Up-regulation of endocrine gland-derived vascular endothelial growth factor but not vascular endothelial growth factor in human ectopic endometriotic tissue

Objective: To study the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), endocrine gland-derived VEGF (EG-VEGF/PK1), and its receptors (PKR1 and PKR2) in eutopic and ectopic endometrial tissues. Design: A case-control study. Setting: University reproduction unit. Patient(s): Infertile women undergoing diagnostic laparoscopy for tubal patency. Intervention(s): Endometrial and endometriotic tissue sampling from women with and without endometriosis. Main Outcome Measure(s): Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis of genes in eutopic and ectopic endometrial tissues. The EG-VEGF protein was studied by immunohistochemistry. Result(s): In normal endometrium, EG-VEGF messenger RNA (mRNA) expression was 50-fold higher in the secretory than in the proliferative phase, but that of PKR1 was 6-fold higher in the latter than in the former. The PKR2 transcript was detected in the proliferative but not the secretory endometrium. In patients with endometriosis, eutopic endometrial PKR2 transcript level was 4-fold higher in the proliferative than in the secretory phase. No differences in EG-VEGF or PKR1 were found in proliferative versus secretory endometrium in these patients. There were no significant differences in the expression of EG-VEGF in eutopic endometrium of normal women and in those with endometriosis. In the paired laser-captured microdissected eutopic endometrial and ectopic endometriotic samples, a significantly higher EG-VEGF, but not VEGF, transcript level was detected in the ectopic when compared with eutopic samples; whereas the expressions of PKR1 and PKR2 were barely detectable. The H-scoring confirmed that the stroma of endometriotic samples had a significantly higher EG-VEGF protein expression than that in the paired eutopic endometrium. Conclusion(s): High levels of EG-VEGF expression may play an important role in angiogenesis in endometriotic tissues. © 2010 American Society for Reproductive Medicine.postprin

Test-retest reliability of a computer-assisted self-administered questionnaire on early life exposure in a nasopharyngeal carcinoma case-control study

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Factors predicting patient satisfaction in women with advanced breast cancer: a prospective study

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Eye movements and brain oscillations to symbolic safety signs with different comprehensibility

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate eye movements and brain oscillations to symbolic safety signs with different comprehensibility. Methods: Forty-two young adults participated in this study, and ten traffic symbols consisting of easy-to-comprehend and hard-to-comprehend signs were used as stimuli. During the sign comprehension test, real-time eye movements and spontaneous brain activity [electroencephalogram (EEG) data] were simultaneously recorded. Results: The comprehensibility level of symbolic traffic signs significantly affects eye movements and EEG spectral power. The harder to comprehend the sign is, the slower the blink rate, the larger the pupil diameter, and the longer the time to first fixation. Noticeable differences on EEG spectral power between easy-to-comprehend and hard-to-comprehend signs are observed in the prefrontal and visual cortex of the human brain. Conclusions: Sign comprehensibility has significant effects on real-time nonintrusive eye movements and brain oscillations. These findings demonstrate the potential to integrate physiological measures from eye movements and brain oscillations with existing evaluation methods in assessing the comprehensibility of symbolic safety signs.open

Taking two to tango:fMRI analysis of improvised joint action with physical contact

<div><p>Many forms of joint action involve physical coupling between the participants, such as when moving a sofa together or dancing a tango. We report the results of a novel two-person functional MRI study in which trained couple dancers engaged in bimanual contact with an experimenter standing next to the bore of the magnet, and in which the two alternated between being the leader and the follower of joint improvised movements. Leading showed a general pattern of self-orientation, being associated with brain areas involved in motor planning, navigation, sequencing, action monitoring, and error correction. In contrast, following showed a far more sensory, externally-oriented pattern, revealing areas involved in somatosensation, proprioception, motion tracking, social cognition, and outcome monitoring. We also had participants perform a “mutual” condition in which the movement patterns were pre-learned and the roles were symmetric, thereby minimizing any tendency toward either leading or following. The mutual condition showed greater activity in brain areas involved in mentalizing and social reward than did leading or following. Finally, the analysis of improvisation revealed the dual importance of motor-planning and working-memory areas. We discuss these results in terms of theories of both joint action and improvisation.</p></div

Hong Kong Chinese and Korean comprehension of American security safety symbols

This research evaluated Hong Kong Chinese and Korean comprehension of American security safety symbols, and how successfully they could guess the meaning of the symbols in relation to their ratings of the appropriateness of the design of each of the symbols. Symbol comprehension scores, symbol guessing scores, design appropriateness ratings, and demographic information were obtained for 81 Hong Kong Chinese and 60 Koreans. For all the symbols tested, comprehension scores for the Hong Kong Chinese and Koreans were much lower than for Americans. The finding that Americans were better at interpreting American symbols than Hong Kong Chinese and Koreans indicates that problems are likely to arise if such symbols are used by non-Americans. Gender did not affect guessing performance, and success at guessing symbols was not related to the subjective ratings of design appropriateness for the symbols. The findings here reveal the importance of developing security safety symbols with the end users in mind. Relevance to industry: Designing effective pictorial security safety symbols to cover the many potential situations and scenarios for a specific population is a difficult business. The findings of this study underline the importance of developing security safety symbols with the end users in mind, The results provide useful information to assist in the design of more user-friendly security safety symbols. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.X11710sciescopu

Liquid-Based Cytology and Conventional Cervical Smears: A Comparison Study in an Asian Screening Population

BACKGROUND. This study compared the findings of cervical cytology screening by ThinPrep Papanicoloau (Pap) tests (TP) with the findings of screening by conventional cervical smears (CS) in a screening population involving what to the authors' knowledge is the largest sample of ThinPrep Pap tests published to date. METHOD. Data from 191,581 CS that were screened in the period from March 1, 1998 to February 28, 2000 were compared with data from 190,667 TP performed from March 1, 2000 to February 28, 2002 and that were obtained from the same sources. RESULTS. With TP, the unsatisfactory rate was reduced from 0.48% to 0.32%. Fewer cases were considered to be suboptimal (19.12% vs. 12.97%). The detection rates of squamous cell carinomas, adenocarcinomas, and high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HSIL) were essentially unchanged in the TP group (0.005%, 0.003%, and 0.25%, respectively) compared with the rates for the CS group (0.01%, 0.006%, and 0.25%, respectively). There was an increase in the detection of atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASCUS; 3.74% vs. 3.19%) and low-grade SIL (LSIL; 1.67% vs. 1.01%) with a decrease in the ASCUS-to-LSIL ratio from 3.15 for CS to 2.33 for TP. The detection of atypical glandular cells of undetermined significance (AGUS) increased slightly from 0.07% to 0.09%. The proportion of cells reported to have reactive atypia dropped from 2.71% to 1.48%. Limited biopsy correlation (range, 73.2-76.2%) confirmed the increased sensitivity of TP. More actinomyces (1.07% vs. 0.52%) were detected in TP samples despite of a similar portion of intrauterine-device users. The average primary screening and rapid rescreening time of each slide were reduced from 8 minutes to 4 minutes and from 2 minutes to less than 1 minute, respectively. CONCLUSIONS. The preliminary experience of the authors of the current studys appears to support the use of the ThinPrep Pap test to enhance the efficiency of cervical cytology screening. © 2003 American Cancer Society.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Toxicity of docetaxel plus cyclophosphamide as adjuvant therapy for breast cancer in Chinese patients - The Hong Kong experience

Aims: The docetaxel and cyclophosphamide (TC) regimen is increasingly popular as adjuvant chemotherapy for operable breast cancers. We conducted a retrospective study in Hong Kong to evaluate the toxicity of this regimen in Chinese patients. Methods: Between January 2007 and May 2008 76 female Chinese patients with resected stage I-III operated invasive breast cancer were treated with 4 cycles of TC (75 and 600 mg/m2, respectively, administered i.v. every 3 weeks for four cycles) in two public regional cancer centers of Hong Kong. A total of 24 (32%) patients also received primary prophylactic ciprofloxacin (500 mg twice daily, day 5-14). Chemotherapy-related toxicities were graded by the CTCAE version 3.0. Results: The median age was 50 (range 26-67). A total of 68 (89%) patients successfully completed four cycles of chemotherapy. 72 (95%) and 16 (21%) patients developed grade 3-4 neutropenia and febrile neutropenia (FN) infection, respectively, in one or more cycles. However, no grade 3-4 anemia or thrombocytopenia events were observed. Other grade 3-4 non-hematological toxicities were also uncommon, apart from allergic reactions in two (3%) patients. No viral reactivation was observed among the 8 hepatitis B carriers. Patients with prophylactic ciprofloxacin had less grade 3-4 FN infection (13% vs 25%, P = 0.214) and a higher chance of receiving the full scheduled dose (88% vs 62%, P = 0.045) than patients without. Conclusion: The myelotoxicity of TC was substantially higher in Chinese patients compared with non-Chinese patients in developed countries. Routine prophylactic measures are recommended to maintain the dose levels and reduce the risk of FN. © Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.link_to_subscribed_fulltex