Morbidity after surgical management of cervical cancer in low and middle income countries: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective: To investigate morbidity for patients after the primary surgical management of cervical cancer in low and middle-income countries (LMIC). Methods: The Pubmed, Cochrane, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Embase, LILACS and CINAHL were searched for published studies from 1st Jan 2000 to 30th June 2017 reporting outcomes of surgical management of cervical cancer in LMIC. Randomeffects meta-analytical models were used to calculate pooled estimates of surgical complications including blood transfusions, ureteric, bladder, bowel, vascular and nerve injury, fistulae and thromboembolic events. Secondary outcomes included five-year progression free (PFS) and overall survival (OS). Findings: Data were available for 46 studies, including 10,847 patients from 11 middle income countries. Pooled estimates were: blood transfusion 29% (95%CI 0.19–0.41, P = 0.00, I 2 = 97.81), nerve injury 1% (95%CI 0.00–0.03, I 2 77.80, P = 0.00), bowel injury, 0.5% (95%CI 0.01–0.01, I 2 = 0.00, P = 0.77), bladder injury 1% (95%CI 0.01–0.02, P = 0.10, I 2 = 32.2), ureteric injury 1% (95%CI 0.01–0.01, I 2 0.00, P = 0.64), vascular injury 2% (95% CI 0.01– 0.03, I 2 60.22, P = 0.00), fistula 2% (95%CI 0.01–0.03, I 2 = 77.32, P = 0.00,), pulmonary embolism 0.4% (95%CI 0.00–0.01, I 2 26.69, P = 0.25), and infection 8% (95%CI 0.04–0.12, 2 95.72, P = 0.00). 5-year PFS was 83% for laparotomy, 84% for laparoscopy and OS was 85% for laparotomy cases and 80% for laparoscopy. Conclusion: This is the first systematic review and meta-analysis of surgical morbidity in cervical cancer in LMIC, which highlights the limitations of the current data and provides a benchmark for future health services research and policy implementation

Taxonomy of mayapple rust: the genus Allodus resurrected

Mayapple rust is a common, disfiguring disease that is widespread in temperate eastern North America wherever the host, Podophyllum peltatum, occurs. Puccinia podophylli, the etiological agent of this rust, has been shown to be distantly related to both Puccinia and Uromyces as exemplified by their types. A systematic study was made to determine the generic classification of P. podophylli. Phylogenetic analyses of two rDNA loci from multiple specimens support the recognition of this taxon as a separate genus of Pucciniaceae. Based on historical literature and type material, P. podophylli was found to represent the type of the forgotten genus Allodus and it is correctly named Allodus podophylli. A neotype is designated for Puccinia podophylli Schwein. (; Allodus podophylli) and a lectotype is designated for Aecidium podophylli

Speckle Statistics in Adaptively Corrected Images

(abridged) Imaging observations are generally affected by a fluctuating background of speckles, a particular problem when detecting faint stellar companions at small angular separations. Knowing the distribution of the speckle intensities at a given location in the image plane is important for understanding the noise limits of companion detection. The speckle noise limit in a long-exposure image is characterized by the intensity variance and the speckle lifetime. In this paper we address the former quantity through the distribution function of speckle intensity. Previous theoretical work has predicted a form for this distribution function at a single location in the image plane. We developed a fast readout mode to take short exposures of stellar images corrected by adaptive optics at the ground-based UCO/Lick Observatory, with integration times of 5 ms and a time between successive frames of 14.5 ms ($\lambda=2.2$ $\mu$m). These observations temporally oversample and spatially Nyquist sample the observed speckle patterns. We show, for various locations in the image plane, the observed distribution of speckle intensities is consistent with the predicted form. Additionally, we demonstrate a method by which $I_c$ and $I_s$ can be mapped over the image plane. As the quantity $I_c$ is proportional to the PSF of the telescope free of random atmospheric aberrations, this method can be used for PSF calibration and reconstruction.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, ApJ accepte

Ferritin Decorated PLGA/Paclitaxel Loaded Nanoparticles Endowed with an Enhanced Toxicity Toward MCF-7 Breast Tumor Cells

PolyLactic and Glycolic Acid nanoparticles (PLGA-NPs), coated with L-Ferritin,are exploited for the simultaneous delivery of paclitaxel and an amphiphilic Gd based MRI contrast agent into breast cancer cells (MCF7). L-Ferritin has been covalently conjugated to the external surface of PLGA-NPs exploiting NHS activated carboxylic groups. The results confirmed that nanoparticles decorated with L-Ferritin have many advantages with respect both albumin-decorated and non-decorated particles. Ferritin moieties endow PLGA-NPs with targeting capability, exploiting SCARA5 receptors overexpressed by these tumour cells, that results in an increased paclitaxel cytotoxicity. Moreover, protein coating increased nanoparticle stability thus reducing the fast and aspecific drug release before reaching the target. The theranostic potentiality of the nanoparticles has been demonstrated by evaluating the signal intensity enhancement on T1-weighted MRI images of labelled MCF7 cells. The results werecompared with that obtained with MDA cells used as negative control due to their lower SCARA5 expression.Fil: Turino, Ludmila Noelia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico para la Industria Química; ArgentinaFil: Ruggiero, Maria R.. Universita di Torino; ItaliaFil: Stefanìa, Rachele. Universita di Torino; ItaliaFil: Cutrin, Juan C.. Universita di Torino; ItaliaFil: Aime, Silvio. Universita di Torino; ItaliaFil: Geninatti Crich, Simonetta. Universita di Torino; Itali

Adaptive optics in high-contrast imaging

The development of adaptive optics (AO) played a major role in modern astronomy over the last three decades. By compensating for the atmospheric turbulence, these systems enable to reach the diffraction limit on large telescopes. In this review, we will focus on high contrast applications of adaptive optics, namely, imaging the close vicinity of bright stellar objects and revealing regions otherwise hidden within the turbulent halo of the atmosphere to look for objects with a contrast ratio lower than 10^-4 with respect to the central star. Such high-contrast AO-corrected observations have led to fundamental results in our current understanding of planetary formation and evolution as well as stellar evolution. AO systems equipped three generations of instruments, from the first pioneering experiments in the nineties, to the first wave of instruments on 8m-class telescopes in the years 2000, and finally to the extreme AO systems that have recently started operations. Along with high-contrast techniques, AO enables to reveal the circumstellar environment: massive protoplanetary disks featuring spiral arms, gaps or other asymmetries hinting at on-going planet formation, young giant planets shining in thermal emission, or tenuous debris disks and micron-sized dust leftover from collisions in massive asteroid-belt analogs. After introducing the science case and technical requirements, we will review the architecture of standard and extreme AO systems, before presenting a few selected science highlights obtained with recent AO instruments.Comment: 24 pages, 14 figure

A novel class of 1H-MRI Contrast Agents based on the relaxation enhancement induced on water protons by 14N imidazole moieties

Acknowledgements: This project has received funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 668119 (project “IDentIFY”) and from the ATTRACT project funded by the EC under Grant Agreement No.777222. This work was performed in the frame of the COST Action AC15209 (EURELAX). The Italian Ministry for Educationand Research (MIUR) is gratefully acknowledged for yearly FOE funding to the Euro-BioImaging Multi-Modal Molecular Imaging Italian Node (MMMI).Peer reviewedPostprin