PREVOST V. & GRACH M.‐C. (2012) European Journal of Cancer Care21, 581–590
Nutritional support and quality of life in cancer patients undergoing palliative care
In palliative care, the nutrition ...provided has to be tailored to the patient's needs, enhancing patient comfort and quality of life (QoL). We conducted a literature search to review methods of measuring QoL, and modalities of nutritional intervention and their influence on QoL of cancer patients in palliative care. Original papers published in English were selected from PubMed database by using the search terms, palliative medicine, cancer, nutrition and quality of life. Specific tools that are particularly recommended to assess QoL in a palliative care setting are reviewed. The main goal in palliative care is to maintain oral nutrition by providing nutritional counselling. Enteral nutritional support showed inconsistent effects on survival and QoL. An evidence‐base for parenteral nutrition is still lacking. Ethical considerations concerning provision of food and hydration in end‐of‐life care are discussed. Nutritional status should be assessed early and regularly during treatment using appropriate tools. In the particularly acute context of palliative care, optimal patient management requires adequate education and counselling to patients and families. Meaningful interactions between the patient, caregivers and medical team would also increase the chance of resolving nutrition‐related issues and help to fulfil each patient's specific nutritional needs and thus improve the QoL.
Patient education constitutes a relevant strategy to improve pain management. In the field of therapeutic patient education (TPE), we aimed 1) to assess pain impact in cancer patients, 2) to identify ...patients' educative needs in pain management, and 3) to refine research criteria for its future evaluation.
Pain intensity, relief and interference were assessed in 75 cancer patients with unbalanced background pain. Self-assessment questionnaire evaluated i) patients' pain management and ii) their knowledge and needs in TPE.
Most patients experienced pain for more than 6 months and 41.6% reported adequate pain relief. Understanding pain and pain management were major patients' preferences (>58%). Most patients declared they knew their pain treatments, but fewer than half of them were able to name them. However, education concerning pain treatment was considered as essential in <30% of patients. Almost all patients (97.1%) stated pain education as beneficial, with a preference for individualized sessions (41.2%). In addition, the assessment criteria for its future evaluation were refined.
Targeted population mainly concerned patients with persistent pain. Only half of patients reported pain relief despite antalgics. Patient education was declared as beneficial for almost all participants.
Tailoring a pain TPE on patients' needs has the potential to help them to optimally manage their pain daily.
The plasma zymogens factor XII (fXII) and factor XI (fXI) contribute to thrombosis in a variety of mouse models. These proteins serve a limited role in hemostasis, suggesting that antithrombotic ...therapies targeting them may be associated with low bleeding risks. Although there is substantial epidemiologic evidence supporting a role for fXI in human thrombosis, the situation is not as clear for fXII. We generated monoclonal antibodies (9A2 and 15H8) against the human fXII heavy chain that interfere with fXII conversion to the protease factor XIIa (fXIIa). The anti-fXII antibodies were tested in models in which anti-fXI antibodies are known to have antithrombotic effects. Both anti-fXII antibodies reduced fibrin formation in human blood perfused through collagen-coated tubes. fXII-deficient mice are resistant to ferric chloride–induced arterial thrombosis, and this resistance can be reversed by infusion of human fXII. 9A2 partially blocks, and 15H8 completely blocks, the prothrombotic effect of fXII in this model. 15H8 prolonged the activated partial thromboplastin time of baboon and human plasmas. 15H8 reduced fibrin formation in collagen-coated vascular grafts inserted into arteriovenous shunts in baboons, and reduced fibrin and platelet accumulation downstream of the graft. These findings support a role for fXII in thrombus formation in primates.
•Factor XII can contribute to thrombus formation in human and nonhuman primate blood.•An antibody that blocks factor XII activation (15H8) produces an antithrombotic effect in a primate thrombosis model.
To describe the clinical data from the first 108 patients seen in the Mayo Clinic post–COVID-19 care clinic (PCOCC).
After Institutional Review Board approval, we reviewed the charts of the first 108 ...patients seen between January 19, 2021, and April 29, 2021, in the PCOCC and abstracted from the electronic medical record into a standardized database to facilitate analysis. Patients were grouped into phenotypes by expert review.
Most of the patients seen in our clinic were female (75%; 81/108), and the median age at presentation was 46 years (interquartile range, 37 to 55 years). All had post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection, with 6 clinical phenotypes being identified: fatigue predominant (n=69), dyspnea predominant (n=23), myalgia predominant (n=6), orthostasis predominant (n=6), chest pain predominant (n=3), and headache predominant (n=1). The fatigue-predominant phenotype was more common in women, and the dyspnea-predominant phenotype was more common in men. Interleukin 6 (IL-6) was elevated in 61% of patients (69% of women; P=.0046), which was more common than elevation in C-reactive protein and erythrocyte sedimentation rate, identified in 17% and 20% of cases, respectively.
In our PCOCC, we observed several distinct clinical phenotypes. Fatigue predominance was the most common presentation and was associated with elevated IL-6 levels and female sex. Dyspnea predominance was more common in men and was not associated with elevated IL-6 levels. IL-6 levels were more likely than erythrocyte sedimentation rate and C-reactive protein to be elevated in patients with post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
The aim of this study was to detect cyanobacterial cytoskeletal elements and the cytoskeletal framework using immunostaining with anti-bovine α-tubulin mouse monoclonal antibodies. After strong ...permeabilization of axenic cyanobacterial cell lines, the cytoskeleton elements become visible in all cells. A mild cell permeabilization procedure allows the discrimination between healthy and senescent or otherwise stressed cyanobacteria whose cell integrity has been jeopardized. This technique can be useful to investigate cyanobacterial bloom lysis provoked by various natural or artificial factors. Viruses, among others, are important mortality agents of cyanobacteria. The presence of non-hepatotoxic cyclic cyanopeptides can provoke lysis of non-axenic Microcystis aeruginosa cell lines. This is presumably due to lytic cycle induction in lysogen cyanobacteria. A susceptible cyanobacterial cell line exposed to the depsipeptide planktopeptin BL1125 has been analysed with transmission electron microscopy to corroborate the involvement of virus like particles (VLP) in the process of lysis. VLP that correspond in shape and size to tailed cyanophages have been observed only in samples where the process of lysis has been triggered. The immunostaining of cytoskeletal elements by using epifluorescence and confocal microscopy has confirmed that the lysis expands from single infected cells or cell groups, the focal points, to their immediate environment. Our in vitro experiments demonstrate that lysogen focal point formation, which follows induction by endogenous cyanobacterial cyclic peptides, could constitute, also in the natural environment, the basis for an extremely rapid and extensive cyanobacterial bloom collapse.
We present results of the new observations of artificial periodic irregularities (APIs) in the ionosphere using the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) heating facility carried out ...in late May and early June 2014.The objective of this work is to detect API using high‐latitude facility and analyze possible differences of the temporal and spatial variations of the API echoes in the high (HAARP) and middle (Sura) latitudes. Irregularities were created by the powerful wave of X mode and were sounded using the short probing pulses signals of X mode. API echoes were observed in the D, E, and F regions of the ionosphere. Amplitudes and characteristic times of the API echoes were measured. The API growth and decay times at HAARP (high latitudes) observed were similar to those at the Sura heating facility (midlatitudes).
Key Points
API experiments were carried out at the HAARP facility, while the Bragg backscattering was observed
Characteristics of the signals scattered by API in the D and E regions were measured
The ionospheric parameters could be restored from the API measurements
Solitarious nymphs of
Schistocerca gregaria were reared under various conditions in both Jerusalem and Oxford to tease apart cues involved in behavioural and colour phase change. Treatments included ...rearing nymphs from the IInd or IIIrd until the final nymphal stadium in physical contact with similarly aged conspecific groups or with another locust species,
Locusta migratoria migratorioides, as well as confining single nymphs in mesh cages, which were kept within crowds of
S. gregaria or
L. migratoria migratorioides, providing visual and olfactory but no physical contact with other locusts. In the Oxford experiments, an extra treatment was included which provided olfactory cues without visual or contact stimulation. Our results confirm that transformation from the solitarious to the gregarious phase of locusts is complex, and that different phase characteristics not only follow different time courses, but are also controlled by different suites of cues. As predicted from earlier studies, behavioural phase change was evoked by non-species-specific cues. Rearing in contact with either species was fully effective in inducing gregarious behaviour, as was the combination of the sight and smell of other locusts, but odour alone was ineffective. Colour phase change was shown to comprise two distinct elements that could be dissociated: black patterning and yellow background. The former of these could be induced as effectively by rearing
S. gregaria nymphs in a crowd of
L. migratoria migratorioides as by rearing with conspecifics. Sight and smell of other locusts also triggered black patterning and, unlike behavioural change, some black patterning was induced by odour cues alone. Hence, physical contact was not needed to induce gregarious black patterning. Yellow colouration, however, was only fully induced when locusts were reared in contact with conspecifics, implying the presence of a species-specific contact chemical cue.
An albino strain that had originated from Okinawa, Japan, and a normally coloured strain that had originated from West Africa, were used to study the darkening response to injection of graded doses ...of dark-colour-inducing neurohormone of locusts (DCIN) (His7-corazonin) of gregarious and solitarious adults of the migratory locust, Locusta migratoria (L.). By repeated crossings, congenic albinos and normal phenotypes were obtained, both with a 99.6% West African genome, and their darkening response was compared with the original Okinawa and West African strains. Within each of these four strains, no difference was found in DCIN-induced darkening between gregarious and solitarious adults despite previous publications in the literature claiming an absence of 'fire-darkening' in gregarious adults of this species. Okinawa albino adults showed a markedly higher darkening response than the other three strains, including albinos with a 99.6% West African genome. This finding demonstrates that the differential darkening response of the Okinawa albinos is caused not by albinism, but by the geographical origin (Okinawa) of the strain. This is the first report of geographical-strain-dependent differences in the response of an insect to a neurohormone. The darkening response of adults reached a maximum on day 10 after injection; subsequently, the dark colour faded slowly. Adults injected 1 day after their moult showed a greater darkening response than those injected after 14 or 28 days.
In the 11‐residue long dark‐color‐inducing neurohormone (DCIN = His7‐corazonin), of locusts, from residue 2 to residue 11, one amino acid at each time was substituted by d‐phenylalanine (d‐Phe). The ...dark‐color‐inducing effect of these peptides was investigated in comparison with unaltered DCIN by a bioassay based on nymphs of a DCIN‐deficient albino mutant of the migratory locust, Locusta migratoria. Substitution of any single amino acid by d‐Phe always reduced the activity, but did not abolish it completely. Maximum inactivation was obtained after substitution of Gln4, Ser6, or Trp9. The latter two residues are within the partial sequence ‐Ser‐Xxx‐Gly‐Trp‐ (Xxx = His in the DCIN) that seems to be important for the dark‐color‐inducing activity, as found also in another study (Insect Biochem. Mol. Biol. 32, 2002, 909). Gln4, however, is outside of this partial sequence. Minimal, although still considerable, inactivation occurred after substitution of Gly8, Phe3, or Asn11, despite the fact that Gly8 is within the ‐Ser‐Xxx‐Gly‐Trp‐ partial sequence. In conclusion, no single active core was found, indicating that the whole sequence of the DCIN is necessary to induce maximum darkening effect. No difference was found in the activity of the peptides in which Gly8 was substituted by d‐Phe or by L‐Phe. Therefore the ‐Ser‐Xxx‐Gly‐Trp‐ partial sequence does not seem to be stabilized by a type II β‐turn. Nevertheless, existence of another kind of turn that includes this partial sequence is feasible. A single unsuccessful attempt was made to discover an antagonist to the DCIN.
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