Patterns of myeloid growth factor (GF) usage and febrile neutropenia (FN) were examined in patients >60 years of age with diffuse large B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (DLBCL) enrolled on CALGB ...9793/ECOG-SWOG 4494, receiving initial therapy with cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, prednisone (CHOP) or rituximab + CHOP (R-CHOP). Myeloid GFs were administered to 256/520 (49%) patients. Indications for use were: prevent dose reduction/dose delay (81%, 207/256); treat FN or non-febrile neutropenia (NFN) (19%, 48/256). One or more FN episodes occurred in 41% (212/520) of patients, with FN most often in cycle 1 (38% of episodes). In multivariate analysis, risk factors for FN included age >65 years (odds ratio (OR) = 2.6, 95% CI: 1.4, 4.9) and anemia (hemoglobin <12 g/dl) (OR =2.2, 95% confidence intervals (CI): 1.4, 3.5. Myeloid GF use was common in this older DLBCL population receiving CHOP-based therapy, as was FN, especially during cycle one. Risk factors predictive for FN should be used prospectively to identify patients for whom myeloid GFs are best utilized.
The arctic freshwater system: Changes and impacts White, Daniel; Hinzman, Larry; Alessa, Lilian ...
Journal of Geophysical Research - Biogeosciences,
December 2007, Letnik:
112, Številka:
G4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Dramatic changes have been observed in the Arctic over the last century. Many of these involve the storage and cycling of fresh water. On land, precipitation and river discharge, lake abundance and ...size, glacier area and volume, soil moisture, and a variety of permafrost characteristics have changed. In the ocean, sea ice thickness and areal coverage have decreased and water mass circulation patterns have shifted, changing freshwater pathways and sea ice cover dynamics. Precipitation onto the ocean surface has also changed. Such changes are expected to continue, and perhaps accelerate, in the coming century, enhanced by complex feedbacks between the oceanic, atmospheric, and terrestrial freshwater systems. Change to the arctic freshwater system heralds changes for our global physical and ecological environment as well as human activities in the Arctic. In this paper we review observed changes in the arctic freshwater system over the last century in terrestrial, atmospheric, and oceanic systems.
Summary
To assess if immunochemotherapy influenced the prognostic value of IPI in elderly diffuse large B‐cell lymphoma (DLBCL) patients, we evaluated the performance of the standard International ...Prognostic Index (IPI) and following modifications: age adjusted (AA)‐IPI, revised (R)‐IPI, and an elderly IPI with age cut‐off 70 years (E‐IPI) in patients >60 years treated with RCHOP (rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine and prednisone). In 267 patients, by IPI/AA‐IPI 60% were high‐intermediate, 53% high and 12% low risk. With R‐IPI, 60% were poor risk and none very good risk. Using E‐IPI, 45% were high‐intermediate/high risk and 27% low risk. No differences in outcome were seen in the low/low‐intermediate groups with IPI/AA‐IPI. For E‐IPI, failure‐free survival (FFS) and overall survival (OS) were significantly different for low/low‐intermediate groups. No differences were detected in the four indices with model fit/discrimination measures; however, E‐IPI ranked highest. For elderly R‐CHOP treated patients, distribution of IPI/AA‐IPI skewed toward high/high‐intermediate risk with no differences in FFS/OS between low/low‐intermediate risk. In contrast, with E‐IPI, more are classified as low risk with significant differences in FFS/OS for low‐intermediate compared to low risk. The R‐IPI does not identify a very good risk group, thus minimizing its utility in this population. The prognostic discrimination provided by the E‐IPI for low and low‐intermediate elderly DLBCL patients needs validation by other datasets.
Posttransplant lymphoproliferative disorders (PTLD) remain an uncommon complication of solid organ transplantation with a high mortality rate reported after conventional therapies. Alternative ...treatments such as rituximab have been explored.
Eleven patients with PTLD, who were CD20 positive, received an intravenous dose of rituximab, 375 mg/m2, weekly x 4 weeks, repeated every 6 months for 2 years in responding patients. The median age of the patients was 56 years (range, 43-68 yrs), and 9 patients were male. The type of solid organ transplantation that these patients received included lung (five patients), kidney (four patients), heart (one patient), and kidney/pancreas (one patient). The median time from transplantation to a PTLD diagnosis was 9 months (range, 1-122 mos). Diagnostic B-cell histology was diffuse large cell lymphoma or polymorphous process. No patient had bone marrow or central nervous system involvement. Primary extranodal disease was noted in 82% of patients. Immunosuppressive therapy was decreased at the time of diagnosis.
Rituximab was well tolerated, with mild infusional blood pressure alterations noted in two patients. The median follow-up period was 10 months (range, 1-32 mos). The overall response rate was 64%, with 6 complete responses (CR), 1 partial response, 2 cases of progressive disease, and 2 deaths. The median duration of CR was 8 months (range, 2-19+ mos). The median time to treatment failure was 10 months (range, 5-25+ mos). The median survival was 14 months (range, < 1-32+ mos). Four patients were alive at the time of last follow-up.
Single-agent rituximab may offer a response and survival advantage in patients with PTLD. Further evaluation of rituximab in these disorders, potentially in combination with other therapies, is warranted.
Long-term optical and near-infrared monitoring observations for a type 1 active galactic nucleus (AGN) NGC 4151 were carried out for six years from 2001 to 2006 by using the MAGNUM telescope, and ...delayed response of flux variations in the K(2.2 is a subset of m) band to those in the V(0.55 is a subset of m) band was clearly detected. Based on cross-correlation analysis, we precisely measured a lag time Delta t for eight separate periods and we found that Delta t is not constant, changing between 30 and 70 d during the monitoring period. Since Delta t is the light travel time from the central energy source out to the surrounding dust torus, this is the first convincing evidence that the inner radius of the dust torus did change in an individual AGN. In order to relate such a change of Delta t with a change of AGN luminosity L, we present a method of taking an average of the observed V-band fluxes that corresponds to the measured value of Delta t, and we find that the time-changing track of NGC 4151 in the Delta t versus L diagram during the monitoring period deviates from the relation Delta t L 0.5 expected from dust reverberation. This result, combined with the elapsed time from period to period for which Delta t was measured, indicates that the timescale of dust formation is about one year, which should be taken into account as a new constraint in future studies of dust evolution in AGNs.
Flow‐weighted dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations and δ18O values were determined from major arctic rivers, specifically the Ob, Yenisey, Lena, Kolyma, Mackenzie, and Yukon during ...2003–2004. These data were considered in conjunction with marine data for DOC, δ18O values, nutrients, salinity, and fluorometric indicators of DOC obtained during sampling at the shelf‐basin boundary of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. On the basis of these data, freshwater in the sampled marine waters is likely derived from regional sources, such as the Mackenzie, the Bering Strait inflow, and possibly eastern Siberian rivers, including the Kolyma, or the Lena, but not rivers farther west in the Eurasian arctic. Freshwater from melted sea ice is insignificant over annual cycles, although melted sea ice was a locally dominant freshwater component following summer sea‐ice retreat in 2002. DOC concentrations were correlated with the runoff fraction, with an apparent meteoric water DOC concentration of 174 ± 1 μM. This is lower than the flow‐weighted concentrations measured at river mouths of the five largest Arctic rivers (358 to 917 μM), indicating removal of DOC during transport through estuaries, shelves and in the deep basin. Flow‐weighted DOC concentrations in the two largest North American arctic rivers, the Yukon (625 μM) and the Mackenzie (358 μM), are lower than in the three largest Eurasian arctic rivers, the Ob (825 μM), the Yenesey (858 μM), and the Lena (917 μM). A fluorometer responding to chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) was not correlated with DOC concentrations in Pacific‐influenced surface waters unlike previous observations in the Atlantic layer. Nutrient distributions, concentrations, and derived ratios suggest the CDOM fluorometer may be responding to the release of chromophoric materials from shelf sediments. Shipboard incubations of undisturbed sediment cores indicate that sediments on the Bering and Chukchi Sea shelves are a net source of DOC to the Arctic Ocean.
The construction of a catalogue of galaxy groups from the Two-degree Field Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS) is described. Groups are identified by means of a friends-of-friends percolation algorithm ...which has been thoroughly tested on mock versions of the 2dFGRS generated from cosmological N-body simulations. The tests suggest that the algorithm groups all galaxies that it should be grouping, with an additional 40 per cent of interlopers. About 55 per cent of the ∼190 000 galaxies considered are placed into groups containing at least two members of which ∼29 000 are found. Of these, ∼7000 contain at least four galaxies, and these groups have a median redshift of 0.11 and a median velocity dispersion of 260 km s−1. This 2dFGRS Percolation-Inferred Galaxy Group (2PIGG) catalogue represents the largest available homogeneous sample of galaxy groups. It is publicly available on the World Wide Web.
We describe the contemporary hydrography of the pan‐Arctic land area draining into the Arctic Ocean, northern Bering Sea, and Hudson Bay on the basis of observational records of river discharge and ...computed runoff. The Regional Arctic Hydrographic Network data set, R‐ArcticNET, is presented, which is based on 3754 recording stations drawn from Russian, Canadian, European, and U.S. archives. R‐ArcticNET represents the single largest data compendium of observed discharge in the Arctic. Approximately 73% of the nonglaciated area of the pan‐Arctic is monitored by at least one river discharge gage giving a mean gage density of 168 gages per 106 km2. Average annual runoff is 212 mm yr−1 with approximately 60% of the river discharge occurring from April to July. Gridded runoff surfaces are generated for the gaged portion of the pan‐Arctic region to investigate global change signals. Siberia and Alaska showed increases in winter runoff during the 1980s relative to the 1960s and 1970s during annual and seasonal periods. These changes are consistent with observations of change in the climatology of the region. Western Canada experienced decreased spring and summer runoff.
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