PD-1 blockade in advanced NSCLC: A focus on pembrolizumab.

Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is one of the most prevalent cancers and is responsible for a large proportion of all cancer-related deaths. Current treatment options are inadequate, reflecting a substantial unmet clinical need. Increasing knowledge regarding the mechanisms and genetic aberrations underlying tumor development and growth has heralded a new era of therapy in oncology, moving away from indiscriminate cytotoxic chemotherapy toward more finely focused, targeted medicine. The development of small-molecule drugs and monoclonal antibodies directed toward specific components of dysfunctional molecular or immune pathways, and mutated genes specific to particular cancer types, is leading the field to more personalized and less toxic treatment options, many of which have demonstrated greater efficacy and survival benefits than their chemotherapeutic counterparts. Particularly successful examples are agents that interfere with the programmed death 1 (PD-1) pathway, which many tumors can hijack to avoid immune surveillance and editing. Pembrolizumab, a monoclonal antibody directed at PD-1 that blocks the engagement between PD-1 and its ligands, has been explored as a treatment for solid tumors, and demonstrated survival benefits in several studies. The use of PD-1 inhibitors such as nivolumab and pembrolizumab in advanced cancers is widespread, and pembrolizumab is available in more than 60 countries for at least one of the following: advanced melanoma, PD-L1-expressing NSCLC, head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, and adult and pediatric patients with refractory classical Hodgkin's lymphoma. This work provides a brief overview of the role of pembrolizumab in the treatment of advanced (recurrent/metastatic) NSCLC

Еколого-геохімічні дослідження ґрунтів в зоні впливу підприємств чорної металургії м. Маріуполя

Вивчено закономірності розподілу і форми знаходження важких металів у ґрунтах і компонентах оточуючого середовища поблизу комбінатів чорної металургії м. Маріуполь.Изучены закономерности распределения и формы нахождения тяжелых металлов в почвах и компонентах окружающей среды вблизи комбинатов черной металлургии г. Мариуполь.There was done investigation of distribution and deportment form of heavy metals in soils and environmental components nearby the group of ferrous metallurgy enterprises of Mariupol

Fossil CO2 and GHG emissions of all world countries

The Paris Agreement plans global stocktakes, to which the UNFCCC GHG emission inventories are the primary input. To complete this picture, the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research provides for all world countries emission timeseries from 1970 until 2016 for CO2 and until 2012 for the other GHGs.JRC.C.5-Air and Climat

Threeâ dimensional imaging of shear bands in bulk metallic glass composites

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/134811/1/jmi12443_am.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/134811/2/jmi12443.pd

Українська діаспора Кабардино-Балкарії

Кабардино-Балкарська республіка – суб’єкт Російської Федерації. За даними статистичного управління за 2000 рік, у республіці проживало близько 15 тисяч етнічних українців. З них в Нальчику - 5725 чоловік

Ensuring organization-intervention fit for a participatory organizational intervention to improve food service workers’ health and wellbeing: Workplace organizational health study

Objective: Food-service workers’ health and wellbeing is impacted by their jobs and work environments. Formative research methods were used to explore working conditions impacting workers’ health to inform intervention planning and implementation and to enhance the intervention’s ‘fit’ to the organization. Methods: Four qualitative methods (worker focus groups; manager interviews; worksite observations; multi-stakeholder workshop) explored in-depth and then prioritized working conditions impacting workers’ health as targets for an intervention. Results: Prioritized working conditions included: ergonomics; work intensity; career development and job enrichment. Data revealed necessary intervention mechanisms to enhance intervention implementation: worker and management communication infrastructure; employee participation in intervention planning and implementation; tailored worksite strategies; and ensuring leadership commitment. Conclusions: These targeted, comprehensive methods move away from a typical focus on generic working conditions, e.g. job demands and physical work environment, to explore those conditions unique to an organization. Thereby, enhancing ‘intervention-fit’ at multiple levels within the company context

Malignant pleural mesothelioma: ESMO Clinical Practice Guidelines for diagnosis, treatment and follow-up.

Biological, physical and clinical aspects of cancer treatment with ionising radiatio

Supporting the Specification and Runtime Validation of Asynchronous Calling Patterns in Reactive Systems

Wireless sensor networks (“sensornets”) are highly distributed and concurrent, with program actions bound to external stimuli. They exemplify a system class known as reactive systems, which comprise execution units that have “hidden” layers of control flow. A key obstacle in enabling reactive system developers to rigorously validate their implementations has been the absence of precise software component specifications and tools to assist in leveraging those specifications at runtime. We address this obstacle in three ways: (i) We describe a specification approach tailored for reactive environments and demonstrate its application in the context of sensornets. (ii) We describe the design and implementation of extensions to the popular nesC tool-chain that enable the expression of these specifications and automate the generation of runtime monitors that signal violations, if any. (iii) Finally, we apply the specification approach to a significant collection of the most commonly used software components in the TinyOS distribution and analyze the overhead involved in monitoring their correctness

Quality of life of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia in the Netherlands: results of a longitudinal multicentre study

Purpose: To describe the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of an unselected population of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) including untreated patients. Methods: HRQoL was measured by the EORTC QLQ-C30 including the CLL16 module, EQ-5D, and VAS in an observational study over multiple years. All HRQoL measurements per patient were connected and analysed using area under the curve analysis over the entire study duration. The total patient group was compared with the general population, and three groups of CLL patients were described separately, i.e. patients without any active treatment (“watch and wait”), chlorambucil treatment only, and patients with other treatment(s). Results: HRQoL in the total group of CLL patients was compromised when compared with age- and gender-matched norm scores of the general population. CLL patients scored statistically worse on the VAS and utility score of the EQ-5D, all functioning scales of the EORTC QLQ-C30, and the symptoms of fatigue, dyspnoea, sleeping disturbance, appetite loss, and financial difficulties. In untreated patients, the HRQoL was slightly reduced. In all treatment stages, HRQoL was compromised considerably. Patients treated with chlorambucil only scored worse on the EORTC QLQ-C30 than patients who were treated with other treatments with regard to emotional functioning, cognitive functioning, bruises, uncomfortable stomach, and apathy. Conclusions: CLL patients differ most from the general population on role functioning, fatigue, concerns about future health, and having not enough energy. Once treatment is indicated, HRQoL becomes considerably compromised. This applies to all treatments, including chlorambucil, which is considered to be a mild treatment