Liposomal cisplatin combined with paclitaxel versus cisplatin and paclitaxel in non-small-cell lung cancer: a randomized phase III multicenter trial

Background: Liposomal cisplatin is a new formulation developed to reduce the systemic toxicity of cisplatin while simultaneously improving the targeting of the drug to the primary tumor and to metastases by increasing circulation time in the body fluids and tissues. The primary objectives were to determine nephrotoxicity, gastrointestinal side-effects, peripheral neuropathy and hematological toxicity and secondary objectives were to determine the response rate, time to tumor progression (TTP) and survival

GlobalFiler Express DNA amplification kit in South Africa: Extracting the past from the present

In this study, the GlobalFiler Express amplification kit was evaluated for forensic use in 541 South African individuals belonging to the Afrikaaner, amaXhosa,1 amaZulu,1 Asian Indian and Coloured population groups. Allelic frequencies, genetic diversity parameters and forensic informative metrics were calculated for each population. A total of 301 alleles were observed ranging between 5 and 44.2 repeat units, 43 were rarely observed partial repeats and seven were novel. The combined match probability (CMP) ranged from 2.21x10 (Coloured) to 5.21x10 (AmaZulu), and the combined power of exclusion (CPE) 0.9999999978 (Afrikaaner) to 0.99999999979 (AmaZulu) respectively. No significant departures from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) were observed after Bonferroni correction. Strong evidence of genetic structure was detected using the coancestry coefficient? Analysis of Molecular Variance (AMOVA) and an unsupervised Bayesian clustering method (STRUCTURE). The efficiency of assignment of individuals to population groups was evaluated by applying likelihood ratios with WHICHRUN, and the individual ancestral membership probabilities inferred by STRUCTURE. Likelihood ratios performed the best in the assignment of individuals to population groups. Signs of positive selection were detected for TH01 and D13S317 and purifying/balancing selection for locus SE33. These three loci also displayed the largest informativeness for assignment (In) values. The results of this study supports the use of the GlobalFiler STR profiling kit for forensic applications in South Africa with the additional capability to predict ethnicity or continental origin of a random sample.IS

Immune complex behaviour during prolonged plasma exchange in essential mixed cryoglobulinemia and systemic lupus erythematosus

A number of immunological parameters were measured in 9 patients with essential mixed cryoglobulinemia and 12 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus undergoing plasma exchange alone or without cytotoxic drugs. Only cryocrit significantly decreased in the majority of patients with essential mixed cryoglobulinemia. In contrast, immune complex levels, measured in two different ways, did not change on the whole, although variable and unpredictable changes were often present in individual patients. Thus, these data do not support the view that the mechanism(s) of action of plasma exchange in these diseases is only due to the quantitative removal of circulating immune complexes, and qualitative changes in the immune complex moiety may also occur