Pregnancy-associated breast cancer - Special features in diagnosis and treatment

For obvious psychological reasons it is difficult to associate pregnancy - a life-giving period of our existence with life-threatening malignancies. Symptoms pointing to malignancy are often ignored by both patients and physicians, and this, together with the greater difficulty of diagnostic imaging, probably results in the proven delay in the detection of breast cancers during pregnancy. The diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer are becoming more and more important, as the fulfillment of the desire to have children is increasingly postponed until a later age associated with a higher risk of carcinoma, and improved cure rates of solid tumors no longer exclude subsequent pregnancies. The following article summarizes the special features of the diagnosis and primary therapy of pregnancy-associated breast cancer with particular consideration of cytostatic therapy

In-medium spectral change of omega mesons as a probe of QCD four-quark condensate

Within QCD sum rules at finite baryon density we show the crucial role of four-quark condensates for the in-medium modification of the omega meson spectral function. In particular, such a global property as the sign of the in-medium omega meson mass shift is found to be governed by a parameter which describes the strength of the density dependence of the four-quark condensate beyond mean-field approximation. To study self-consistently the broadening of the omega meson resonance we employ a hadron spectral function based on the omega meson propagator delivered by an effective chiral Lagrangian. Measurements of the omega meson spectral change in heavy-ion collisions with the HADES detector can reveal the yet unknown density dependence of the four-quark condensate

Methicillin-sensitive and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in pigs: (co-) colonization dynamics and clonal diversity

Methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus (S.) aureus (MSSA) and methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) are colonizers of skin and mucosa. In humans, MSSA and MRSA compete for colonization space in the anterior nares and one clone can be found rather than differing types of MSSA and MRSA. We investigated the colonization dynamics and clonality of both, MSSA and MRSA in pigs over a longer time period. Eighteen sows were nasally sampled three times every ten weeks. Additionally, environmental samples were taken. Samples were investigated for MSSA and MRSA, respectively. Spa-typing was done with up to five MRSA and MSSA isolates found per sample and time point; selected isolates were further investigated by microarray. 38.9 % of sows were infrequently MSSA/MRSA co-colonized and 16.7 % were permanent carriers of MSSA. The majority of sows showed a changing colonization status. CC398 and CC9 associated spa-types were exclusively found among MRSA and MSSA, respectively. In 44.4 % of sows at least two different types of MSSA were present at the same time and sample. Strains of the same clonal lineage showed a high genetic identity despite their origin. MSSA of different spa-types but 100 % identical microarray profiles were found in sows and their environment. Our results show that pigs may be colonized with MSSA and MRSA at the same time, i.e. that MSSA/MRSA do not exclude each other in the anterior nares of pigs. Highly identic clones are present in sows and their environment, but pigs can be colonized with different clones at the same time

Subthreshold phi-meson production in heavy-ion collisions

Within a transport code of BUU type the production of phi-mesons in the reactions Ni+Ni at 1.93 AGeV and Ru+Ru at 1.69 AGeV is studied. New elementary reaction channels rho+N(Delta) to phi+N and pi+N(1520) to phi+N are included. In spite of a substantial increase of the \phi multiplicities by these channels the results stay below the tentative numbers extracted from experimental data.Comment: 17 pages(LaTeX), two new figures adde

Indicators of implicit and explicit social anxiety influence threat-related interpretive bias as a function of working memory capacity

Interpretive biases play a crucial role in anxiety disorders. The aim of the current study was to examine factors that determine the relative strength of threat-related interpretive biases that are characteristic of individuals high in social anxiety. Different (dual process) models argue that both implicit and explicit processes determine information processing biases and behavior, and that their impact is moderated by the availability of executive resources such as working memory capacity (WMC). Based on these models, we expected indicators of implicit social anxiety to predict threat-related interpretive bias in individuals low, but not high in WMC. Indicators of explicit social anxiety should predict threat-related interpretive bias in individuals high, but not low in WMC. As expected, WMC moderated the impact of implicit social anxiety on threat-related interpretive bias, although the simple slope for individuals low in WMC was not statistically significant. The hypotheses regarding explicit social anxiety (with fear of negative evaluation used as an indicator) were fully supported. The clinical implications of these findings are discussed

Hostility, negative emotional valence, sadness, rumination to sadness and cardiovascular reactivity

The study's first goal investigated what type of thoughts and underlying emotions are exactly experienced by high versus low hostile participants following an anger provoking interpersonal stressor. Results revealed that high compared to low hostile participants experienced overall significantly more inferred thoughts of negative emotional valence; emotions that they did not express in a direct manner. It was suggested, that high hostiles might be high on the trait of Negative Affectivity. When specific emotion categories were analyzed, results revealed that high compared to low hostile individuals experienced overall more sad-inferred thoughts; sad thoughts that they did not express in a direct manner. Furthermore, the study found that high compared to low hostile participants ruminate more to sadness. The combined results of more sad-inferred thoughts and significantly more rumination to sadness, lends support to the interpretation, that high hostile individuals may be vulnerable for the development of sustained depressed mood and perhaps even depression. These results are important given that depression, even milder depressive symptoms have been found to be independent risk factors for cardiovascular disease in general and coronary heart disease in particular. This study did not find associations between cardiovascular reactivity and hostility or rumination to sadness. The absence of an association between hostility and cardiovascular reactivity is, however, consistent with the specific emotion category results found in this study. Research suggests that it is the high hostile's propensity to experience more frequent and more intense emotions in the anger category that is directly linked to heightened cardiovascular reactivity. This study did not find that anger-thoughts and anger intensities were significantly higher for high compared to low hostile participants following the anger provoking interpersonal stressor. It was suggested that the lack of heightened cardiovascular reactivity to interpersonal stress is due to the finding that the high hostile participants in this study did not experience more frequent and intense anger

In vivo efficacy of carvacrol on Campylobacter jejuni prevalence in broiler chickens during an entire fattening period

Carvacrol, a primary constituent of plant essential oils (EOs), and its antimicrobial activity have been the subject of many in vitro studies. Due to an increasing demand for alternative antimicrobials and an emerging number of antibiotic resistant bacteria, the use of essential oils has played a major role in many recent approaches to reduce Campylobacter colonization in poultry before slaughter age. For that purpose, the reducing effect of carvacrol on Campylobacter jejuni prevalence in broilers was determined in vivo in an experimental broiler chicken model during an entire fattening period. Carvacrol was added to the feed in a concentration of 120 mg/kg feed four days post hatch until the end of the trial. In this study, we demonstrated a statistically significant decrease of C. jejuni counts by 1.17 decadic logarithm (log10) most probable number (MPN)/g in cloacal swabs during starter and grower periods (corresponding to a broilers age between 1 and 28 days). Similar results were observed for colon enumeration at the end of the trial where C. jejuni counts were significantly reduced by 1.25 log10 MPN/g. However, carvacrol did not successfully reduce Campylobacter cecal colonization in 33-day-old broilers

Grid Workflow Modelling Using Grid-Specific BPEL Extensions

This paper discusses problems of Grid service composition using BPEL4WS. In particular, difficulties concerning the invocation of WSRF-based services are elucidated. A solution to this problem is presented by extending the BPEL specification, and an implementation based on the ActiveBPEL workflow enactment engine is described