Validity and reliability of the dysfunctional beliefs and attitudes about sleep scale-10 in iranian clinical population

Background: Dysfunctional cognitions and attitudes about sleep are considered as one of the most important factors underlying insomnia. Objectives: The current study aimed at investigating the validity and reliability of the dysfunctional beliefs and attitudes about sleep scale-10 (DBAS-10) in an Iranian clinical population. Methods: The clinical sample consisted of 120 patients with insomnia disorder referred to the sleep disorders clinic at Baharloo hospital in Tehran in 2015. The control group (n = 120) included a community sample volunteered to participate in the study. Sleep Diary, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Insomnia Severity Index, Pre-Sleep Arousal Scale, and Depression, Anxiety, Stress Sacle-21, were used to assess concurrent validity. Test-retest and Cronbach' alpha were conducted to examine the reliability of the scale. Construct validity of the scale was investigated via confirmatory factor analysis. Results: The current study findings indicated that DBAS-10 had appropriate test-retest reliability (r = 0.83) and internal consistency (Cronbach' alpha = 0.82). Total score of DBAS-10 was significantly associated with PSQI (r = 0.34), ISI (r = 0.45), the cognitive subscale of PSAS (r = 0.36), and depression (0.34), anxiety (r = 0.34) and stress (r = 0.39) subscales of DASS-21. Factor analysis indicated that the Espie et al. (2000) model had significantly better fitness in comparison with the Edinger andWohlgemuth (2001) model. The cutoff point, sensitivity, and specificity of the scale were 6.7, 74.17 and 87.50, respectively. Conclusions: The Persian version of DBAS-10 had proper psychometric properties for Iranian clinical population. ©2018, Iranian Journal of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Ex vivo culture of intact human patient derived pancreatic tumour tissue

The poor prognosis of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is attributed to the highly fibrotic stroma and complex multi-cellular microenvironment that is difficult to fully recapitulate in pre-clinical models. To fast-track translation of therapies and to inform personalised medicine, we aimed to develop a whole-tissue ex vivo explant model that maintains viability, 3D multicellular architecture, and microenvironmental cues of human pancreatic tumours. Patient-derived surgically-resected PDAC tissue was cut into 1-2 mm explants and cultured on gelatin sponges for 12 days. Immunohistochemistry revealed that human PDAC explants were viable for 12 days and maintained their original tumour, stromal and extracellular matrix architecture. As proof-of-principle, human PDAC explants were treated with Abraxane and we observed different levels of response between patients. PDAC explants were also transfected with polymeric nanoparticles + Cy5-siRNA and we observed abundant cytoplasmic distribution of Cy5-siRNA throughout the PDAC explants. Overall, our novel model retains the 3D architecture of human PDAC and has advantages over standard organoids: presence of functional multi-cellular stroma and fibrosis, and no tissue manipulation, digestion, or artificial propagation of organoids. This provides unprecedented opportunity to study PDAC biology including tumour-stromal interactions and rapidly assess therapeutic response to drive personalised treatment.John Kokkinos, George Sharbeen, Koroush S. Haghighi, Rosa Mistica C. Ignacio, Chantal Kopecky, Estrella Gonzales-Aloy ... et al