A Clinical Observation of Concomitant Therapy of Erlotinib and Whole Brain Radiotherapy in Patients of NSCLC Combined with Brain Metastases

Background and objective Treatments to brain metastases in patients of NSCLC include operation, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, while the disease control rate of brain lesions is not so good, the media survival time is 4-6 months. Tyrosine kinase inhibitor erlotinib can get into blood-brain barrier as reported, and it is used as a effetive method to control brain metastases. The aim of this clinical observation was to evaluate the efficacy and adverse reactions after concomitant therapy of erlotinib and whole brain radiotherapy (WBRT) in patients of NSCLC with brain metastasis. Methods This was a retrospective study. From 2006 to 2009, There were 12 cases of NSCLC with brain metastases. They were accepted the concomitant therapy of erlotinib and WBRT. The dose of erlotinib was 150 mg/d and the radiotherapy dose was (3 000-3 600) cGy/(10-12) F. After 2 months of radiotherapy the early efficacy was evaluabed. Results The control rate of brain metastases was 91.7% with PR 66.7%, SD 25%. The major adverse reactions were skin rash (75%) and fatigue (91.7%). Conclusion The effect of the concomitant of erlotinib and WBRT in patients of NSCLC with brain metastases is better than WBRT alone, and the concomitant therapy is well tolerated

Graphics processing unit accelerating compressed sensing photoacoustic computed tomography with total variation

Photoacoustic computed tomography with compressed sensing (CS-PACT) is a commonly used imaging strategy for sparse-sampling PACT. However, it is very time-consuming because of the iterative process involved in the image reconstruction. In this paper, we present a graphics processing unit (GPU)-based parallel computation framework for total-variation-based CS-PACT and adapted into a custom-made PACT system. Specifically, five compute-intensive operators are extracted from the iteration algorithm and are redesigned for parallel performance on a GPU. We achieved an image reconstruction speed 24–31 times faster than the CPU performance. We performed in vivo experiments on human hands to verify the feasibility of our developed method

In vivo optical-resolution photoacoustic computed tomography with compressed sensing

Optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy is becoming a powerful research tool for studying microcirculation in vivo. Moreover, ultrasonic-array-based optical-resolution photoacoustic computed tomography (OR-PACT), providing comparable resolution at an improved speed, has opened up new opportunities for studying microvascular dynamics. In this Letter, we have developed a compressed sensing with partially known support (CS-PKS) photoacoustic reconstruction strategy for OR-PACT. Compared with conventional backprojection reconstruction, the CS-PKS strategy was shown to produce high-quality in vivo OR-PACT images with threefold less measurement data, which can be leveraged to improve the data acquisition speed and costs of OR-PACT systems

Harnessing a multi-dimensional fibre laser using genetic wavefront shaping

The multi-dimensional laser is a fascinating platform not only for the discovery and understanding of new higher-dimensional coherent lightwaves but also for the frontier study of the complex three-dimensional (3D) nonlinear dynamics and solitary waves widely involved in physics, chemistry, biology and materials science. Systemically controlling coherent lightwave oscillation in multi-dimensional lasers, however, is challenging and has largely been unexplored; yet, it is crucial for both designing 3D coherent light fields and unveiling any underlying nonlinear complexities. Here, for the first time, we genetically harness a multi-dimensional fibre laser using intracavity wavefront shaping technology such that versatile lasing characteristics can be manipulated. We demonstrate that the output power, mode profile, optical spectrum and mode-locking operation can be genetically optimized by appropriately designing the objective function of the genetic algorithm. It is anticipated that this genetic and systematic intracavity control technology for multi-dimensional lasers will be an important step for obtaining high-performance 3D lasing and presents many possibilities for exploring multi-dimensional nonlinear dynamics and solitary waves that may enable new applications

Harnessing a multi-dimensional fibre laser using genetic wavefront shaping

The multi-dimensional laser is a fascinating platform not only for the discovery and understanding of new higher-dimensional coherent lightwaves but also for the frontier study of the complex three-dimensional (3D) nonlinear dynamics and solitary waves widely involved in physics, chemistry, biology and materials science. Systemically controlling coherent lightwave oscillation in multi-dimensional lasers, however, is challenging and has largely been unexplored; yet, it is crucial for both designing 3D coherent light fields and unveiling any underlying nonlinear complexities. Here, for the first time, we genetically harness a multi-dimensional fibre laser using intracavity wavefront shaping technology such that versatile lasing characteristics can be manipulated. We demonstrate that the output power, mode profile, optical spectrum and mode-locking operation can be genetically optimized by appropriately designing the objective function of the genetic algorithm. It is anticipated that this genetic and systematic intracavity control technology for multi-dimensional lasers will be an important step for obtaining high-performance 3D lasing and presents many possibilities for exploring multi-dimensional nonlinear dynamics and solitary waves that may enable new applications

Compressed-sensing photoacoustic computed tomography in vivo with partially known support

Compressed sensing (CS) can recover sparse signals from under-sampled measurements. In this work, we have developed an advanced CS framework for photoacoustic computed tomography (PACT). During the reconstruction, a small part of the nonzero signals’ locations in the transformed sparse domain is used as partially known support (PKS). PACT reconstructions have been performed with under-sampled in vivo image data of human hands and a rat. Compared to PACT with basic CS, PACT with CS-PKS can recover signals using fewer ultrasonic transducer elements and can improve convergence speed, which may ultimately enable high-speed, low-cost PACT for various biomedical applications

Aberrant DNA methylation of drug metabolism and transport genes in nodular goiter

The genes encoding drug-metabolizing enzymes and transporters play an important role in maintaining the normal life processes of human body. Their disorder or defect will lead to the occurrence and development of various diseases. Currently, most of studies have focused on genetic variations in these genes, however, in the present study, we analyzed promoter methylation of 11 drug metabolism and transport genes in a cohort of nodular goiter and normal thyroid tissues using methylation-specific PCR (MSP). Our data first revealed a distinct methylation profiling in drug metabolism and transport genes between nodular goiter and normal thyroid tissues, particularly ABCB4, CYP1B1 and CYP24A1 and SLC1A2. Given these genes contribute to the development and progression of various diseases, such as multidrug resistance and tumorigenesis, these epigenetic events may thus play a critical role in the pathogenesis of nodular goiter