Does colon cancer ever metastasize to bone first? a temporal analysis of colorectal cancer progression

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>It is well recognized that colorectal cancer does not frequently metastasize to bone. The aim of this retrospective study was to establish whether colorectal cancer ever bypasses other organs and metastasizes directly to bone and whether the presence of lung lesions is superior to liver as a better predictor of the likelihood and timing of bone metastasis.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We performed a retrospective analysis on patients with a clinical diagnosis of colon cancer referred for staging using whole-body ¹⁸F-FDG PET and CT or PET/CT. We combined PET and CT reports from 252 individuals with information concerning patient history, other imaging modalities, and treatments to analyze disease progression.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>No patient had isolated osseous metastasis at the time of diagnosis, and none developed isolated bone metastasis without other organ involvement during our survey period. It took significantly longer for colorectal cancer patients to develop metastasis to the lungs (23.3 months) or to bone (21.2 months) than to the liver (9.8 months). Conclusion: Metastasis only to bone without other organ involvement in colorectal cancer patients is extremely rare, perhaps more rare than we previously thought. Our findings suggest that resistant metastasis to the lungs predicts potential disease progression to bone in the colorectal cancer population better than liver metastasis does.</p

Genome-Wide Interaction-Based Association Analysis Identified Multiple New Susceptibility Loci for Common Diseases

Genome-wide interaction-based association (GWIBA) analysis has the potential to identify novel susceptibility loci. These interaction effects could be missed with the prevailing approaches in genome-wide association studies (GWAS). However, no convincing loci have been discovered exclusively from GWIBA methods, and the intensive computation involved is a major barrier for application. Here, we developed a fast, multi-thread/parallel program named “pair-wise interaction-based association mapping” (PIAM) for exhaustive two-locus searches. With this program, we performed a complete GWIBA analysis on seven diseases with stringent control for false positives, and we validated the results for three of these diseases. We identified one pair-wise interaction between a previously identified locus, C1orf106, and one new locus, TEC, that was specific for Crohn's disease, with a Bonferroni corrected P<0.05 (P = 0.039). This interaction was replicated with a pair of proxy linked loci (P = 0.013) on an independent dataset. Five other interactions had corrected P<0.5. We identified the allelic effect of a locus close to SLC7A13 for coronary artery disease. This was replicated with a linked locus on an independent dataset (P = 1.09×10−7). Through a local validation analysis that evaluated association signals, rather than locus-based associations, we found that several other regions showed association/interaction signals with nominal P<0.05. In conclusion, this study demonstrated that the GWIBA approach was successful for identifying novel loci, and the results provide new insights into the genetic architecture of common diseases. In addition, our PIAM program was capable of handling very large GWAS datasets that are likely to be produced in the future

Gravitational Waves From Known Pulsars: Results From The Initial Detector Era

We present the results of searches for gravitational waves from a large selection of pulsars using data from the most recent science runs (S6, VSR2 and VSR4) of the initial generation of interferometric gravitational wave detectors LIGO (Laser Interferometric Gravitational-wave Observatory) and Virgo. We do not see evidence for gravitational wave emission from any of the targeted sources but produce upper limits on the emission amplitude. We highlight the results from seven young pulsars with large spin-down luminosities. We reach within a factor of five of the canonical spin-down limit for all seven of these, whilst for the Crab and Vela pulsars we further surpass their spin-down limits. We present new or updated limits for 172 other pulsars (including both young and millisecond pulsars). Now that the detectors are undergoing major upgrades, and, for completeness, we bring together all of the most up-to-date results from all pulsars searched for during the operations of the first-generation LIGO, Virgo and GEO600 detectors. This gives a total of 195 pulsars including the most recent results described in this paper.United States National Science FoundationScience and Technology Facilities Council of the United KingdomMax-Planck-SocietyState of Niedersachsen/GermanyAustralian Research CouncilInternational Science Linkages program of the Commonwealth of AustraliaCouncil of Scientific and Industrial Research of IndiaIstituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare of ItalySpanish Ministerio de Economia y CompetitividadConselleria d'Economia Hisenda i Innovacio of the Govern de les Illes BalearsNetherlands Organisation for Scientific ResearchPolish Ministry of Science and Higher EducationFOCUS Programme of Foundation for Polish ScienceRoyal SocietyScottish Funding CouncilScottish Universities Physics AllianceNational Aeronautics and Space AdministrationOTKA of HungaryLyon Institute of Origins (LIO)National Research Foundation of KoreaIndustry CanadaProvince of Ontario through the Ministry of Economic Development and InnovationNational Science and Engineering Research Council CanadaCarnegie TrustLeverhulme TrustDavid and Lucile Packard FoundationResearch CorporationAlfred P. Sloan FoundationAstronom

Constraints on the χ_(c1) versus χ_(c2) polarizations in proton-proton collisions at √s = 8 TeV

The polarizations of promptly produced χ_(c1) and χ_(c2) mesons are studied using data collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC, in proton-proton collisions at √s=8  TeV. The χ_c states are reconstructed via their radiative decays χ_c → J/ψγ, with the photons being measured through conversions to e⁺e⁻, which allows the two states to be well resolved. The polarizations are measured in the helicity frame, through the analysis of the χ_(c2) to χ_(c1) yield ratio as a function of the polar or azimuthal angle of the positive muon emitted in the J/ψ → μ⁺μ⁻ decay, in three bins of J/ψ transverse momentum. While no differences are seen between the two states in terms of azimuthal decay angle distributions, they are observed to have significantly different polar anisotropies. The measurement favors a scenario where at least one of the two states is strongly polarized along the helicity quantization axis, in agreement with nonrelativistic quantum chromodynamics predictions. This is the first measurement of significantly polarized quarkonia produced at high transverse momentum