Bladder cancer index: cross-cultural adaptation into Spanish and psychometric evaluation

BACKGROUND: The Bladder Cancer Index (BCI) is so far the only instrument applicable across all bladder cancer patients, independent of tumor infiltration or treatment applied. We developed a Spanish version of the BCI, and assessed its acceptability and metric properties. METHODS: For the adaptation into Spanish we used the forward and back-translation method, expert panels, and cognitive debriefing patient interviews. For the assessment of metric properties we used data from 197 bladder cancer patients from a multi-center prospective study. The Spanish BCI and the SF-36 Health Survey were self-administered before and 12 months after treatment. Reliability was estimated by Cronbach's alpha. Construct validity was assessed through the multi-trait multi-method matrix. The magnitude of change was quantified by effect sizes to assess responsiveness. RESULTS: Reliability coefficients ranged 0.75-0.97. The validity analysis confirmed moderate associations between the BCI function and bother subscales for urinary (r = 0.61) and bowel (r = 0.53) domains; conceptual independence among all BCI domains (r ≤ 0.3); and low correlation coefficients with the SF-36 scores, ranging 0.14-0.48. Among patients reporting global improvement at follow-up, pre-post treatment changes were statistically significant for the urinary domain and urinary bother subscale, with effect sizes of 0.38 and 0.53. CONCLUSIONS: The Spanish BCI is well accepted, reliable, valid, responsive, and similar in performance compared to the original instrument. These findings support its use, both in Spanish and international studies, as a valuable and comprehensive tool for assessing quality of life across a wide range of bladder cancer patients

The size of juxtaluminal hypoechoic area in ultrasound images of asymptomatic carotid plaques predicts the occurrence of stroke

Objective: To test the hypothesis that the size of a juxtaluminal black (hypoechoic) area (JBA) in ultrasound images of asymptomatic carotid artery plaques predicts future ipsilateral ischemic stroke. Methods: A JBA was defined as an area of pixels with a grayscale value <25 adjacent to the lumen without a visible echogenic cap after image normalization. The size of a JBA was measured in the carotid plaque images of 1121 patients with asymptomatic carotid stenosis 50% to 99% in relation to the bulb (Asymptomatic Carotid Stenosis and Risk of Stroke study); the patients were followed for up to 8 years. Results: The JBA had a linear association with future stroke rate. The area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve was 0.816. Using Kaplan-Meier curves, the mean annual stroke rate was 0.4% in 706 patients with a JBA <4 mm 2, 1.4% in 171 patients with a JBA 4 to 8 mm2, 3.2% in 46 patients with a JBA 8 to 10 mm2, and 5% in 198 patients with a JBA >10 mm2 (P <.001). In a Cox model with ipsilateral ischemic events (amaurosis fugax, transient ischemic attack [TIA], or stroke) as the dependent variable, the JBA (<4 mm2, 4-8 mm2, >8 mm2) was still significant after adjusting for other plaque features known to be associated with increased risk, including stenosis, grayscale median, presence of discrete white areas without acoustic shadowing indicating neovascularization, plaque area, and history of contralateral TIA or stroke. Plaque area and grayscale median were not significant. Using the significant variables (stenosis, discrete white areas without acoustic shadowing, JBA, and history of contralateral TIA or stroke), this model predicted the annual risk of stroke for each patient (range, 0.1%-10.0%). The average annual stroke risk was <1% in 734 patients, 1% to 1.9% in 94 patients, 2% to 3.9% in 134 patients, 4% to 5.9% in 125 patients, and 6% to 10% in 34 patients. Conclusions: The size of a JBA is linearly related to the risk of stroke and can be used in risk stratification models. These findings need to be confirmed in future prospective studies or in the medical arm of randomized controlled studies in the presence of optimal medical therapy. In the meantime, the JBA may be used to select asymptomatic patients at high stroke risk for carotid endarterectomy and spare patients at low risk from an unnecessary operation

The comparative responsiveness of Hospital Universitario Princesa Index and other composite indices for assessing rheumatoid arthritis activity

Objective To evaluate the responsiveness in terms of correlation of the Hospital Universitario La Princesa Index (HUPI) comparatively to the traditional composite indices used to assess disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and to compare the performance of HUPI-based response criteria with that of the EULAR response criteria. Methods Secondary data analysis from the following studies: ACT-RAY (clinical trial), PROAR (early RA cohort) and EMECAR (pre-biologic era long term RA cohort). Responsiveness was evaluated by: 1) comparing change from baseline (Delta) of HUPI with Delta in other scores by calculating correlation coefficients; 2) calculating standardised effect sizes. The accuracy of response by HUPI and by EULAR criteria was analyzed using linear regressions in which the dependent variable was change in global assessment by physician (Delta GDA-Phy). Results Delta HUPI correlation with change in all other indices ranged from 0.387 to 0.791); HUPI's standardized effect size was larger than those from the other indices in each database used. In ACT-RAY, depending on visit, between 65 and 80% of patients were equally classified by HUPI and EULAR response criteria. However, HUPI criteria were slightly more stringent, with higher percentage of patients classified as non-responder, especially at early visits. HUPI response criteria showed a slightly higher accuracy than EULAR response criteria when using Delta GDA-Phy as gold standard. Conclusion HUPI shows good responsiveness in terms of correlation in each studied scenario (clinical trial, early RA cohort, and established RA cohort). Response criteria by HUPI seem more stringent than EULAR''s

Perspective on Oncogenic Processes at the End of the Beginning of Cancer Genomics

The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) has catalyzed systematic characterization of diverse genomic alterations underlying human cancers. At this historic junction marking the completion of genomic characterization of over 11,000 tumors from 33 cancer types, we present our current understanding of the molecular processes governing oncogenesis. We illustrate our insights into cancer through synthesis of the findings of the TCGA PanCancer Atlas project on three facets of oncogenesis: (1) somatic driver mutations, germline pathogenic variants, and their interactions in the tumor; (2) the influence of the tumor genome and epigenome on transcriptome and proteome; and (3) the relationship between tumor and the microenvironment, including implications for drugs targeting driver events and immunotherapies. These results will anchor future characterization of rare and common tumor types, primary and relapsed tumors, and cancers across ancestry groups and will guide the deployment of clinical genomic sequencing

The Immune Landscape of Cancer

We performed an extensive immunogenomic anal-ysis of more than 10,000 tumors comprising 33diverse cancer types by utilizing data compiled byTCGA. Across cancer types, we identified six im-mune subtypes\u2014wound healing, IFN-gdominant,inflammatory, lymphocyte depleted, immunologi-cally quiet, and TGF-bdominant\u2014characterized bydifferences in macrophage or lymphocyte signa-tures, Th1:Th2 cell ratio, extent of intratumoral het-erogeneity, aneuploidy, extent of neoantigen load,overall cell proliferation, expression of immunomod-ulatory genes, and prognosis. Specific drivermutations correlated with lower (CTNNB1,NRAS,orIDH1) or higher (BRAF,TP53,orCASP8) leukocytelevels across all cancers. Multiple control modalitiesof the intracellular and extracellular networks (tran-scription, microRNAs, copy number, and epigeneticprocesses) were involved in tumor-immune cell inter-actions, both across and within immune subtypes.Our immunogenomics pipeline to characterize theseheterogeneous tumors and the resulting data areintended to serve as a resource for future targetedstudies to further advance the field

Testing against umbrella or tree orderings for binomial proportions with an adaptation of an insect resistance case

Alternative hypotheses for order restrictions, such as umbrella or inverse umbrella (a.k.a tree) orderings, have been studied extensively in the literature, although less so when the studied response for each individual is the presence or absence of the event of interest. Two families of test statistics for solving the problem of testing against an umbrella or a tree ordering when the responses are binomial proportions are studied in this work and their asymptotic distributions are derived. A simulation study is conducted to compare the empirical power of some members of the derived families of test statistics with competing approaches. The methodology developed here was driven by an applied problem arising in stored products research where despite universal mortality in the case of doses of 1000 ppm of the insecticide phosphine, unexpected survival was noted at higher doses. © 2020 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinhei

Interference Analysis for DVB-T2 Network Planning in Colombia with other Television Broadcasting Technologies

"(c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works."[EN] Across the Andean Region the Digital Television (DTT)is already in motion. While most of countries in South America have adopted the Brazilian adaptation of the Japanese DTT standard ISDB-Tb, Colombia selected the second-generation Europan DTT standard DVB-T2, generating unique and completely new coexistence broadcasting scenarios, Firstly, it is the first region in the word in which DVB-T2 and ISDB-Tb coexist. Additionally, DVB-T2 have to coexist with analogue TV NTSC transmissions until the analogue switch-off. This paper provides interference protection ratios based on laboratory measurements and performs coexistence studies in realistic scenarios to illustrate the importance of assessing the protection ratios to achieve an efficient spectrum usage.This work was partialy supported by the ANE (Agencia Nacional del Espectro) of Colombia.Ribadeneira-Ramírez, JA.; García Pardo, C.; Fuentes Muela, M.; Gómez Barquero, D.; Cardona Marcet, N. (2016). Interference Analysis for DVB-T2 Network Planning in Colombia with other Television Broadcasting Technologies. IEEE Latin America Transactions. 14(3):1162-1168. doi:10.1109/TLA.2016.74595941162116814

Mentha suaveolens as Allelopathic Biomass for Weed Control: Phenolics, Organic Acids, and Volatile Organic Compounds Profiles

19 páginas,5 tablas, 3 figurasThe need to find alternatives to synthetic herbicides has led to the evaluation of the use of allelopathic biomass from different agroforestry species as soil amendments for weed control. Mentha suaveolens Ehrh. (apple mint) could be a suitable candidate as an ecoherbicide due to its availability in the agroecosystem, well-studied biological activities, and known chemical composition. For the present study, two greenhouse pot experiments were conducted by incorporating flowering aerial biomass of apple mint into the soil. In the first one, the potential phytotoxic effects of M. suaveolens at doses 1 and 2% were evaluated on the germination and growth of maize and its accompanying weeds. In a second temporary assay, the duration of phytotoxicity and the effects of apple mint (0.5% dose) on the physicochemical properties of the soil were elucidated. The soluble (phenolics and organic acids) and volatile compounds potentially releasable from the allelopathic biomass were identified. The apple mint exerted adverse effects on the germination and growth of dicotyledonous weed species, especially Amaranthus retroflexus and Solanum nigrum, with almost 100% inhibition, as well as on the growth of monocotyledonous weeds such as Digitaria sanguinalis, with a reduction of more than 95%. On the contrary, maize yield and soil properties pH, CECe, organic matter, and exchangeable cations were improved by the ecoherbicide. Chemical analyses of apple mint aerial biomass revealed the presence of 7 phenolic compounds, 9 organic acids, and 32 volatiles. For this study, the effects of incorporating M. suaveolens aerial biomass into soil were evaluated for the first time, and it was demonstrated that it has potential as an eco-friendly plant-based tool for Integrated Weed Management.Grant PID2019-111253RB-I00 funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and grant PDC2022-133375-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by the European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR.Peer reviewe

Evaluation of pheromone trap devices for the capture of Thaumetopoea pityocampa (Lepidoptera: Thaumetopoeidae) in southern Europe

The development of reliable monitoring techniques can offer valuable sources of knowledge on the control of Thaumetopoea pityocampa (Denis and Schiffermüller) (Lepidoptera: Thaumetopoeidae). Nevertheless, there is a knowledge gap on the simultaneous large-scale monitoring of T. pityocampa male adult population by using novel trap devices. Thus, the influence of type of trap device on the capture of male adults of T. pityocampa was evaluated in four areas with pine trees in southern Europe; two in Greece (Thessaly and Attica), one in Italy (Molise), and one in Spain (Valencia). Six different novel trap devices, i.e., Prototype 1, Prototype 2, Prototype 3, Prototype 4, Prototype 5, and Prototype 6, were tested during 2015 between July and November. In general, the male adult catches lasted longer in the two sites of Greece compared with Molise and Valencia. Hence, in Thessaly, captures started in early August and remained at high levels until late September. In Attica, captures started in mid-August and lasted until early November. In contrast, for both Molise and Valencia, most of the male adults were captured in August, while male adult catches were recorded until September. From the trap devices tested, Prototype 1 was found superior than the other devices, regardless of the area, with the exception of Valencia, where there were no differences in the overall captures among Prototype 1, Prototype 5, and Prototype 6. In most of the combinations tested, there was a positive and significant correlation among captures of T. pityocampa in pairs of different trap devices, indicating that most of them gave similar population fluctuations. Our results suggest that Prototype 1 should be selected for the monitoring of T. pityocampa male adult population. © The Authors 2017