62 research outputs found
Acute Respiratory Distress due to Thymoma in a Patient Treated with TK Inhibitor: A Case Report and Review of the Current Treatment Options
Thymic malignancies are rare intrathoracic tumors that may be aggressive and difficult to treat in advanced stage. Surgery is the cornerstone of the management of thymomas: it is significant for the definite histopathological diagnosis and staging, and in most cases, it constitutes the first step of the treatment strategy. For patients with primary unresectable thymomas, the multimodal treatment schedule nowadays includes neoadjuvant chemotherapy, extensive surgery, adjuvant radiotherapy, and in some cases, adjuvant chemotherapy. A patient with a history of stage III COPD and an undiagnosed thoracic mass was admitted to the intensive care unit with acute respiratory distress. A radiologic evaluation by CT scan revealed a mass of 13 cm in diameter at the mediastinum. Fine needle aspiration was performed and revealed a thymoma. Due to poor performance status, the patient was not able to undergo surgery. He refused to be treated with neither chemotherapy nor radiotherapy, but due to EGFR overexpression, treatment with TK inhibitor was suggested. Fine needle aspiration biopsy is commonly used to identify metastasis to the mediastinum. However, it is less often employed as a primary diagnostic tool for tumors, particularly thymic neoplasms. The use of targeted therapies for the treatment of thymic malignancies has been described in the literature. Over the past years, significant efforts have been made to dissect the molecular pathways involved in the carcinogenesis of these tumors. Insights have been obtained following anecdotal clinical responses to targeted therapies, and large-scale genomic analyses have been conducted
Semileptonic decays of the standard Higgs boson
The Higgs boson decay into a pair of real or virtual W bosons, with one of
them decaying leptonically, is predicted within the Standard Model to have the
largest branching fraction of all Higgs decays that involve an isolated
electron or muon, for M_h > 120 GeV. We compute analytically the
fully-differential width for this h -> l \nu jj decay at tree level, and then
explore some multi-dimensional cuts that preserve the region of large signal.
Future searches for semileptonic decays at the Tevatron and LHC, employing
fully-differential information as outlined here, may be essential for ruling
out or in the Higgs boson and for characterizing a Higgs signal.Comment: 17 pages, 5 .eps figure
Searching for a heavy Higgs boson via the H --> l nu jj decay mode at the CERN LHC
The discovery of a heavy Higgs boson with mass up to m_H = 1 TeV at the CERN
LHC is possible in the H--> W^+W^- --> l nu jj decay mode. The weak boson
scattering signal and backgrounds from t\bar tjj and from W+jets production are
analyzed with parton level Monte Carlo programs which are built on full tree
level amplitudes for all subprocesses. The use of double jet tagging and the
reconstruction of the W invariant mass reduce the combined backgrounds to the
same level as the Higgs signal. A central mini-jet veto, which distinguishes
the different gluon radiation patterns of the hard processes, further improves
the signal to background ratio to about 2.5:1, with a signal cross section of 1
fb. The jet energy asymmetry of the W --> jj decay will give a clear signature
of the longitudinal polarization of the W's in the final event sample.Comment: 23 pages (with 7 embedded figures), Revtex, uses epsf.sty.
Z-compressed postscript version also available at
http://phenom.physics.wisc.edu/pub/preprints/1997/madph-97-1017.ps.Z or at
ftp://phenom.physics.wisc.edu/pub/preprints/1997/madph-97-1017.ps.
Searching for H --> tau tau in weak boson fusion at the LHC
Weak boson fusion is a copious source of intermediate mass Higgs bosons at
the LHC. The additional very energetic forward jets in these events provide for
powerful background suppression tools. We analyze the decay
mode for the Standard Model Higgs boson. A parton level analysis of the
dominant physics backgrounds (mainly and Drell-Yan production
of 's) and of reducible backgrounds (from jet and
production in association with two jets and subsequent leptonic decays)
demonstrates that this channel allows the observation of in a
low background environment, yielding a significant Higgs signal with an
integrated luminosity of about 30 fb. The weak boson fusion process thus
allows direct measurement of the coupling.Comment: 32 pages, Revtex, uses epsf.sty, 6 postscript figures. Opposite sign
charge requirement for tau candidates added for reducible backgrounds; cuts
for two figures explained more clearly in text; typos correcte
A method for identifying H -> tau tau -> e mu pTmiss at the CERN LHC
Weak boson fusion promises to be a copious source of intermediate mass Higgs
bosons at the LHC. The additional very energetic forward jets in these events
provide for powerful background suppression tools. We analyze the subsequent H
-> tau tau -> e mu pTmiss decay for Higgs boson masses in the 100-150 GeV
range. A parton level analysis of the dominant backgrounds demonstrates that
this channel allows the observation of H -> tau tau in a low-background
environment, yielding a significant Higgs boson signal with an integrated
luminosity of order 60 fb^-1 or less, over most of the mass range. We also
restate a No-Lose Theorem for observation of at least one of the CP-even
neutral Higgs bosons in the MSSM, which requires an integrated luminosity of
only 40 fb^-1.Comment: 21 pages, 10 embedded PS figs; additional comments on b-jet veto in
tt~ backgrounds; to be published in Phys Rev
Understanding the paleomires of Eocene lignites of Kachchh Basin, Gujarat (Western India): petrological implications
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