Treatment of osteolytic solitary painful osseous metastases with radiofrequency ablation or cryoablation: a retrospective study by propensity analysis

The present study aimed to measure the improvement in pain relief and quality of life in patients with osteolytic solitary painful bone metastasis treated by cryoablation (CA) or radiofrequency ablation (RFA). Fifty patients with solitary osteolytic painful bone metastases were retrospectively studied and selected by propensity analysis. Twenty-five patients underwent CA and the remaining twenty-five underwent RFA. Pain relief, in terms of complete response (CR), the number of patients requiring analgesia and the changes in self-rated quality of life (QoL) were measured following the two treatments. Thirty-two percent of patients treated by CA experienced a CR at 12 weeks versus 20% of patients treated by RFA. The rate of CR increased significantly with respect to baseline only in the group treated by CA. In both groups there was a significant change in the partial response with respect to baseline (36% in the CA group vs. 44% in the RFA group). The recurrence rate in the CA and RFA groups was 12% and 8%, respectively. The reduction in narcotic medication requirements with respect to baseline was only significant in the group treated by CA. A significant improvement in self-rated QoL was observed in both groups. The present study seems to suggest that CA only significantly improves the rate of CR and decreases the requirement of narcotic medications. Both CA and RFA led to an improvement in the self-rated QoL of patients after the treatments. However, the results of the present study should be considered as preliminary and to serve as a framework around which future trials may be designed

Treatment of Solitary Painful Osseous Metastases with Radiotherapy, Cryoablation or Combined Therapy: Propensity Matching Analysis in 175 Patients

aim of this study was to identify outcomes in pain relief and quality of life in patients with a solitary painful osseous metastasis treated by radiotherapy, cryoablation or the combination using a propensity score matching study design

Impact of Atmosphere and Land Surface Initial Conditions on Seasonal Forecasts of Global Surface Temperature

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Last improvements in the data assimilation scheme for the Mediterranean Analysis and Forecast system of the Copernicus Marine Service

The Mediterranean Forecasting System (MFS) is a numerical ocean prediction system that produces analyses, reanalyses and short term forecasts for the entire Mediterranean Sea and its Atlantic Ocean adjacent areas. The system is now part of the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS) providing regular and systematic information about the physical state and dynamics of the Mediterranean Sea through the Med-MFC (Mediterranean Monitoring and Forecasting Center). MFS has been implemented in the Mediterranean Sea with 1/16o horizontal resolution and 72 vertical levels and is composed by the hydrodynamic model NEMO (Nucleus for European Modelling of the Ocean) 2-way online coupled with the third generation wave model WaveWatchIII (Clementi et al., 2017a) and forced by ECMWF atmospheric fields at 1/8° horizontal resolution. The model solutions are corrected by the data assimilation system (3D variational scheme, Dobricic and Pinardi, 2008) with a daily assimilation cycle of along track satellite Sea Level Anomaly (SLA) and vertical profiles of Temperature and Salinity from ARGO and gliders. In this study we present a new estimate of the background error covariance matrix with vertical Empirical Orthogonal Functions (EOFs) that are defined at each grid point of the model domain in order to better account for the error covariance between temperature and salinity in the shelf and open ocean areas. Moreover the Observational error covariance matrix is z-dependent and varies in each month. This new dataset has been tested and validated for more than 2 years against a background error correlation matrix varying only seasonally and in thirteen sub-regions of the Mediterranean Sea (Dobricic et al. 2005).PublishedBergen, Norway3SR. AMBIENTE - Servizi e ricerca per la Societ

Last improvements in the data assimilation scheme for the Mediterranean Analysis and Forecast system of the Copernicus Marine Service

The Mediterranean Forecasting System (MFS) is a numerical ocean prediction system that produces analyses, reanalyses and short term forecasts for the entire Mediterranean Sea and its Atlantic Ocean adjacent areas. The system is now part of the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS) providing regular and systematic information about the physical state and dynamics of the Mediterranean Sea through the Med-MFC (Mediterranean Monitoring and Forecasting Center). MFS has been implemented in the Mediterranean Sea with 1/16o horizontal resolution and 72 vertical levels and is composed by the hydrodynamic model NEMO (Nucleus for European Modelling of the Ocean) 2-way online coupled with the third generation wave model WW3 (WaveWatchIII) and forced by ECMWF atmospheric fields at 1/8o horizontal resolution. The model solutions are corrected by the data assimilation system (3D variational-3Dvar scheme adapted to the oceanic assimilation problem, Dobricic and Pinardi, 2008) with a daily assimilation cycle of satellite Sea Level Anomaly (SLA) and vertical profiles of Temperature and Salinity. In this study we present a new estimate the of the background error covariance matrix with vertical Empirical Orthogonal Functions (EOFs) that are defined at each grid point of the model domain in order to better account for the error covariance between temperature and salinity in the shelf and open ocean areas. Moreover the Error covariance matrix is z-dependent and varies in each month. This new dataset has been tested and validated for more than 2 years against a background error correlation matrix varying only seasonally and in thirteen sub-regions of the Mediterranean Sea. Latest developments include the implementation of an upgraded 3Dvar (Storto et al. 2012) for a high-resolution model, 1/24o in the horizontal and 141 vertical levelsPublishedBergen, Norway3SR. AMBIENTE - Servizi e ricerca per la Societ

A 1/24 degree resolution Mediterranean analysis and forecast modeling system for the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service

The Mediterranean Forecasting System (MFS) is a numerical ocean prediction system that operationally produces analyses, reanalyses and short-term forecasts of the main physical parameters for the entire Mediterranean Sea and its Atlantic Ocean adjacent areas. This work is specifically focused on the description and evaluation of the analysis and forecast modeling system that covers the analysis of the current situation and produces daily updates of the following 10 days forecast. The system has been recently upgraded in the framework of the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS) by increasing the grid resolution from 1/16o to 1/24o in the horizontal and from 72 to 141 vertical levels, by increasing the number of fresh water river inputs and by updating the data assimilation scheme. The model has a non-linear explicit free surface and it is forced by surface pressure, interactive heat, momentum and water fluxes at the air-sea interface. In order to validate the modeling system and to estimate the accuracy of the model products, a quality assessment is regularly performed including both pre-operational qualification and near real time (NRT) validation procedures. Pre-operational qualification activities focus on testing the improvements of the quality of the new system with respect to the previous version and relies on past simulation and historical data, while NRT validation activities aim at routinely and on-line providing the skill assessment of the model analysis and forecasts and relies on the NRT available observations. The focus of this work is to present the new operational modeling system and the skill assessment including comparison with independent (insitu coastal moorings) and quasi-independent (insitu vertical profiles and satellite) datasets.PublishedBergen, Norway3SR. AMBIENTE - Servizi e ricerca per la Societ

A 1/24° resolution Mediterranean physical analysis and forecasting system for the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service

This study describes a new model implementation for the Mediterranean Sea that has been achieved in the framework of the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS). The numerical ocean prediction system, that operationally produces analyses and forecasts of the main physical parameters for the entire Mediterranean Sea and its Atlantic Ocean adjacent areas, has been upgraded by increasing the grid resolution from 1/16o to 1/24o in the horizontal and from 72 to 141 unevenly spaced vertical levels, by increasing the number of fresh water river inputs and by updating the data assimilation scheme. The model has a non-linear explicit free surface and it is forced by surface pressure, interactive heat, momentum and water fluxes at the airsea interface. The focus of this work is to present the new modelling system which will become operational in the near future and the validation assessment including the comparison with an independent non assimilated dataset (coastal moorings) and quasi-independent (in situ vertical profiles and satellite) datasets. The results show that the higher resolution model is capable of representing most of the variability of the general circulation in the Mediterranean Sea, however some improvements need to be implemented in order to enhance the model ability in reproducing specific hydrodynamic features particularly the Sea Level Anomaly.PublishedBergen, Norway3SR. AMBIENTE - Servizi e ricerca per la Societ

Higher resolution physical numerical model of the Mediterranean Sea in the Copernicus Marine Service

INGV is responsible for the operational production of the physical component of the Mediterranean Sea Monitoring and Forecasting Centre (Med-MFC) of the Copernicus Marine Service Monitoring System (CMEMS). The system was implemented in 2000 by the INGV National Group of Operational oceanography (GNOO) and has been developed in years thanks to a number of European projects. The Med-MFC is a coupled hydrodynamic-wave model with data assimilation component with a resolution of 1/16°. The model solutions are corrected by the variational assimilation (based on a 3DVAR scheme) of Temperature and Salinity vertical profiles (from ARGO, CTD, XBT and Gliders observations) and along track satellite Sea Level Anomaly (SLA) observations. In order to meet the requirements for Copernicus Marine Service Phase I the increase of the horizontal (to 1/24°) and vertical resolution of the hydrodynamic component of Med-MFC has been planned. The major improvements expected from this development are the following: 1) to better resolve the mesoscale processes in the Mediterranean region where the Rossby radius of deformation is about 12-15 km (1/24° is about 4-5 km); 2) to resolve the tidal forcing at Gibraltar, entering from the Atlantic into the Mediterranean, known to provide about 30% amplitude of the tidal signal in the Mediterranean; 3) to better resolve vertical mixing processes.UnpublishedIstituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia. Sede Centrale. Roma3SR. AMBIENTE - Servizi e ricerca per la Societ