Manipulative therapy and/or NSAIDs for acute low back pain: design of a randomized controlled trial [ACTRN012605000036617]

BACKGROUND: Acute low back pain is a common condition resulting in pain and disability. Current national and international guidelines advocate general practitioner care including advice and paracetamol (4 g daily in otherwise well adults) as the first line of care for people with acute low back pain. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) are advocated in many guidelines as second line management options for patients with acute low back pain who are not recovering. No studies have explored the role of NSAIDs and/or SMT in addition to first line management for acute low back pain. The primary aim of this study is to investigate if NSAIDs and/or SMT in addition to general practitioner advice and paracetamol results in shorter recovery times for patients with acute low back pain. The secondary aims of the study are to evaluate whether the addition of SMT and/or NSAIDs influences pain, disability and global perceived effect at 1, 2, 4 and 12 weeks after onset of therapy for patients with significant acute low back pain. METHODS/DESIGN: This paper presents the rationale and design of a randomised controlled trial examining the addition of NSAIDs and/or SMT in 240 people who present to their general practitioner with significant acute low back pain

Алкогольные виртуальные реальности. Девиртуализация синдрома зависимости от алкоголя

Представлен новый взгляд на синдром зависимости от алкоголя с позиций виртуалистики как на параллельную виртуальную реальность. Подробно освещена рассматриваемая проблема, описан разработанный автором метод лечения алкоголизма ФорсажТМ и показана его высокая эффективность.A new idea about syndrome of alcohol addiction as a parallel virtual reality is presented. The problem is discussed in detail, the original method of treatment of alcoholism Forsazh(tm) is described, its high efficacy is shown

Recent Advances in Breast Cancer Diagnosis Entering an Era of Precision Medicine

This article will cover some of the most recent advances in the diagnosis of the world’s most common cancer in women, namely, breast cancer as we enter the era of precision medicine. The authors will discuss the differences between East and West pertaining to the incidence and mortality rates, the types of breast cancer and the revised staging criteria of breast cancer according to the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) Staging Manual, 8th edition. In addition, the advances of newer imaging modalities are presented and compared with traditional ultrasonography and mammography

Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) is overexpressed in anaplastic thyroid cancer and the EGFR inhibitor gefitinib inhibits the growth of anaplastic thyroid cancer

Purpose: No effective treatment options currently are available to patients with Anaplastic Thyroid Cancer (ATC), resulting in high mortality rates. Epidermal Growth Factor (EGF) has been shown to play a role in the pathogenesis of many types of cancer and its receptor (EGFR) provides an attractive target for molecular therapy. Experimental Design: The expression of EGFR was determined in ATC in vitro and in vivo and in human tissue arrays of ATC. We assessed the potential of the EGFR inhibitor gefitinib (“Iressa,” ZD1839) to inhibit EGFR activation in vitro and in vivo, inhibit ATC cellular proliferation, induce apoptosis and reduce the growth of ATC cells in vivo when administered alone and in combination with paclitaxel. Results: EGFR was overexpressed in ATC cell lines in vitro and in vivo and in human ATC specimens. Activation of EGFR by EGF was blocked by the addition of gefitinib. In vitro studies showed that gefitinib greatly inhibited cellular proliferation and induced apoptosis in ATC cell lines and slowed tumor growth in a nude mouse model of thyroid carcinoma cells injected subcutaneously. Conclusions: ATC cells consistently overexpress EGFR, rendering this receptor a potential target for molecular therapy. Gefitinib effectively blocks activation of EGFR by EGF, inhibits ATC cellular proliferation and induces apoptosis in vitro. Our in vivo results show that gefitinib has significant antitumor activity against ATC in a subcutaneous nude mouse tumor model and therefore is a potential candidate for human clinical trials

The Balloon Experimental Twin Telescope for Infrared Interferometry (BETTII): towards the first flight

The Balloon Experimental Twin Telescope for Infrared Interferometry (BETTII) is a balloon-borne, far-infrared direct detection interferometer with a baseline of 8 m and two collectors of 50 cm. It is designed to study galactic clustered star formation by providing spatially-resolved spectroscopy of nearby star clusters. It is being assembled and tested at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center for a first flight in Fall 2016. We report on recent progress concerning the pointing control system and discuss the overall status of the project as it gets ready forits commissioning flight

Integrated analysis of genomic and transcriptomic data for the discovery of splice-associated variants in cancer

Somatic mutations within non-coding regions and even exons may have unidentified regulatory consequences that are often overlooked in analysis workflows. Here we present RegTools ( www.regtools.org ), a computationally efficient, free, and open-source software package designed to integrate somatic variants from genomic data with splice junctions from bulk or single cell transcriptomic data to identify variants that may cause aberrant splicing. We apply RegTools to over 9000 tumor samples with both tumor DNA and RNA sequence data. RegTools discovers 235,778 events where a splice-associated variant significantly increases the splicing of a particular junction, across 158,200 unique variants and 131,212 unique junctions. To characterize these somatic variants and their associated splice isoforms, we annotate them with the Variant Effect Predictor, SpliceAI, and Genotype-Tissue Expression junction counts and compare our results to other tools that integrate genomic and transcriptomic data. While many events are corroborated by the aforementioned tools, the flexibility of RegTools also allows us to identify splice-associated variants in known cancer drivers, such as TP53, CDKN2A, and B2M, and other genes

Advice or exercise for chronic whiplash disorders? Design of a randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND: Whiplash-associated disorder (or "whiplash") is a common condition incurring considerable expense in social and economic terms. A lack of research on effective therapy for patients with chronic whiplash associated disorders prompted the design of the current study. The primary aim of this randomised controlled trial is to determine the effects of a physical activity program for people with chronic (symptoms of > 3 months duration) whiplash. A secondary aim is to determine if pain severity, level of disability and fear of movement/(re)injury predict response to a physical activity program. METHODS / DESIGN: This paper presents the rationale and design of a randomised controlled trial examining the effects of advice and individualized sub-maximal exercise programs in the treatment of whiplash associated disorders. DISCUSSION: This paper highlights the design, methods and operational aspects of a significant clinical trial in the area of whiplash and chronic pain

Endocrine therapy resistant ESR1 variants revealed by genomic characterization of breast cancer derived xenografts

To characterize patient-derived xenografts (PDXs) for functional studies, we made whole-genome comparisons with originating breast cancers representative of the major intrinsic subtypes. Structural and copy number aberrations were found to be retained with high fidelity. However, at the single-nucleotide level, variable numbers of PDX-specific somatic events were documented, although they were only rarely functionally significant. Variant allele frequencies were often preserved in the PDXs, demonstrating that clonal representation can be transplantable. Estrogen-receptor-positive PDXs were associated with ESR1 ligand-binding-domain mutations, gene amplification, or an ESR1/YAP1 translocation. These events produced different endocrine-therapy-response phenotypes in human, cell line, and PDX endocrine-response studies. Hence, deeply sequenced PDX models are an important resource for the search for genome-forward treatment options and capture endocrine-drug-resistance etiologies that are not observed in standard cell lines. The originating tumor genome provides a benchmark for assessing genetic drift and clonal representation after transplantation

Genome modeling system: A knowledge management platform for genomics

In this work, we present the Genome Modeling System (GMS), an analysis information management system capable of executing automated genome analysis pipelines at a massive scale. The GMS framework provides detailed tracking of samples and data coupled with reliable and repeatable analysis pipelines. The GMS also serves as a platform for bioinformatics development, allowing a large team to collaborate on data analysis, or an individual researcher to leverage the work of others effectively within its data management system. Rather than separating ad-hoc analysis from rigorous, reproducible pipelines, the GMS promotes systematic integration between the two. As a demonstration of the GMS, we performed an integrated analysis of whole genome, exome and transcriptome sequencing data from a breast cancer cell line (HCC1395) and matched lymphoblastoid line (HCC1395BL). These data are available for users to test the software, complete tutorials and develop novel GMS pipeline configurations. The GMS is available at https://github.com/genome/gms