Urate oxidase for the prevention and treatment of tumour lysis syndrome in children with cancer

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Malignancies in Chinese patients with neurofibromatosis type 1

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Vaccines for prophylaxis of viral infections in patients with hematological malignancies.

Viral infections cause significant morbidity and mortality in patients with hematological malignancies. It remains uncertain whether viral vaccinations in these patients are supported by good evidence. We aimed to determine the effectiveness and safety of viral vaccines in patients with hematological malignancies. We searched Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL (June 2010), reference lists of relevant papers, abstracts from scientific meetings and contacted vaccine manufacturers. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating viral vaccines in patients with hematological malignancies were included. Relative risk (RR) was used for binary data and mean difference (MD) for continuous data. Primary outcome was incidence of infection. Secondary outcomes were mortality, incidence of complications and severe viral infection, hospitalization, immune response and adverse effects. Fixed-effect model was used in meta-analyses. Eight RCTs were included, with 305 patients in the intervention groups and 288 in the control groups. They evaluated heat-inactivated varicella zoster virus (VZV) vaccine (two trials), influenza vaccines (five trials) and inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) (one trial). Seven trials had high and one trial had moderate risk of bias.VZV vaccine might reduce herpes zoster compared to no vaccine (RR 0.54, 95% CI 0.3 to 1.0, P=0.05), but not statistically significant. Vaccination also demonstrated efficacy in immune response but frequently caused local adverse effects. One trial reported severity score of zoster, which favored vaccination (MD 2.6, 95% CI 0.94 to 4.26, P=0.002).Two RCTs compared inactivated influenza vaccine with no vaccine and reported lower risk of lower respiratory infections (RR 0.39, 95% CI 0.19 to 0.78, P=0.008) and hospitalization (RR 0.17, 95% CI 0.09 to 0.31, P<0.00001) in vaccine recipients. However, vaccine recipients more frequently experienced irritability and local adverse effects. There was no significant difference in seroconversion between one and two doses of influenza vaccine (one trial), or between recombinant and standard influenza vaccine (one trial), or influenza vaccine given with or without re-induction chemotherapy (one trial).The IPV trial comparing vaccination starting at 6 versus 18 months after stem cell transplant (SCT) found no significant difference in seroconversion. Inactivated VZV vaccine might reduce zoster severity in adult SCT recipients. Inactivated influenza vaccine might reduce respiratory infections and hospitalization in adults with multiple myeloma or children with leukemia or lymphoma. However, the quality of evidence is low. Local adverse effects occur frequently. Further high-quality RCTs are needed.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Paediatric hepatoblastoma and hepatocellular carcinoma: retrospective study.

OBJECTIVES: To compare and contrast clinical characteristics and outcomes of hepatoblastoma or hepatocellular carcinoma in paediatric patients. DESIGN: Retrospective study. SETTING: University teaching hospital, Hong Kong. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Medical records of 22 paediatric patients with hepatoblastoma (n=11) or hepatocellular carcinoma (n=11) admitted to Queen Mary Hospital between 1989 and 2000 were reviewed. Data gathered included demographic data, results of liver function tests, hepatitis A, B, and C titres, and alpha-foetoprotein levels, and imaging studies including chest X-ray, ultrasound study, computed tomography scan, and magnetic resonance imaging/hepatic angiogram for tumour staging and resectability. RESULTS: The mean age of patients with hepatoblastoma was 18 months (range, 5 months to 3 years), while that of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma was 10.2 years (range, 2 to 16 years). Females predominated in the hepatoblastoma group (female:male, 8:3) and males in the hepatocellular carcinoma group (male:female, 10:1). None of the patients with hepatoblastoma were hepatitis B surface antigen positive, in contrast to 64% of the hepatocellular carcinoma group. Only 45% of the hepatocellular carcinomas were resectable at presentation and this figure remained unchanged following chemotherapy. A total of 91% of hepatoblastomas were resectable, four at presentation, and a further six after chemotherapy. Tumour rupture was more common in patients with hepatoblastoma than in those with hepatocellular carcinoma (36% versus 9% of cases, respectively). Mortality rates were considerably higher among the hepatocellular carcinoma group than the hepatoblastoma group in this series. CONCLUSION: Childhood hepatoblastoma and hepatocellular carcinoma differ with respect to age and tumour stage at presentation, hepatatis B surface antigen status, tendency to rupture, chemosensitivity, and prognosis.published_or_final_versio

Activation of the pre-supplementary motor area but not inferior prefrontal cortex in association with short stop signal reaction time – an intra-subject analysis

Abstract Background Our previous work described the neural processes of motor response inhibition during a stop signal task (SST). Employing the race model, we computed the stop signal reaction time (SSRT) to index individuals' ability in inhibitory control. The pre-supplementary motor area (preSMA), which shows greater activity in individuals with short as compared to those with long SSRT, plays a role in mediating response inhibition. In contrast, the right inferior prefrontal cortex (rIFC) showed greater activity during stop success as compared to stop error. Here we further pursued this functional differentiation of preSMA and rIFC on the basis of an intra-subject approach. Results Of 65 subjects who participated in four sessions of the SST, we identified 30 individuals who showed a difference in SSRT but were identical in other aspects of stop signal performance between the first ("early") and last two ("late") sessions. By comparing regional brain activation between the two sessions, we confirmed greater preSMA but not rIFC activity during short as compared to long SSRT session within individuals. Furthermore, putamen, anterior cerebellum and middle/posterior cingulate cortex also showed greater activity in association with short SSRT. Conclusion These results are consistent with a role of medial prefrontal cortex in controlled action and inferior frontal cortex in orienting attention. We discussed these findings with respect to the process of attentional monitoring and inhibitory motor control during stop signal inhibition.</p

Fog Computing and Networking: Part 1 [Guest editorial]

The articles in this special section focus on fog computing and networking. Fog rises as cloud descends to be closer to the end users. Building on the foundation of past work in related areas and driven by emerging new applications and capabilities, fog computing and networking is now presenting unique opportunities to university researchers and the industry. These articles consists of overview articles that span much of this growing terrain of fog

Clarifying fog computing and networking: 10 questions and answers

Fog computing is an end-to-end horizontal architecture that distributes computing, storage, control, and networking functions closer to users along the cloud-to-thing continuum. The word “edge” may carry different meanings. A common usage of the term refers to the edge network as opposed to the core network, with equipment such as edge routers, base stations, and home gateways. In that sense, there are several differences between fog and edge. First, fog is inclusive of cloud, core, metro, edge, clients, and things. The fog architecture will further enable pooling, orchestrating, managing, and securing the resources and functions distributed in the cloud, anywhere along the cloud-to-thing continuum, and on the things to support end-to-end services and applications. Second, fog seeks to realize a seamless continuum of computing services from the cloud to the things rather than treating the network edges as isolated computing platforms. Third, fog envisions a horizontal platform that will support the common fog computing functions for multiple industries and application domains, including but not limited to traditional telco services. Fourth, a dominant part of edge is mobile edge, whereas the fog computing architecture will be flexible enough to work over wireline as well as wireless networks

Fog Computing and Networking: Part 2

The articles in this special section focus on the deployment of fog computing in communication networks