Substantial Dose-response Relationship with Clinical Outcome for Lung Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy (SBRT) Delivered via Online Image Guidance

Purpose: To examine potential tumor dose-response relationships with various non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) SBRT fractionation regimens delivered with online CT-based image guidance. American Society for Therapeutic Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) 52nd Annual Meeting October 31 - November 4, San Diego, C

Steel waste valorisation Steel Slag Waste Effect on Concrete Shrinkage

The concept of sustainability is becoming widespread every day in society, enterprises and institutions. Defining something as sustainable means that the relationship that it establishes with the environment does not represent an aggression or a threat to the latter neither when it is being utilized nor when it stops performing the function for which was designed. To make this happen we need a system in which the main priority is recycling. Everything mentioned above is related to what is called the “Circular Economy”. Concrete is one of the most widely used construction materials in the world. However, the production of portland cement, an essential constituent of concrete, leads to the release of significant amounts of CO22. The global production of concrete represents more than 5% of the anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide every year, mainly from the production of cement. The replacement of cement by fly ash and other industrial waste, such as steel slags, is a good example of how resource conservation can be improved and contamination can be reduced. On the other hand, future trends are predicted to increase demand for steel worldwide. Mainly due to the expected improvement in the living standards and demands of underdeveloped populations. The steelmaking process produces a by-product called slag ranging from 10 to 15% per tonne of steel, where reuse is still reduced and much of it is deposited in a landfill. This study presents laboratory test results on the total and autogenous shrinkage of medium strength concrete with partial replacement of cement by slags. Two different slags were tested, namely ladle furnaces slags (LFS) and ground granulated blast furnace slags (GGBFS). The results show the concrete shrinkage behavior when 25% of substitution are used. These data are important to predict future behavior and show that for the substitution dosages used there are no significant divergences for the shrinkage.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

A Multi-national Pooled Analysis of 434 Cases of Stage I Non-small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) Treated with Volumetrically Image-guided Stereotactic Lung Radiotherapy: Results from the Elekta Collaborative Lung Research Group

Background: Published lung SBRT outcomes/dose response data for inoperable NSCLC come from small phase I-II studies or larger datasets not requiring image-guided radiotherapy (IGRT) or volumetric prescriptions. This entire cohort of SBRT patients had daily online cone-beam CT. American Society for Therapeutic Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) 52nd Annual Meeting October 31 - November 4, San Diego, C

Time Interval Between Staging FDG Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Initiation of Stereotactic Lung Radiotherapy (SBRT) Impacts the Risk of Recurrence and Metastasis in Non-small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC)

Background: To study influence of time interval from staging PET scanning to RT start time on recurrence and survival in patients with NSCLC undergoing lung SBRT. American Society for Therapeutic Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) 52nd Annual Meeting October 31 - November 4, San Diego, C

Biomarkers in atopic dermatitis—a review on behalf of the International Eczema Council

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a common yet complex skin disease, posing a therapeutic challenge with increasingly recognized different phenotypes among variable patient populations. Because therapeutic response may vary on the basis of heterogeneous clinical and molecular phenotypes, a shift toward precision medicine approaches may improve AD management. Herein, we will consider biomarkers as potential instruments in the toolbox of precision medicine in AD and will review the process of biomarker development and validation, the opinion of AD experts on the use of biomarkers, types of biomarkers, encompassing biomarkers that may improve AD diagnosis, biomarkers reflecting disease severity, and those potentially predicting AD development, concomitant atopic diseases, or therapeutic response, and current practice of biomarkers in AD. We found that chemokine C-C motif ligand 17/thymus and activation-regulated chemokine, a chemoattractant of TH2 cells, has currently the greatest evidence for robust correlation with AD clinical severity, at both baseline and during therapy, by using the recommendations, assessment, development, and evaluation approach. Although the potential of biomarkers in AD is yet to be fully elucidated, due to the complex

Sodium/myo-Inositol Transporters: Substrate Transport Requirements and Regional Brain Expression in the TgCRND8 Mouse Model of Amyloid Pathology

Inositol stereoisomers, myo- and scyllo-inositol, are known to enter the brain and are significantly elevated following oral administration. Elevations in brain inositol levels occur across a concentration gradient as a result of active transport from the periphery. There are two sodium/myo-inositol transporters (SMIT1, SMIT2) that may be responsible for regulating brain inositol levels. The goals of this study were to determine the effects of aging and Alzheimer's disease (AD)-like amyloid pathology on transporter expression, to compare regional expression and to analyze substrate requirements of the inositol transporters. QPCR was used to examine expression of the two transporters in the cortex, hippocampus and cerebellum of TgCRND8 mice, a mouse model of amyloid pathology, in comparison to non-transgenic littermates. In addition, we examined the structural features of inositol required for active transport, utilizing a cell-based competitive uptake assay. Disease pathology did not alter transporter expression in the cortex or hippocampus (p>0.005), with only minimal effects of aging observed in the cerebellum (SMIT1: F2,26 = 12.62; p = 0.0002; SMIT2: F2,26 = 8.71; p = 0.0015). Overall, brain SMIT1 levels were higher than SMIT2, however, regional differences were observed. For SMIT1, at 4 and 6 months cerebellar SMIT1 levels were significantly higher than cortical and hippocampal levels (p<0.05). For SMIT2, at all three ages both cortical and cerebellar SMIT2 levels were significantly higher than hippocampal levels (p<0.05) and at 4 and 6 months of age, cerebellar SMIT2 levels were also significantly higher than cortical levels (p<0.05). Inositol transporter levels are stably expressed as a function of age, and expression is unaltered with disease pathology in the TgCRND8 mouse. Given the fact that scyllo-inositol is currently in clinical trials for the treatment of AD, the stable expression of inositol transporters regardless of disease pathology is an important finding

Optimizing the two-step floating catchment area method for measuring spatial accessibility to medical clinics in Montreal

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Reducing spatial access disparities to healthcare services is a growing priority for healthcare planners especially among developed countries with aging populations. There is thus a pressing need to determine which populations do not enjoy access to healthcare, yet efforts to quantify such disparities in spatial accessibility have been hampered by a lack of satisfactory measurements and methods. This study compares an optimised and the conventional version of the two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method to assess spatial accessibility to medical clinics in Montreal.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We first computed catchments around existing medical clinics of Montreal Island based on the shortest network distance. Population nested in dissemination areas were used to determine potential users of a given medical clinic. To optimize the method, medical clinics (supply) were weighted by the number of physicians working in each clinic, while the previous year's medical clinic users were computed by ten years age group was used as weighting coefficient for potential users of each medical clinic (demand).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The spatial accessibility score (SA) increased considerably with the optimisation method. Within a distance of 1 Km, for instance, the maximum clinic accessible for 1,000 persons is 2.4 when the conventional method is used, compared with 27.7 for the optimized method. The t-test indicates a significant difference between the conventional and the optimized 2SFCA methods. Also, results of the differences between the two methods reveal a clustering of residuals when distance increases. In other words, a low threshold would be associated with a lack of precision.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Results of this study suggest that a greater effort must be made ameliorate spatial accessibility to medical clinics in Montreal. To ensure that health resources are allocated in the interest of the population, health planners and the government should consider a strategy in the sitting of future clinics which would provide spatial access to the greatest number of people.</p

PathogenMip Assay: A Multiplex Pathogen Detection Assay

The Molecular Inversion Probe (MIP) assay has been previously applied to a large-scale human SNP detection. Here we describe the PathogenMip Assay, a complete protocol for probe production and applied approaches to pathogen detection. We have demonstrated the utility of this assay with an initial set of 24 probes targeting the most clinically relevant HPV genotypes associated with cervical cancer progression. Probe construction was based on a novel, cost-effective, ligase-based protocol. The assay was validated by performing pyrosequencing and Microarray chip detection in parallel experiments. HPV plasmids were used to validate sensitivity and selectivity of the assay. In addition, 20 genomic DNA extracts from primary tumors were genotyped with the PathogenMip Assay results and were in 100% agreement with conventional sequencing using an L1-based HPV genotyping protocol. The PathogenMip Assay is a widely accessible protocol for producing and using highly discriminating probes, with experimentally validated results in pathogen genotyping, which could potentially be applied to the detection and characterization of any microbe