Ultrasound mapping of lymph node and subcutaneous metastases in patients with cutaneous melanoma: Results of a prospective multicenter study

Background: Ultrasound (sonography, B-mode sonography, ultrasonography) examination improves the sensitivity in more than 25% compared to the clinical palpation, especially after surgery on the regional lymph node area. Objective: To evaluate the distribution of metastases during follow-up in the draining lymph node areas from the scar of primary to regional lymph nodes ( head and neck, supraclavicular, axilla, infraclavicular, groin) in patients with cutaneous melanoma with or without sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) or former elective or consecutive complete lymph node dissection in case of positive sentinel lymph node (CLND). Methods: Prospective multicenter study of the Departments of Dermatology of the Universities of Homburg/Saar, Tubingen and Munich (Germany) in which the distribution of lymph node and subcutaneous metastases were mapped from the scar of primary to the lymphatic drainage region in 53 melanoma patients ( 23 women, 30 men; median age: 64 years; median tumor thickness: 1.99 mm) with known primary, visible lymph nodes or subcutaneous metastases proven by ultrasound and histopathology during the follow-up. Results: Especially in the axilla, infraclavicular region and groin the metastases were not limited to the anatomic lymph node regions. In 5 patients (9.4%) ( 4 of them were in stage IV) lymph node metastases were not located in the corresponding lymph node area. 32 patients without former SLNB had a time range between melanoma excision and lymph node metastases of 31 months ( median), 21 patients with SLNB had 18 months ( p < 0.005). In 11 patients with positive SLNB the time range was 17 months, in 10 patients with negative SLNB 21 months ( p < 0.005); in 32 patients with CLND the time range was 31 m< 0.005). In thinner melanomas lymph node metastases occurred later ( p < 0.05). Conclusions: After surgery of cutaneous melanoma, SLNB and CLND the lymphatic drainage can show significant changes which should be considered in clinical and ultrasound follow-up examinations. Especially for high-risk melanoma patients follow-up examinations should be performed at intervals of 3 months in the first years. Patients at stage IV should be examined in all regional lymph node areas clinically and by ultrasound. Copyright (c) 2006 S. Karger AG, Basel

Diagnosis of inflammatory demyelination in biopsy specimens: a practical approach

Multiple sclerosis is the most frequent demyelinating disease in adults. It is characterized by demyelination, inflammation, gliosis and a variable loss of axons. Clinically and histologically, it shares features with other demyelinating and/or inflammatory CNS diseases. Diagnosis of an inflammatory demyelinating disease can be challenging, especially in small biopsy specimens. Here, we summarize the histological hallmarks and most important neuropathological differential diagnoses of early MS, and provide practical guidelines for the diagnosis of inflammatory demyelinating diseases

Amnesia Atlas VR

A prototype 3D browser for the viewing of images taken by SenseCam- a wearable, automatic, life-logging camera. The same technology is used by Claire as a memory-aide, and features heavily in the development of Shona Illingworth’s Lesions in the Landscape.SenseCam photo-sequences have proven to be highly effective memory cues. They provide us with another way to think about how we experience memory, and how we might construct it with the use of new technologies.Amnesia Atlas explores Sydney Harbour in a very located way. Photographs are placed back into the scenery in the position in which they were taken, using geotagging technology. Similar to our use of social media, the user is able to navigate the harbour through the lens of someone else's memory; seeing (and in some way creating their own memory of) a place as experienced by another

Being Debra

Being Debra, 2019Virtual Reality on headsetDuration, 12 minsEmploying Virtual Reality (VR), Being Debra offers the audience a taste of the embodied experience of being a dwarf in contemporary Australian society (with all its challenges, ugliness and triumphs). Shot from a first-person perspective with a 180 degree camera, the project was initiated by artist Debra Keenahan who lives with achondroplasia dwarfism. The VR experience includes flashbacks to Debra’s memories of school, dating, and engaging with authority figures, including doctors, as well as her routine daily encounters in a park.Over 70 years ago psychologist Alfred Adler described empathy as “seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another”. This project explores how technology can help promote empathy by affording the viewer an embodied experience of disability and its public reception. But Keenahan’s research also takes a critical view. The notion of VR as the ultimate Empathy Machine, as proclaimed by Chris Milk in 2015, remains contentious. As Wendy Chun suggests, “If you walk in someone else’s shoes, then you’ve taken their shoes”. Is the empathy machine a mechanism of cultural appropriation or is it the means to respectful mutual understanding? VR of course cannot enable us to “be” Debra — but in this work Keenhan reveals in a powerful way what it is like to be the object of looks, glances, abuse and stigma each time she walks in public. By experiencing each of these events through VR, all of which have happened, and many of them much more than once, you will come to an understanding of what it is like to be Debra. That is, how those who are a different kind of different can be treated in this society which ironically places great value on individuality.CreditsArtistic Director: Debra KeenahanArt Director and Production Design: Volker KuchelmeisterScreenplay: Debra Keenahan, Katrina Douglas, Sarah KeenahanDirector and Casting Director: Katrina DouglasProducer and script consultant: Jill BennettAudio Recording, Sound Engineer, Production Assistant: Louis PrattSound Track: Damien EverettA fEEL production for The Big Anxiety‘Being Debra’ has been created with the support of funding from: The Australia Council for the Arts; Western Sydney University

Electronic Visualisation in the Arts EVA

This paper outlines an investigation and describes strategies to capture, simulate and reproduce experiences originally designed for large scale immersive architectures within Virtual Reality. Applications and experiences created for a specific immersive platform depend on the complex and costly technical infrastructure they were originally designed for. Descriptions and video documentation only go so far in illustrating an immersive experience. The embodied aspect, the emotional engagement and the dimensional extend, central to immersion, is mostly lost in translation. This project offers a prototypical implementation of a large scale virtual exhibition, incorporating various immersive architectures and applications situated within a fictional 3D scene. The motivation behind this project is to provide a framework to showcase and for the conservation of immersive experiences and systems outside specialised facilities and labs. Furthermore, it presents a test-bed and space for experimentation to design and evaluate immersive experiences and architecture before they are developed at full scale

Parragirls Past, Present - 2018

Parragirls Past, Present is a deeply moving immersive experience presenting former residents’ contemporary visions of Parramatta Girls Home, a punitive Australian child welfare institution closed in 1974. Unlocking conflicting memories of institutional ‘care’, this collaboration with media artists and Parragirls rewrites the history of Parramatta Girls Home. Over a century, children at risk held at this site were subjected to unwarranted punishment and abuse. Returning after 40 years, Parragirls seek out traces to substantiate what really happened here, moving through fear and futile confinement to resistance and solidarity

The Visit (VR)

The Visit, 2019 VR - The Visit is an interactive VR project, developed from a ground-breaking research project conducted by artists and psychologists working with women living with dementia. Visitors are invited to sit with Viv, a life-sized, photorealistic animated character whose dialogue is created largely from verbatim interviews, drawing us into a world of perceptual uncertainty, while at the same time confounding stereotypes and confronting fears about dementia. Like the women who co-created her, Viv experiences various dementia-related symptoms, including hallucinations and confabulation (unconscious fabrication as means of making sense of information). She is also insightful and reflective. Viv is living a life and coming to terms with a neurological change. In the interactive VR work Viv is ‘aware of’ and responds to the visitors presence in her home but the piece invites quiet attentiveness rather than the kind of interaction characteristic of gaming. Visitors sit with and listen to Viv without judgement, irritation, pity or despair, finding a way into her world.Director and Producer: Jill Bennett Art Director and Production Design: Volker Kuchelmeister Cast: Voice actress: Heather Mitchell Motion Capture actress: Emma Kew Script: Jill Bennett, Natasha Ginnivan Script consultants: Melissa Neidorf, Gail Kenning, David Pledger Interviewees/contributors: Prue Uther, Joan Eva, Jennifer Bute, Wendy Mitchell Researchers: Natasha Ginnivan, Chris Papadopoulos, Melissa Neidorf, Gail Kenning. Motion Capture: Joe Holloway Voice recording: Tobias Gilbert 3D Artist: Chris Norris, Jason Dobra 3D scanning: Matt Cabanag (UNSW LITEroom) LIDAR: Bruce Harvey (UNSW Engineering) Music: Peter Sculthorp