Background In the staging of endometrial cancer, controversy remains regarding the role of sentinel lymph node mapping compared with other nodal assessment strategies. Objective We conducted a ...systematic review to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy and clinical impact of sentinel lymph node mapping in the management of endometrial cancer. Data Sources We searched Medline, Embase, and the Cochrane Central Registry of Controlled trials for studies published in English before March 25, 2016 (PROSPERO CRD42016036503). Study Eligibility Criteria Studies were included if they contained 10 or more women with endometrial cancer and reported on the detection rate, sensitivity, and/or impact on treatment or survival of sentinel lymph node mapping. Study Appraisal and Synthesis Methods Two authors independently reviewed abstracts and full-text articles for inclusion and assessed study quality. The detection rate, sensitivity, and factors associated with successful mapping (study size, body mass index, tumor histology and grade, injection site, dye type) were synthesized through random-effects meta-analyses and meta-regression. Results We identified 55 eligible studies, which included 4915 women. The overall detection rate of sentinel lymph node mapping was 81% (95% confidence interval, 77–84) with a 50% (95% confidence interval, 44–56) bilateral pelvic node detection rate and 17% (95% confidence interval, 11–23) paraaortic detection rate. There was no difference in detection rates by patient body mass index or tumor histology and grade. Use of indocyanine green increased the bilateral detection rate compared with blue dye. Additionally, cervical injection increased the bilateral sentinel lymph node detection rate but decreased the paraaortic detection rate compared with alternative injection techniques. Intraoperative sentinel lymph node frozen section increased the overall and bilateral detection rates. The sensitivity of sentinel node mapping to detect metastases was 96% (95% confidence interval, 91–98); ultrastaging did not improve sensitivity. Compared with women staged with complete lymphadenectomy, women staged with sentinel lymph node mapping were more likely to receive adjuvant treatment. Conclusion Sentinel lymph node mapping is feasible and accurately predicts nodal status in women with endometrial cancer. The current data favors the use of cervical injection techniques with indocyanine green. Sentinel lymph mapping may be considered an alternative standard of care in the staging of women with endometrial cancer.
Saline soils cover 3.1% (397 million hectare) of the total land area of the world. The stock of soil organic carbon (SOC) reflects the balance between carbon (C) inputs from plants, and losses ...through decomposition, leaching and erosion. Soil salinity decreases plant productivity and hence C inputs to the soil, but also microbial activity and therefore SOC decomposition rates. Using a modified Rothamsted Carbon model (RothC) with a newly introduced salinity decomposition rate modifier and a plant input modifier we estimate that, historically, world soils that are currently saline have lost an average of 3.47tSOCha−1 since they became saline. With the extent of saline soils predicted to increase in the future, our modelling suggests that world soils may lose 6.8Pg SOC due to salinity by the year 2100. Our findings suggest that current models overestimate future global SOC stocks and underestimate net CO2 emissions from the soil–plant system by not taking salinity effects into account. From the perspective of enhancing soil C stocks, however, given the lower SOC decomposition rate in saline soils, salt tolerant plants could be used to sequester C in salt-affected areas.
► Historic loss of soil organic carbon (SOC) from saline soils was simulated using RothC on a global scale. ► Saline soils have lost an average of 3.47tSOCha−1 since they became saline. ► World soils may lose 6.8Pg SOC due to salinity by the year 2100. ► Current models overestimate global SOC stocks by not taking salinity into account.
The platinum-based anticancer drugs cisplatin, carboplatin, and oxaliplatin are an important component of chemotherapy but are limited by severe dose-limiting side effects and the ability of tumors ...to develop resistance rapidly. These drugs can be improved through the use of drug-delivery vehicles that are able to target cancers passively or actively. In this study, we have tethered the active component of the anticancer drug oxaliplatin to a gold nanoparticle for improved drug delivery. Naked gold nanoparticles were functionalized with a thiolated poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) monolayer capped with a carboxylate group. Pt(1R,2R-diaminocyclohexane)(H2O)22NO3 was added to the PEG surface to yield a supramolecular complex with 280 (±20) drug molecules per nanoparticle. The platinum-tethered nanoparticles were examined for cytotoxicity, drug uptake, and localization in the A549 lung epithelial cancer cell line and the colon cancer cell lines HCT116, HCT15, HT29, and RKO. The platinum-tethered nanoparticles demonstrated as good as, or significantly better, cytotoxicity than oxaliplatin alone in all of the cell lines and an unusual ability to penetrate the nucleus in the lung cancer cells.
Wider networks of people are affected by a suicide death than originally thought, including those whose job-role brings them into contact with a death by suicide of another person. The impact of ...student suicide within United Kingdom (UK) Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) is unexplored and the experiences of staff members remain unknown. It is not known whether staff members have specific postvention needs following a student death by suicide. Any postvention support currently offered to staff members within UK HEIs lacks a context-specific evidence base. This study asked 'How is a student suicide experienced by staff members within a UK HEI and what are the features of that experience?' Staff members from diverse job-roles in two UK HEIs responded to a qualitative survey (n = 19) and participated in semi-structured interviews (n = 10). Data were transcribed and subjected to a constructivist grounded theory analysis. Participants' experiences informed the development of a core category: 'Bearing witness', which encompassed six further categories: 'Responding to a student suicide'; 'Experiencing a student suicide'; 'Needs and fears'; 'Experiences of support'; 'Human stories'; and 'Cultural stories'. The resulting grounded theory demonstrates how participants' perceptions of impact are informed by their experiences of undertaking tasks following a student suicide within the community of their HEI. Processes of constructing perceptions of closeness to the student who died are evident amongst participants who did not know the student prior to their death. Tailored postvention support is required to respond to the range and complexity of HEI staff needs following a student death by suicide.
East African wetlands are hotspots of ecosystem services, particularly for climate regulation, water provision and food production. We review the ability of current approaches to ecosystem service ...assessments to capture important social-ecological dynamics to provide insight for wetland management and human wellbeing. We synthesise evidence of human influences on wetlands and gauge the suitability of models and tools for simulating spatial and temporal dynamics, and land management on multiple ecosystem functions and services. Current approaches are largely unsuitable for advancing knowledge of social-ecological system dynamics and could be greatly improved with inter-disciplinary model integration to focus upon interactions between multiple ecosystem functions and services. Modelling can alleviate challenges that tropical wetland ecosystem services management faces and support decision-making of land managers and policymakers. Better understanding of social-ecological systems dynamics is crucial in East Africa where societies are vulnerable to poverty and climate variability, whilst dependent upon agrarian-ecological based economies.
•Human influences on wetland functions and services are substantial and complex.•Social-ecological dynamics must inform wetland service assessments and management.•Modelling requires simulating multiple interacting ecosystem functions and services.•Poor wetland ecosystem services understanding undermines poverty and climate action.
Our understanding of the relationship between the decomposition of soil organic matter (SOM) and soil temperature affects our predictions of the impact of climate change on soil-stored carbon. One ...current opinion is that the decomposition of soil labile carbon is sensitive to temperature variation whereas resistant components are insensitive. The resistant carbon or organic matter in mineral soil is then assumed to be unresponsive to global warming. But the global pattern and magnitude of the predicted future soil carbon stock will mainly rely on the temperature sensitivity of these resistant carbon pools. To investigate this sensitivity, we have incubated soils under changing temperature. Here we report that SOM decomposition or soil basal respiration rate was significantly affected by changes in SOM components associated with soil depth, sampling method and incubation time. We find, however, that the temperature sensitivity for SOM decomposition was not affected, suggesting that the temperature sensitivity for resistant organic matter pools does not differ significantly from that of labile pools, and that both types of SOM will therefore respond similarly to global warming.
In salt-affected soils, soil organic carbon (SOC) levels are usually low as a result of poor plant growth; additionally, decomposition of soil organic matter (SOM) may be negatively affected. Soil ...organic carbon models, such as the Rothamsted Carbon Model (RothC), that are used to estimate carbon dioxide (CO
2) emission and SOC stocks at various spatial scales, do not consider the effect of salinity on CO
2 emissions and may therefore over-estimate CO
2 release from saline soils. Two laboratory incubation experiments were conducted to assess the effect of soil texture on the response of CO
2 release to salinity, and to calculate a rate modifier for salinity to be introduced into the RothC model. The soils used were a sandy loam (18.7% clay) and a sandy clay loam (22.5% clay) in one experiment and a loamy sand (6.3% clay) and a clay (42% clay) in another experiment. The water content was adjusted to 75%, 55%, 50% and 45% water holding capacity (WHC) for the loamy sand, sandy loam, sandy clay loam and the clay, respectively to ensure optimal soil moisture for decomposition. Sodium chloride (NaCl) was used to develop a range of salinities: electrical conductivity of the 1:5 soil: water extract (EC
1:5) 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5
dS
m
−1. The soils were amended with 2% (w/w) wheat residues and CO
2 emission was measured over 4 months. Carbon dioxide release was also measured from five salt-affected soils from the field for model evaluation. In all soils, cumulative CO
2–C g
−1 soil significantly decreased with increasing EC
1:5 developed by addition of NaCl, but the relative decrease differed among the soils. In the salt-amended soils, the reduction in normalised cumulative respiration (in percentage for the control) at EC
1:5
>
1.0
dS
m
−1 was most pronounced in the loamy sand. This is due to the differential water content of the soils, at the same EC
1:5; the salt concentration in the soil solution is higher in the coarser textured soils than in fine textured soils because in the former soils, the water content for optimal decomposition is lower. When salinity was expressed as osmotic potential, the decrease in normalised cumulative respiration with increasing salinity was less than with EC
1:5. The osmotic potential of the soil solution is a more appropriate parameter for estimating the salinity effect on microbial activity than the electrical conductivity (EC) because osmotic potential, unlike EC, takes account into salt concentration in the soil solution as a function of the water content. The decrease in particulate organic carbon (POC) was smaller in soils with low osmotic potential whereas total organic carbon, humus-C and charcoal-C did not change over time, and were not significantly affected by salinity. The modelling of cumulative respiration data using a two compartment model showed that the decomposition of labile carbon (C) pool is more sensitive to salinity than that of the slow C pool. The evaluation of RothC, modified to include the decomposition rate modifier for salinity developed from the salt-amended soils, against saline soils from the field, suggested that salinity had a greater effect on cumulative respiration in the salt-amended soils. The results of this study show (i) salinity needs to be taken into account when modelling CO
2 release and SOC turnover in salt-affected soils, and (ii) a decomposition rate modifier developed from salt-amended soils may overestimate the effect of salinity on CO
2 release.
► Effect of soil texture on the response of CO
2 release to salinity was assessed in incubation studies. ► At a given EC, relative respiration was higher in fine textured soils than coarse textured soils. ► The decrease in CO
2 release in response to osmotic potential was less than with EC. ► A decomposition rate-modifier, developed from the salt amended soils, was included in the RothC model. ► The model overestimated the salinity effect on respiration of field-collected saline soils.
Greenhouse gas mitigation in agriculture Smith, Pete; Martino, Daniel; Cai, Zucong ...
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological sciences,
02/2008, Letnik:
363, Številka:
1492
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Agricultural lands occupy 37% of the earth's land surface. Agriculture accounts for 52 and 84% of global anthropogenic methane and nitrous oxide emissions. Agricultural soils may also act as a sink ...or source for CO2, but the net flux is small. Many agricultural practices can potentially mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the most prominent of which are improved cropland and grazing land management and restoration of degraded lands and cultivated organic soils. Lower, but still significant mitigation potential is provided by water and rice management, set-aside, land use change and agroforestry, livestock management and manure management. The global technical mitigation potential from agriculture (excluding fossil fuel offsets from biomass) by 2030, considering all gases, is estimated to be approximately 5500-6000 Mt CO2-eq. yr−1, with economic potentials of approximately 1500-1600, 2500-2700 and 4000-4300 Mt CO2-eq. yr−1 at carbon prices of up to 20, up to 50 and up to 100 US$ t CO2-eq.−1, respectively. In addition, GHG emissions could be reduced by substitution of fossil fuels for energy production by agricultural feedstocks (e.g. crop residues, dung and dedicated energy crops). The economic mitigation potential of biomass energy from agriculture is estimated to be 640, 2240 and 16 000 Mt CO2-eq. yr−1 at 0-20, 0-50 and 0-100 US$ t CO2-eq.−1, respectively.
We test the applicability of two different methods for quantifying carbon (C) stocks in five tropical peat sites in Sumatra, Indonesia; two in an intact peat swamp forest, one in a logged forest and ...two in an oil palm plantation. Elemental analysis is used to quantify C contents and stocks in all samples, and is the standard to which the two methods are compared. The first method, loss on ignition (LoI), underestimates sample C stocks by 4.9±0.8% compared to results from the elemental analysis across all samples. Loss on ignition is applied to three full peat cores in one of the intact forest sites and one oil palm site, using the standard factor of 1.922 to convert the organic matter (OM) result into C content. Evaluation against independent data suggests that a factor of 1.878 would be more appropriate. The second method, using the equation presented in Warren et al. (2012) for quantifying C density in peat swamp forest soils, shows no significant difference between the equation and elemental analysis derived results for the intact and logged forest sites. We suggest the use of a bulk density (BD) range to further define the limits of the equation. When applied to samples from oil palm sites, there was a significant difference in the results provided by the Warren equation and elemental analysis. Evaluation against independent data suggests that, in this land use, C density (kgCm−3) is more accurately estimated by the equation Cd=(515.44×BD)+3.01 (R2=0.94). We also present a variable factor for the conversion of the organic matter (OM) to C content by merging the two methods. We recommend the use of the LoI method with the improved factor for conversion of OM to C content, or where bulk density is known the Warren equation for calculating accurate C density values across intact and logged forests on Indonesian peats, and our revised equation for oil palm sites.
•We compare different methods of analysis for quantifying soil C in Indonesian peats.•Carbon density in Indonesian peat can be calculated from a function of bulk density.•Peat soils have differing relationships between carbon and bulk density by land use.•Division of organic matter by 1.878 gives accurate carbon content in these peats.•Carbon content can be derived from organic matter content and bulk density.
The potential for biogas provision through household-scale anaerobic digestion in rural sub-Saharan Africa is limited due to perceived water shortages. The most common substrate is animal dung ...diluted 1:1 with water. Two experimental methods tested the potential of reducing water demand. The first experiment compared the chemical oxygen demand (COD) and volatile solid removal of four cow dung dilutions ranging from 3.5-10.6% total solids. In the second experiment, bioslurry filtrate was recirculated back into the fresh substrate at different concentrations. The highest COD removal rate of 28.3% was obtained from mixing equal volumes of dung with filtrate (mean total solids 7.4%) while the highest methane production rate of 0.40 g/L/day, calculated from COD balance, was obtained from undiluted cow dung (total solids 10.6%). Results suggest the potential for a 75-100% reduction in water demand.
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