation is relatively frequent in the practice of a neuro-oncologic palliative team. The most frequent refractory symptoms in this population of patients were seizures and delirium. The process of end of life treatment decisions in neuro-oncology requires to be better defined.
Background – Zonisamide (ZNS) is an antiepileptic drug (AED) with broad spectrum action that demonstrated a good efficacy in controlling seizures as add‐on in adult and pediatric epilepsy. To date ...there have been no studies on ZNS in patients with brain tumor‐related epilepsy (BTRE).
Aim of the study – To evaluate efficacy and tolerability of ZNS as add‐on in BTRE. Methods– We followed six patients suffering from BTRE who had already been treated with other AEDs and who had had not experienced adequate seizure control. Three patients underwent chemotherapy while being treated with ZNS. Mean duration of follow‐up was 8 months.
Results – Mean seizure number in the last month prior to the introduction of ZNS had been 27.7/month. ZNS mean dosage was of 283.3 mg/day. At last follow‐up, the mean seizure number was reduced to 8.8/month. Responder rate was 83.3%.Two patients discontinued the drug because of side effects. There were no other reported side effects.
Conclusions – Preliminary data on the use of ZNS in add‐on in patients with BTRE indicate that this drug may represent a valid alternative as add‐on in this particular patient population. However, larger samples are necessary to draw definitive conclusions.
•A proportion of 8.75 % of non-diabetic cats with overweight/obesity from referral centers in Buenos Aires (Argentina) had serum IGF-1 concentrations consistent with HST in diabetic cats and ...phenotypic changes consistent with acromegaly.•A proportion of 5% of overweight/obese cats were likely to be diagnosed with HST, supported by evidence of pituitary enlargement and clinical signs compatible with acromegaly.•Serum IGF-1 concentrations were positively correlated with body weight and BCS in cats with overweight/obesity.•HST should not be suspected only in diabetic cats.
Feline hypersomatotropism (HST) is typically associated with diabetes mellitus (DM), whereas HST without concurrent DM has only been reported in a few cases. Weight gain may be observed in cats with HST. The aims of this study were to evaluate circulating insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) in non-diabetic cats with overweight/obesity, to screen this population for the presence of HST, and to assess whether there is a correlation between body weight/body condition score (BCS) and serum IGF-1 concentration in overweight/obese cats. In this prospective study, 80 overweight/obese cats from referral centers in Buenos Aires (Argentina) were evaluated. Serum IGF-1 was measured as part of the routine tests for overweight/obesity. Non-diabetic cats were included in the study if they had a BCS>6/9. Twenty-nine cats were classified as overweight (BCS 7/9), whereas 51 were classified as obese (BCS 8-9/9). Median serum IGF-1 concentrations of cats with BCS 7/9, 8/9, and 9/9 were 570 ng/ml (range 123-1456 ng/ml), 634 ng/ml (range 151-1500 ng/ml), and 598 ng/ml (range 284-2450 ng/ml), respectively. There was a positive linear correlation between serum IGF-1 concentrations and body weight (r= 0.24, 95% CI 0.01-0.44 P=0.03), and between IGF-1 and BCS (r= 0.27, 95% CI 0.08-0.44 P=0.004). In total, 8.75% (95% confidence interval 3.6-17.2%) of the cats with overweight/obesity had IGF-1 concentrations >1000 ng/ml. Pituitary enlargement was detected on computed tomography in 4/7 cases. These seven cats showed varying degrees of phenotypic changes consistent with acromegaly. A proportion of 8.75 % of overweight/obese non-diabetic cats from referral centers in Buenos Aires had serum IGF-1 concentration in a range consistent with HST in diabetic cats. Likewise, 5% of overweight/obese cats were likely to be diagnosed with HST, supported by evidence of pituitary enlargement. Serum IGF-1 concentrations were positively correlated with body weight and BCS in this population of cats. This study highlights the relevance of screening different populations of non-diabetic cats to increase the detection of HST/acromegaly.
Solid-State-Drives are currently introduced in storage facilities for High Energy Physics (HEP) experiments and their performances are measured and compared to standard magnetic disks. For this paper ...a typical HEP data analysis is performed and used as a test to measure computing performances. The tests exploit the features provided by PROOF-Lite which allows to distribute a huge number of events among different CPU cores, thus reducing the overall time needed to complete the analysis task. These tests are carried on few computational devices typically hosted at a current Tier-2/Tier-3 facility. The performance results are provided in terms of figures of merit and the main issue is scalability described in terms of speed up factor and processing event rate. The obtained results can be used as guideline for both the typical HEP analyst and the Tier-2/Tier-3 manager: the former in the configuration of his own analysis task while dealing with increasing data sizes, the latter in the implementation of an interactive data analysis facility for HEP experiments while facing solutions that concern both technological and economical aspects.
PDF
