Tag: pubmed

Proc Jpn Acad Ser B Phys Biol Sci. 2021;97(7):337-370. doi: 10.2183/pjab.97.019.

ABSTRACT

The Subaru Telescope^a) is an 8.2 m optical/infrared telescope constructed during 1991-1999 and has been operational since 2000 on the summit area of Maunakea, Hawaii, by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). This paper reviews the history, key engineering issues, and selected scientific achievements of the Subaru Telescope. The active optics for a thin primary mirror was the design backbone of the telescope to deliver a high-imaging performance. Adaptive optics with a laser-facility to generate an artificial guide-star improved the telescope vision to its diffraction limit by cancelling any atmospheric turbulence effect in real time. Various observational instruments, especially the wide-field camera, have enabled unique observational studies. Selected scientific topics include studies on cosmic reionization, weak/strong gravitational lensing, cosmological parameters, primordial black holes, the dynamical/chemical evolution/interactions of galaxies, neutron star mergers, supernovae, exoplanets, proto-planetary disks, and outliers of the solar system. The last described are operational statistics, plans and a note concerning the culture-and-science issues in Hawaii.

PMID:34380914 | DOI:10.2183/pjab.97.019

ASAIO J. 2021 Aug 10. doi: 10.1097/MAT.0000000000001548. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

This study presents an edge detection and speckle tracking (EDST) based algorithm to calculate distensibility as percentage of change of vessel diameter during cardiac cycles. Canny edge detector, Vandermonde matrix representation, Kanade Lucas Tomasi algorithm with pyramidal segmentation, and penalized least squares technique identifies the vessel lumen edge, track the vessel diameter, detrend the signal and find peaks and valleys when the vessel is fully distended or contracted. An upper extremity artery from 10 patients underwent an ultrasound examination as part of preoperative evaluation before arteriovenous fistula surgery. Three studies were performed to evaluate EDST with automatic peak and valley selection versus manual speckle selection of expert users using manual peak and valley selection. Results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology, to obtain comparable results as those obtained by expert-users, and considerably reducing the variability associated with external factors such as excessive motion, fluctuations in stroke volume, beat-to-beat blood pressure changes, breathing cycles, and arm-transducer pressure.

PMID:34380948 | DOI:10.1097/MAT.0000000000001548

Saudi J Gastroenterol. 2021 Aug 11. doi: 10.4103/sjg.sjg_673_20. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: There has been recent debate comparing the efficacy of gastric electrical stimulation (GES) with pyloric intervention, but medical literature lacks clear indications for when to perform GES or pyloric intervention. This study aims to assess the effect of sociodemographic factors and hospital characteristics on the surgical technique chosen for the treatment of gastroparesis.

METHODS: Data was extracted from the National Inpatient Sample between the years 2012 and 2014, using any discharge diagnosis of gastroparesis. For comparison of analysis between GES and pyloric surgical intervention, pyloroplasty, endoscopic pyloric dilation, and pyloromyotomy were considered to be pyloric interventions. The study population was divided into two groups, one which received GES and the other receiving pyloric intervention, to compare socioeconomic factors and hospital characteristics.

RESULTS: In total, 737,930 hospitalizations had a discharge diagnosis of gastroparesis between 2012 and 2014. On weighted multivariant analysis of patients undergoing GES or pyloric intervention for gastroparesis, being female (odds ratio (OR) 1.49, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.25-1.78; P < 0.001), being Hispanic (OR 1.75, 95%CI; P < 0.001), being in urban teaching (OR 1.41, 95%CI 1.15-1.72; P < 0.001), and nonteaching hospitals (OR 2.93, 95%CI 2.4-3.58; P < 0.001), early satiety (OR 6.70, 95%CI 1.54-31.25; P = 0.01), and diabetes mellitus (OR 2.14, 95%CI 1.78-2.56; P < 0.001) were each statistically significantly correlated with receiving GES intervention compared to pyloric intervention.

CONCLUSION: The racial difference, payer source, and hospital location affected the surgical intervention (GES or pyloric intervention) that patients with gastroparesis would receive.

PMID:34380871 | DOI:10.4103/sjg.sjg_673_20

Neural Regen Res. 2022 Mar;17(3):557-558. doi: 10.4103/1673-5374.320984.

NO ABSTRACT

PMID:34380888 | DOI:10.4103/1673-5374.320984

Indian J Cancer. 2021 Jul 16. doi: 10.4103/ijc.IJC_741_18. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Following a diagnosis of cancer, distress is a common reaction. For Iranian women with endometrial cancer, treatment and survivorship can result in disabling symptoms of depression, anxiety, social, and spiritual crises. The aim of this study was to determine whether a combination of education and support intervention as a comprehensive program focusing on education, coping, and support had better short- and long-term effects on anxiety of these patients.

METHODS: The current randomized clinical trial was performed on a sample of 140 women with endometrial cancer. A two-part instrument was used – a demographic information form and “Beck’s Anxiety” questionnaire. The intervention was an educational-supportive program in 3 weekly sessions in experimental group (N = 70), whereas control group (N = 70) received routine care. Descriptive statistics, Chi-square test, t-tests, and repeated measure analysis of variance were used to analyze data. P value less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant.

RESULTS: The total scores of anxiety (mean± standard deviation) was significantly lower in the experimental group immediately after intervention (8.46 ± 5.17, P < 0.001), 1 month (7.78 ± 4.59, P < 0.001) and 2 months (7.55 ± 4.55, P < 0.001) after intervention to compare with before intervention (16.82 ± 10.19).

CONCLUSION: In this study, this program could decrease the anxiety in women with endometrial cancer.

PMID:34380854 | DOI:10.4103/ijc.IJC_741_18

Indian J Cancer. 2021 Jul 16. doi: 10.4103/ijc.IJC_765_19. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: At present, the diagnosis and efficacy evaluation of acute leukemia (AL) are assessed by bone marrow aspiration, which is invasive and subject to sampling errors. Therefore, there is a pressing need to develop a noninvasive and accurate imaging method to evaluate bone marrow changes in patients with AL. This study aimed to compare the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values obtained from fluid-attenuated inversion recovery diffusion-weighted imaging (FLAIR-DWI) and conventional DWI in the lumbar bone marrow of patients with AL and to investigate their performance for evaluating response to induction chemotherapy.

METHODS: A total of 28 patients with newly diagnosed AL and 25 patients with AL after induction chemotherapy underwent MRI scans at 1.5 Tesla using a conventional DWI and a FLAIR-DWI sequence on sagittal planes covering the lumbar bone marrow. Further, the ADC values from these two sequences, denoted as ADC_CON and ADC_FLAIR, were measured on multiple vertebrae. The percentage of leukemia cells in bone marrow was recorded, and bone marrow aspiration was performed on treated patients to determine complete remission (CR) and nonremission (NR).

RESULTS: ADC_FLAIR [(0.453 ± 0.103) × 10^-3 mm²/s] was significantly lower than ADC_CON [(0.486 ± 0.096) × 10^-3 mm²/s] in the 28 untreated patients (t = 3.051, P = 0.005). In the 25 treated patients, ADC_FLAIR and ADC_CON values [(0.566 ± 0.239) × 10^-3 mm²/s] and [(0.716 ± 0.235) × 10^-3 mm²/s], respectively, were higher compared with the untreated patients. The ADC_CON values showed a nonsignificant difference between the CR (n = 18) and NR (n = 7) groups (t = 1.409, P = 0.305). However, the ADC_FLAIR values exhibited statistically significant difference (t = 2.542, P = 0.018) between the two groups. In a receiver operator characteristic (ROC) analysis, the area under the curve (AUC) using ADC_FLAIR (0.770) was larger than that of ADC_CON (0.611) in distinguishing the CR and NR patients following the chemotherapy.

CONCLUSION: Although both ADC_CON and ADC_FLAIR are sensitive to tissue changes induced by chemotherapy, FLAIR-DWI outperformed conventional DWI in separating AL patients with CR from NR after chemotherapy. A possible mechanism is that FLAIR-DWI suppresses signals from free water, making the ADC measurement more sensitive to structural changes in the bone marrow.

PMID:34380856 | DOI:10.4103/ijc.IJC_765_19

Indian J Cancer. 2021 Jul 2. doi: 10.4103/ijc.IJC_538_19. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Cervical cancer is known to be the fourth most common cancer among women globally. In various factors, genetic factors have been considered as one major risk factor for cervical cancer. The research of genetic susceptibility to cervical cancer can be greatly helpful in studying the complex mechanism. This study was conducted to identify whether polymorphic variants of p73 G4C14-A4T14 and tumor protein p53 (p53) codon 72, either independently or jointly, might be associated with the risk of cervical cancer.

METHODS: The genotypes of p73 G4C14-A4T14 and p53 codon 72 polymorphisms of peripheral blood DNA from 190 cervical cancer patients and 210 controls were investigated using polymerase chain reaction with confronting two-pair primers and polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism, respectively.

RESULTS: The frequency of p73 G4C14-A4T14 AT/AT (P = 0.013) or p53 codon 72 GG (P = 0.026) genotype was associated with an increased risk of cervical cancer by comparing with the p73 G4C14-A4T14 GC/GC or p53 codon 72 CC genotype, respectively. In addition, the interaction between the p73 G4C14-A4T14 and p53 codon 72 polymorphisms increased the risk of cervical cancer in a multiply manner, with the odds ratio being 3.692 (95% confidence interval =2.106-6.473) for subjects carrying both p73 G4C14-A4T14 GC/AT+AT/AT and p53 codon 72 GG genotypes.

CONCLUSION: These results suggest that there is a statistical difference between p73 and p53 gene polymorphism and the risk of cervical cancer in Chinese women, and there is a potential gene-gene interaction in the incidence of cervical cancer.

PMID:34380847 | DOI:10.4103/ijc.IJC_538_19

Indian J Cancer. 2021 Jul 2. doi: 10.4103/ijc.IJC_666_19. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The aim of the study is to investigate the factors affecting acute hematologic toxicity (HT) in the adjuvant radiotherapy (RT) of gynecologic cancers by machine learning.

METHODS: Between January 2015 and September 2018, 121 patients with endometrium and cervical cancer who underwent adjuvant RT with volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT) were evaluated. The relationship between patient and treatment characteristics and acute HT was investigated using machine learning techniques, namely Logistic Regression, XGBoost, Artificial Neural Network, Random Forest, Naive Bayes, Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Gaussian Naive Bayes (GaussianNB) algorithms.

RESULTS: No HT was observed in 11 cases (9.1%) and at least one grade of HT was observed in 110 cases. There were 55 (45.5%) cases with ≤grade 2 HT (mild HT) and 66 (54.5%) cases with grade ≥3 HT (severe HT). None of the patients developed grade 5 HT. Of 24 variables that could affect acute HT, nine were determined as important variables. According to the results, the best machine learning technique for acute HT estimation was SVM (accuracy 70%, area under curve (AUC): 0.65, sensitivity 71.4%, specificity 66.6%). Parameters affecting hematologic toxicity were evaluated also by classical statistical methods and there was a statistically significant relationship between age, RT, and bone marrow (BM) maximum dose.

CONCLUSION: It is important to predict the patients who will develop acute HT in order to minimize the side effects of treatment. If these cases can be identified in advance, toxicity rates can be reduced by taking necessary precautions. These cases can be predicted with machine learning algorithms.

PMID:34380848 | DOI:10.4103/ijc.IJC_666_19

Indian J Cancer. 2021 Jun 21. doi: 10.4103/ijc.IJC_766_19. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Mutations in the RAS genes, HRAS, KRAS, and NRAS, are the most common modifications in many types of human tumors and are found in approximately 30% of all human cancers. These mutations are usually found in codons 12, 13, or 61.

METHODS: The aim of this study is to evaluate mutations in codons 59, 117, and 146 of KRAS and NRAS genes in addition to codons 12,13, and 61 of KRAS gene in lung cancer tissue specimens obtained with bronchoscopy. KRAS and NRAS mutation analyses with pyrosequencing were performed on DNA isolated from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue samples of 64 patients histopathologically diagnosed as lung cancer after bronchoscopic biopsy.

RESULTS: In all, 20 patients (31.2%) had mutations in KRAS gene (8/27 squamous cell carcinoma, 8/11 adenocarcinoma, 3/16 small cell carcinoma, and 1/1 pleomorphic carcinoma). The most common mutation in codon 12 was in c.35G>T (G12V). When the mutation rate of adenocarcinoma (72.7%) and squamous cell carcinoma (22.9%) patients was compared with each other, a statistically significant difference was observed (P = 0.008). There were no mutations in codons 59, 117, or 146 of KRAS and NRAS genes in patients with lung cancer.

CONCLUSION: In this study, we firstly examined mutations in codons 59, 117, and 146 of KRAS and NRAS genes in addition to codons 12, 13, and 61 of KRAS gene in Turkish lung cancer patients both in non-small cell lung cancer and small cell lung cancer. Although no mutation was detected in codons 59, 117, and 146 of KRAS and NRAS genes, the frequency of KRAS gene mutation was higher than the rate of mutation in both Asian and Western countries, and multicenter studies including more cases should be performed to further explore our results.

PMID:34380837 | DOI:10.4103/ijc.IJC_766_19

Indian J Cancer. 2021 Jun 24. doi: 10.4103/ijc.IJC_1059_19. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: A comprehensive histopathology report of colorectal carcinoma surgery is important in cancer staging and planning adjuvant treatment. Our aim was to review histopathology reports of operated specimens of colorectal carcinoma in our institution between 2013 and 2015 to assess different histological parameters, including lymph node yield, and to evaluate compliance to minimum data sets.

METHODS: After approval by the institutional review board (IRB), we analyzed 1230 histopathology reports of colorectal carcinoma between 2013 and 2015. Various gross and microscopic findings (along with age, sex) were noted, for example, specimen type, tumor site, resection margins including circumferential resection margin (CRM), lymphovascular invasion, perineural invasion, pTNM stage, lymph node yield, etc.

RESULTS: Out of 1230 patients, 826 (67.15%) were men and 404 (32.85%) were women. The overall mean age was 52 (range: 18 – 90) years. There were 787 surgeries for rectal cancers. All reports commented on the type of specimen, tumor size (mean = 4.38 cm), proximal, and distal margins. Lymphovascular invasion (LVI) and the pT stage were mentioned in 98.06% and 99.84%, respectively. The overall mean lymph node yield was 18.38 (median = 15, range = 0-130 lymph nodes). A statistically significant difference in lymph node yield was detected between rectal and colonic cancer patients (14.79 and 27.26); post neoadjuvant therapy (NACT) cases, and NACT naive cases (13.51 and 25.11); and high tumor stage and low tumor stage disease (20.60 and 15.22). Not commenting on extramural vascular emboli, tumor budding, and CRM in non-rectal cancer cases were the lacunae.

CONCLUSION: Our compliance with minimal data sets is satisfactory. The overall mean lymph node yield was 18.38 (median = 15). Extramural vascular emboli, tumor budding need to be captured.

PMID:34380840 | DOI:10.4103/ijc.IJC_1059_19