Treatment of fibrolamellar hepatoma with partial or total hepatectomy and transplantation of the liver

Fourteen patients with fibrolamellar hepatoma were treated with radical excision. In eight, a subtotal hepatic resection was performed from 16 months to more than 16 years ago. None of the patients have died and recurrences have been seen in only one patient. Six other patients had total hepatectomy and hepatic replacement. Two of these six patients have died of metastases and a third is living with recurrent tumor. This experience has justified the continuing use of quite aggressive extirpative procedures for the treatment of fibrolamellar hepatoma

Production, purification and partial characterization of lipase from Trichoderma Viride

A new strain of lipolytic Trichoderma viride was isolated from the soil on a selective mediumthat contained olive oil as the only source of carbon and energy. The isolated strain was cultivated for lipase production in shake flasks at 30±1oC and the fermentation pattern was studied. The maximum extracellular lipase activity of 7.3 U/mL and the maximum intracellularactivity of 320 U/g mycelium were noted after 48 h. Although maximum fungal biomass was present at 13.6 g/L at 60 h but highest specific growth rate was observed between 6 and 18 h.The extracellular lipase present in the broth was purified 134-folds with an overall yield of 46% through purification procedure of ammonium sulphate precipitation, ion exchange and gelpermeation chromatography. The Km value of the purified enzyme for triolein hydrolysis was found to be 1.229 m.mole/L

Pancreaticoduodenal transplantation in humans

Whole cadaveric pancreata were transplanted to the pelvic extraperitoneal location in four patients with diabetes who previously had undergone successful cadaveric renal transplantation. One graft was lost within a few hours from venous thrombosis but with patient survival. The other three are providing normal endocrine function after two and a half, 11 and 12 months. The exocrine pancreatic secretions were drained into the recipient jejunum through enteric anastomoses. Because mucosal slough of the graft and duodenum and jejunum in two patients caused a protein losing enteropathy and necessitated reoperations, we now do the pancreatic transplantation with only a blister of graft duodenum large enough for side-to-side enteroenterostomy. The spleen has been transplanted with the pancreas mainly for technical reasons, and this technique should have further trials in spite of the fact that delayed graft splenectomy became necessary in two recipients to treat graft induced hematologic complications

BORIS/CTCFL is an RNA-binding protein that associates with polysomes

© 2013 Ogunkolade et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

A Sustainability Framework for Engineering Carbon Capture Soil In Transport Infrastructure

Recent research has demonstrated considerable potential for artificial soils to be designed for carbon capture. The incorporation of quarry fines enables the accumulation of atmospheric CO2 in newly formed carbonate minerals. However, the rate and trajectory of carbon accumulation has been little studied. The relative contribution of biotic (e.g. vegetation, micro-organisms) and abiotic (water, light, temperature) factors to the carbonation process is also unknown. This article presents a sustainability framework which aims to determine the multi-functionality of soils to which fines have been added not only in their role as carbon sinks but also in their role of providing additional opportunities for improvement to ecosystem services. Such frameworks are required specifically where land designed for CO2 capture must also provide other ecosystem services, such as flood mitigation and biodiversity conservation. land within linear transport infrastructure provides a case study, focusing on 238,000 ha of vegetated land associated with roadside verges in the UK. Hypothetically this area could remove 2.5 t CO2 per year from the atmosphere, equivalent to 1% 2011 total UK emissions or 2% of current transport emissions and saving an equivalent of £1.1 billion in non-traded mitigation values. roadside verges should be designed to minimize flooding onto the highway and perform other important functions such as removal of dust and suspended solids from surface waters. Vegetation on 30,000 ha of railway land also provides opportunities for carbon sequestration, but management of this vegetation is subject to similar constraints to protect the rail tracks from debris extending from autumn leaves to fallen trees

Reversibility of lymphomas and lymphoproliferative lesions developing under cyclosporin-steroid therapy

Post-transplant lymphomas or other lymphoproliferative lesions, which were usually associated with Epstein-Barr virus infections, developed in 8, 4, 3, and 2 recipients, respectively, of cadaveric kidney, liver, heart, and heart-lung homografts. Reduction or discontinuance of immunosuppression caused regression of the lesions, often without subsequent rejection of the grafts. Chemotherapy and irradiation were not valuable. The findings may influence policies about treating other kinds of post-transplantation neoplasms

Reminder systems for self uterine massage in the prevention of postpartum blood loss

Background: Uterine massage may significantly reduce post partum blood loss and could be patient-driven.Objective: To assess the effectiveness of an alarm reminder system for self uterine massage in the prevention of post partum blood loss.Design: A random controlled trial.Setting: Meru District Hospital, Kenya.Subjects: One hundred and twenty seven (127) women were randomly assigned to a 15 minute alarm reminder system (71) and non-alarm (56) control arm during the fourth stage of labour.Results: Uterine massage compliance was better in the alarm group compared to the non-alarm group ( Average massage of seven and two in two hours respectively P-value <0.0001), however the difference in blood loss was not significant 45.6 ml (95% CI 43-46) vs 47.1 ml (95% CI 43-52)ml p-value 0.892.Conclusion: Uterine massage compliance is remarkably increased by the use of an alarm reminder

Management of singlet and triplet excitons for efficient white organic light-emitting devices

Lighting accounts for approximately 22 per cent of the electricity consumed in buildings in the United States, with 40 per cent of that amount consumed by inefficient (similar to 15 lm W-1) incandescent lamps(1,2). This has generated increased interest in the use of white electroluminescent organic light-emitting devices, owing to their potential for significantly improved efficiency over incandescent sources combined with low-cost, high-throughput manufacturability. The most impressive characteristics of such devices reported to date have been achieved in all-phosphor-doped devices, which have the potential for 100 per cent internal quantum efficiency(2): the phosphorescent molecules harness the triplet excitons that constitute three-quarters of the bound electron-hole pairs that form during charge injection, and which (unlike the remaining singlet excitons) would otherwise recombine non-radiatively. Here we introduce a different device concept that exploits a blue fluorescent molecule in exchange for a phosphorescent dopant, in combination with green and red phosphor dopants, to yield high power efficiency and stable colour balance, while maintaining the potential for unity internal quantum efficiency. Two distinct modes of energy transfer within this device serve to channel nearly all of the triplet energy to the phosphorescent dopants, retaining the singlet energy exclusively on the blue fluorescent dopant. Additionally, eliminating the exchange energy loss to the blue fluorophore allows for roughly 20 per cent increased power efficiency compared to a fully phosphorescent device. Our device challenges incandescent sources by exhibiting total external quantum and power efficiencies that peak at 18.7 +/- 0.5 per cent and 37.6 +/- 0.6 lm W-1, respectively, decreasing to 18.4 +/- 0.5 per cent and 23.8 +/- 0.5 lm W-1 at a high luminance of 500 cd m(-2).Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/62889/1/nature04645.pd

Sputum smear positivity among patients presenting to the dots clinic with chronic cough

Cough is one of the cardinal features of Pulmonary Tuberculosis (PTB). However, even in communities with high prevalence of TB, lung diseases other than TB appear to account for this symptom. Objective: To estimate the prevalence of sputum smear positivity among patients with TB who presented with complaints of chronic cough to the Directly Observed Therapy Short Course (DOTS) clinic at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital, North Eastern Nigeria. Methodology: A cross sectional study was conducted at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH) Borno state, Northeastern Nigeria between September 2014 and January 2017. All patients (new or previously treated) who presented to the DOTS clinic of the UMTH with complaints of chronic cough and had screening for pulmonary TB using sputum smear microscopy were reviewed. The minimum and the maximum ages were 1 year and 85 years, respectively, and the mean age was 36.0 (SD=14.0) years. The mean age did not differ among the male and female patients (i.e.37.3 ± 14.4 vs 34.1 ± 13.2, p=0.78). The overall prevalence of sputum smear positivity for TB was 26.5%. Although majority of patients who were sputum smear positive for TB fell within the age groups 30-39 and 20-29 thus accounting for 42.6% and 28.7% respectively, however, there was no significant association between age of those with chronic cough and sputum smear positivity TB (p=0.80). Among those who were sputum smear positive, 24.3% were new cases and 2.2% were previously treated. Conclusions: Data were entered into a computer database and analyzed with SPSS version 20.0 statistical software. Results: This study showed a high prevalence of sputum smear positivity among suspected TB patients with complaints of chronic cough This could be explained by the fact that the DOTS strategy has improved the case detection of PTB in this community. All patients with chronic cough should be evaluated for PTB

A fixed-target platform for serial femtosecond crystallography in a hydrated environment.

For serial femtosecond crystallography at X-ray free-electron lasers, which entails collection of single-pulse diffraction patterns from a constantly refreshed supply of microcrystalline sample, delivery of the sample into the X-ray beam path while maintaining low background remains a technical challenge for some experiments, especially where this methodology is applied to relatively low-ordered samples or those difficult to purify and crystallize in large quantities. This work demonstrates a scheme to encapsulate biological samples using polymer thin films and graphene to maintain sample hydration in vacuum conditions. The encapsulated sample is delivered into the X-ray beam on fixed targets for rapid scanning using the Roadrunner fixed-target system towards a long-term goal of low-background measurements on weakly diffracting samples. As a proof of principle, we used microcrystals of the 24 kDa rapid encystment protein (REP24) to provide a benchmark for polymer/graphene sandwich performance. The REP24 microcrystal unit cell obtained from our sandwiched in-vacuum sample was consistent with previously established unit-cell parameters and with those measured by us without encapsulation in humidified helium, indicating that the platform is robust against evaporative losses. While significant scattering from water was observed because of the sample-deposition method, the polymer/graphene sandwich itself was shown to contribute minimally to background scattering