Diagnosis of vulvar lesions by non-invasive optical analysis: a pilot study

A procedure that could allow an early in vivo and non-invasive detection of vulvar lesions would be extremely useful. We tested an innovative optical method (Optiprobe), which uses a harmless, visible light source for the in vivo, on-line detection of minimal alterations in the structure of vulvar epithelium. A group of 3 female volunteers without gynecological symptoms were first screened to evaluate optical properties of normal vulvar tissue. Next, a group of 16 patients undergoing gynecological examination for vulvar lesions was evaluated by the Optiprobe at suspected sites before these sites were biopsied for histological analysis. Adjacent, non-involved sites were also measured to provide internal controls. Histological analysis of the biopsies identified one case that did not show obvious alterations, 4 cases of high-grade vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia (VIN), 5 cases of vulvitis, and 6 cases of lichen sclerosis (LS)

Primary breast lymphomas

The diagnosis, prognostic factors, and optimal management of primary breast lymphomas (PBL) is difficult. Seven patients recorded at the Geneva Cancer Registry between 1973–1998 were reviewed. Five patient had diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, one a follicular lymphoma and one a MALT-lymphoma. All patients had clinical and radiological findings consistent with breast cancer and underwent mastectomy, which is not indicated in PBL. Diagnosis should be established prior to operative interventions, as fine needle aspiration missed the diagnosis for one patient and intra-operative frozen sections for 3 patients in our study. Five-year and 10-year overall survivals were 57% and 15%, respectively. Of the 3 patients who died from PBL, 2 had tumors that were Bcl-2 positive but Bcl-6 negative. All 3 surviving patients have positive Bcl-2 and Bcl-6 immunostaining, which could be important prognostic factors if confirmed by a larger study

Search for heavy resonances decaying to two Higgs bosons in final states containing four b quarks

A search is presented for narrow heavy resonances X decaying into pairs of Higgs bosons (H) in proton-proton collisions collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC at root s = 8 TeV. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 fb(-1). The search considers HH resonances with masses between 1 and 3 TeV, having final states of two b quark pairs. Each Higgs boson is produced with large momentum, and the hadronization products of the pair of b quarks can usually be reconstructed as single large jets. The background from multijet and t (t) over bar events is significantly reduced by applying requirements related to the flavor of the jet, its mass, and its substructure. The signal would be identified as a peak on top of the dijet invariant mass spectrum of the remaining background events. No evidence is observed for such a signal. Upper limits obtained at 95 confidence level for the product of the production cross section and branching fraction sigma(gg -> X) B(X -> HH -> b (b) over barb (b) over bar) range from 10 to 1.5 fb for the mass of X from 1.15 to 2.0 TeV, significantly extending previous searches. For a warped extra dimension theory with amass scale Lambda(R) = 1 TeV, the data exclude radion scalar masses between 1.15 and 1.55 TeV

Performance of the CMS muon trigger system in proton-proton collisions at √s = 13 TeV

The muon trigger system of the CMS experiment uses a combination of hardware and software to identify events containing a muon. During Run 2 (covering 2015-2018) the LHC achieved instantaneous luminosities as high as 2 × 10 cm s while delivering proton-proton collisions at √s = 13 TeV. The challenge for the trigger system of the CMS experiment is to reduce the registered event rate from about 40 MHz to about 1 kHz. Significant improvements important for the success of the CMS physics program have been made to the muon trigger system via improved muon reconstruction and identification algorithms since the end of Run 1 and throughout the Run 2 data-taking period. The new algorithms maintain the acceptance of the muon triggers at the same or even lower rate throughout the data-taking period despite the increasing number of additional proton-proton interactions in each LHC bunch crossing. In this paper, the algorithms used in 2015 and 2016 and their improvements throughout 2017 and 2018 are described. Measurements of the CMS muon trigger performance for this data-taking period are presented, including efficiencies, transverse momentum resolution, trigger rates, and the purity of the selected muon sample. This paper focuses on the single- and double-muon triggers with the lowest sustainable transverse momentum thresholds used by CMS. The efficiency is measured in a transverse momentum range from 8 to several hundred GeV

Rare Tumors 2009; volume 1:e8 Diagnosis of vulvar lesions by

non-invasive optical analysis: a pilot stud

Rare Tumors 2009; volume 1:e14 Primary breast lymphomas

The diagnosis, prognostic factors, and optimal management of primary breast lymphomas (PBL) is difficult. Seven patients recorded at the Geneva Cancer Registry between 1973-1998 were reviewed. Five patient had diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, one a follicular lymphoma and one a MALT-lymphoma. All patients had clinical and radiological findings consistent with breast cancer and underwent mastectomy, which is not indicated in PBL. Diagnosis should be established prior to operative interventions, as fine needle aspiration missed the diagnosis for one patient and intra-operative frozen sections for 3 patients in our study. Five-year and 10-year overall survivals were 57 % and 15%, respectively. Of the 3 patients who died from PBL, 2 had tumors that were Bcl-2 positive but Bcl-6 negative. All 3 surviving patients have positive Bcl-2 and Bcl-6 immunostaining, which could be important prognostic factors if confirmed by a larger study

Ruxolitinib in steroid refractory graft-vs.-host disease: a case report

Abstract Background Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is potentially curative in a variety of hematological malignancies. Graft-vs.-host disease (GvHD) remains a life-threatening complication. Standard treatment is high-dose (HD) corticosteroids. Steroid-refractory (SR) GvHD is associated with poor prognosis. At present, second-line treatment is ill-defined and includes a number of agents. Novel insights into the pathophysiology of acute GvHD (aGvHD) highlight the relevant role of the host inflammatory response governed by several kinase families, including Janus kinases (JAK)1/2. Ruxolitinib, a JAK1/2 inhibitor approved for intermediate-2/high-risk myelofibrosis, was recently employed in SR-GvHD with encouraging overall response rates. Clinical experience however remains limited. Case presentation A 51-year-old male with refractory anemia with excess blast type-2 underwent a myeloablative allogeneic HSCT from a 9/10 HLA-matched unrelated donor after conditioning with busulfan and cyclophosphamide. GvHD prophylaxis consisted of cyclosporine, methotrexate, and thymoglobulin. CD34+ cells/kg infused were 8.69 × 106 kg. On day 29, the patient developed overall grade IV aGvHD with biopsy proven stage IV gastrointestinal (GI) GvHD refractory to HD corticosteroids. Patient conditions rapidly deteriorated and became critical despite the addition of mycophenolate mofetil and budesonide. On day 33, Ruxolitinib was started, and on day 39 the patient clinical conditions gradually improved. Complete resolution of aGvHD was also confirmed by histology on day 54. Conclusions At 5 months from HSCT, the patient is well and in continuous hematological complete remission without flare of GvHD. Ruxolitinib was discontinued on day 156. Ruxolitinib is feasible and effective in SR-aGvHD though large prospective clinical trials are warranted

The beam and detector of the NA62 experiment at CERN

NA62 is a fixed-target experiment at the CERN SPS dedicated to measurements of rare kaon decays. Such measurements, like the branching fraction of the K(+) → π(+) ν bar nu decay, have the potential to bring significant insights into new physics processes when comparison is made with precise theoretical predictions. For this purpose, innovative techniques have been developed, in particular, in the domain of low-mass tracking devices. Detector construction spanned several years from 2009 to 2014. The collaboration started detector commissioning in 2014 and will collect data until the end of 2018. The beam line and detector components are described together with their early performance obtained from 2014 and 2015 data.NA62 is a fixed-target experiment at the CERN SPS dedicated to measurements of rare kaon decays. Such measurements, like the branching fraction of the $K^{+} \rightarrow \pi^{+} \nu \bar\nu$ decay, have the potential to bring significant insights into new physics processes when comparison is made with precise theoretical predictions. For this purpose, innovative techniques have been developed, in particular, in the domain of low-mass tracking devices. Detector construction spanned several years from 2009 to 2014. The collaboration started detector commissioning in 2014 and will collect data until the end of 2018. The beam line and detector components are described together with their early performance obtained from 2014 and 2015 data