Frameless stereotactic biopsy for precision neurosurgery : diagnostic value, safety, and accuracy

BACKGROUND: Stereotactic biopsy is consistently employed to characterize cerebral lesions in patients who are not suitable for microsurgical resection. In the past years, technical improvement and neuroimaging advancements contributed to increase the diagnostic yield, the safety, and the application of this procedure. Currently, in addition to histological diagnosis, the molecular analysis is considered essential in the diagnostic process to properly select therapeutic and prognostic algorithms in a personalized approach. The present study reports our experience with frameless stereotactic brain biopsy in this molecular era. METHODS: One hundred forty consecutive patients treated from January 2013 to September 2018 were analyzed. Biopsies were performed using the Brainlab Varioguide\uae frameless stereotactic system. Patients' clinical and demographic data, the time of occupation of the operating room, the surgical time, the morbidity, and the diagnostic yield in providing a histological and molecular diagnosis were recorded and evaluated. RESULTS: The overall diagnostic yield was 93.6% with nine procedures resulting non-diagnostic. Among 110 patients with glioma, the IDH-1 mutational status was characterized in 108 cases (98.2%), resulting wild-type in all subjects but 3; MGMT methylation was characterized in 96 cases (87.3%), resulting present in 60 patients, and 1p/19q codeletion was founded in 6 of the 20 cases of grade II-III gliomas analyzed. All the specimens were apt for molecular analysis when performed. Bleeding requiring surgical drainage occurred in 2.1% of the cases; 8 (5.7%) asymptomatic hemorrhages requiring no treatment were observed. No biopsy-related mortality was recorded. Median length of hospital stay was 5 days (IQR 4-8) with mean surgical time of 60.77 min (\ub1\u200923.12) and 137.44\u2009\ub1\u200924.1 min of total occupation time of the operative room. CONCLUSIONS: Stereotactic frameless biopsy is a safe, feasible, and fast procedure to obtain a histological and molecular diagnosis

How much does size really matter? Exploring the limits of graphene as Li ion battery anode material

Abstract We unravel the role of flake dimensionality on the lithiation/de-lithiation processes and electrochemical performance of anodes based on few-(FLG) and multi-layer graphene (MLG) flakes prepared by liquid phase exfoliation (LPE) of pristine graphite. The flakes are sorted by lateral size (from 380 to 75 nm) and thickness from 20 (MLG) to 2 nm (FLG) exploiting a sedimentation-based separation in centrifugal field and, finally, deposited onto Cu disks for the realization of four binder-free anodes. The electrochemical results show that decreasing lateral size and thickness leads to an increase of the initial specific capacity from ≈590 to ≈1270mAhg −1 . However, an increasing irreversible capacity is also associated to the reduction of flakes' size. We find, in addition, that the preferential Li ions storage by adsorption rather than intercalation in small lateral size

Rothmund-Thomson syndrome: Insights from new patients on the genetic variability underpinning clinical presentation and cancer outcome

Biallelic mutations in RECQL4 gene, a caretaker of the genome, cause Rothmund-Thomson type-II syndrome (RTS-II) and confer increased cancer risk if they damage the helicase domain. We describe five families exemplifying clinical and allelic heterogeneity of RTS-II, and report the effect of pathogenic RECQL4 variants by in silico predictions and transcripts analyses. Complete phenotype of patients #39 and #42 whose affected siblings developed osteosarcoma correlates with their c.[1048_1049del], c.[1878+32_1878+55del] and c.[1568G>C;1573delT], c.[3021_3022del] variants which damage the helicase domain. Literature survey highlights enrichment of these variants affecting the helicase domain in patients with cancer outcome raising the issue of strict oncological surveillance. Conversely, patients #29 and #19 have a mild phenotype and carry, respectively, the unreported homozygous c.3265G>T and c.3054A>G variants, both sparing the helicase domain. Finally, despite matching several criteria for RTS clinical diagnosis, patient #38 is heterozygous for c.2412_2414del, no pathogenic CNVs out of those evidenced by high-resolution CGH-array, emerged as contributors to her phenotype

The exposure of the hybrid detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory

The Pierre Auger Observatory is a detector for ultra-high energy cosmic rays. It consists of a surface array to measure secondary particles at ground level and a fluorescence detector to measure the development of air showers in the atmosphere above the array. The "hybrid" detection mode combines the information from the two subsystems. We describe the determination of the hybrid exposure for events observed by the fluorescence telescopes in coincidence with at least one water-Cherenkov detector of the surface array. A detailed knowledge of the time dependence of the detection operations is crucial for an accurate evaluation of the exposure. We discuss the relevance of monitoring data collected during operations, such as the status of the fluorescence detector, background light and atmospheric conditions, that are used in both simulation and reconstruction.Comment: Paper accepted by Astroparticle Physic

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp. Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02

ESGO/ESTRO/ESP guidelines for the management of patients with endometrial carcinoma

Biological, physical and clinical aspects of cancer treatment with ionising radiatio

The BRCA2 c.68-7T > A variant is not pathogenic : A model for clinical calibration of spliceogenicity

Although the spliceogenic nature of the BRCA2 c.68-7T > A variant has been demonstrated, its association with cancer risk remains controversial. In this study, we accurately quantified by real-time PCR and digital PCR (dPCR), the BRCA2 isoforms retaining or missing exon 3. In addition, the combined odds ratio for causality of the variant was estimated using genetic and clinical data, and its associated cancer risk was estimated by case-control analysis in 83,636 individuals. Co-occurrence in trans with pathogenic BRCA2 variants was assessed in 5,382 families. Exon 3 exclusion rate was 4.5-fold higher in variant carriers (13%) than controls (3%), indicating an exclusion rate for the c.68-7T > A allele of approximately 20%. The posterior probability of pathogenicity was 7.44x10(-115). There was neither evidence for increased risk of breast cancer (OR 1.03; 95% CI 0.86-1.24) nor for a deleterious effect of the variant when co-occurring with pathogenic variants. Our data provide for the first time robust evidence of the nonpathogenicity of the BRCA2 c.68-7T > A. Genetic and quantitative transcript analyses together inform the threshold for the ratio between functional and altered BRCA2 isoforms compatible with normal cell function. These findings might be exploited to assess the relevance for cancer risk of other BRCA2 spliceogenic variants.Peer reviewe

Star clusters near and far; tracing star formation across cosmic time

© 2020 Springer-Verlag. The final publication is available at Springer via https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-020-00690-x.Star clusters are fundamental units of stellar feedback and unique tracers of their host galactic properties. In this review, we will first focus on their constituents, i.e.\ detailed insight into their stellar populations and their surrounding ionised, warm, neutral, and molecular gas. We, then, move beyond the Local Group to review star cluster populations at various evolutionary stages, and in diverse galactic environmental conditions accessible in the local Universe. At high redshift, where conditions for cluster formation and evolution are more extreme, we are only able to observe the integrated light of a handful of objects that we believe will become globular clusters. We therefore discuss how numerical and analytical methods, informed by the observed properties of cluster populations in the local Universe, are used to develop sophisticated simulations potentially capable of disentangling the genetic map of galaxy formation and assembly that is carried by globular cluster populations.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio