Acute superior mesenteric venous thrombosis with advanced gastric cancer: a case report

Although the advanced stages of neoplasms have a risk of superior mesenteric venous thrombosis (MVT), an initial clinical diagnosis of MVT is sometimes difficult and it can be treated as a cancer-related pain using NSAIDs and/or opioids

Portal vein thrombosis following laparoscopic cholecystectomy complicated by dengue viral infection: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Portal vein thrombosis is an uncommon post-operative complication following abdominal surgery. Although therapeutic anticoagulation is recommended, this treatment may be questionable when the patient has an associated bleeding diathesis.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>We report a case of a 63-year-old woman of Asian Indian ethnicity who developed portal vein thrombosis following an uneventful laparoscopic cholecystectomy for symptomatic gallstones. Her condition was further complicated by dengue viral infection in the post-operative period, with thrombocytopenia immediately preceding the diagnosis of portal vein thrombosis. The etiological connections between dengue viral infection with thrombocytopenia, laparoscopic cholecystectomy, portal vein thrombosis as well as the treatment dilemmas posed in treating a patient with portal vein thrombosis with a bleeding diathesis are discussed.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>When portal vein thrombosis occurs in patients with contraindications to anticoagulation, there is a role for initial conservative management without aggressive anticoagulation therapy and such patients must be approached on an individualized basis.</p

Epigenetic prediction of complex traits and mortality in a cohort of individuals with oropharyngeal cancer

Background: DNA methylation (DNAm) variation is an established predictor for several traits. In the context of oropharyngeal cancer (OPC), where 5-year survival is ~ 65%, DNA methylation may act as a prognostic biomarker. We examined the accuracy of DNA methylation biomarkers of 4 complex exposure traits (alcohol consumption, body mass index [BMI], educational attainment and smoking status) in predicting all-cause mortality in people with OPC. Results: DNAm predictors of alcohol consumption, BMI, educational attainment and smoking status were applied to 364 individuals with OPC in the Head and Neck 5000 cohort (HN5000; 19.6% of total OPC cases in the study), followed up for median 3.9 years; inter-quartile range (IQR) 3.3 to 5.2 years (time-to-event—death or censor). The proportion of phenotypic variance explained in each trait was as follows: 16.5% for alcohol consumption, 22.7% for BMI, 0.4% for educational attainment and 51.1% for smoking. We then assessed the relationship between each DNAm predictor and all-cause mortality using Cox proportional-hazard regression analysis. DNAm prediction of smoking was most consistently associated with mortality risk (hazard ratio [HR], 1.38 per standard deviation (SD) increase in smoking DNAm score; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.04 to 1.83; P 0.025, in a model adjusted for demographic, lifestyle, health and biological variables). Finally, we examined the accuracy of each DNAm predictor of mortality. DNAm predictors explained similar levels of variance in mortality to self-reported phenotypes. Receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curves for the DNAm predictors showed a moderate discrimination of alcohol consumption (area under the curve [AUC] 0.63), BMI (AUC 0.61) and smoking (AUC 0.70) when predicting mortality. The DNAm predictor for education showed poor discrimination (AUC 0.57). Z tests comparing AUCs between self-reported phenotype ROC curves and DNAm score ROC curves did not show evidence for difference between the two (alcohol consumption P 0.41, BMI P 0.62, educational attainment P 0.49, smoking P 0.19). Conclusions: In the context of a clinical cohort of individuals with OPC, DNAm predictors for smoking, alcohol consumption, educational attainment and BMI exhibit similar predictive values for all-cause mortality compared to self-reported data. These findings may have translational utility in prognostic model development, particularly where phenotypic data are not available

Effective Rheology of Bubbles Moving in a Capillary Tube

We calculate the average volumetric flux versus pressure drop of bubbles moving in a single capillary tube with varying diameter, finding a square-root relation from mapping the flow equations onto that of a driven overdamped pendulum. The calculation is based on a derivation of the equation of motion of a bubble train from considering the capillary forces and the entropy production associated with the viscous flow. We also calculate the configurational probability of the positions of the bubbles.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

Whole Exome Sequencing of HIV-1 long-term non-progressors identifies rare variants in genes encoding innate immune sensors and signaling molecules

Abstract Common CCR5-∆32 and HLA alleles only explain a minority of the HIV long-term non-progressor (LTNP) and elite controller (EC) phenotypes. To identify rare genetic variants contributing to the slow disease progression phenotypes, we performed whole exome sequencing (WES) on seven LTNPs and four ECs. HLA and CCR5 allele status, total HIV DNA reservoir size, as well as variant-related functional differences between the ECs, LTNPs, and eleven age- and gender-matched HIV-infected non-controllers on antiretroviral therapy (NCARTs) were investigated. Several rare variants were identified in genes involved in innate immune sensing, CD4-dependent infectivity, HIV trafficking, and HIV transcription mainly within the LTNP group. ECs and LTNPs had a significantly lower HIV reservoir compared to NCARTs. Furthermore, three LTNPs with variants affecting HIV nuclear import showed integrated HIV DNA levels below detection limit after in vitro infection. HIV slow progressors with variants in the TLR and NOD2 pathways showed reduced pro-inflammatory responses compared to matched controls. Low-range plasma levels of fibronectin was observed in a LTNP harboring two FN1 variants. Taken together, this study identified rare variants in LTNPs as well as in one EC, which may contribute to understanding of HIV pathogenesis and these slow progressor phenotypes, especially in individuals without protecting CCR5-∆32 and HLA alleles

Performance of missing transverse momentum reconstruction with the ATLAS detector using proton–proton collisions at √s = 13 TeV

The performance of the missing transverse momentum (EmissT) reconstruction with the ATLAS detector is evaluated using data collected in proton–proton collisions at the LHC at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV in 2015. To reconstruct EmissT, fully calibrated electrons, muons, photons, hadronically decaying τ -leptons, and jets reconstructed from calorimeter energy deposits and charged-particle tracks are used. These are combined with the soft hadronic activity measured by reconstructed charged-particle tracks not associated with the hard objects. Possible double counting of contributions from reconstructed charged-particle tracks from the inner detector, energy deposits in the calorimeter, and reconstructed muons from the muon spectrometer is avoided by applying a signal ambiguity resolution procedure which rejects already used signals when combining the various EmissT contributions. The individual terms as well as the overall reconstructed EmissT are evaluated with various performance metrics for scale (linearity), resolution, and sensitivity to the data-taking conditions. The method developed to determine the systematic uncertainties of the EmissT scale and resolution is discussed. Results are shown based on the full 2015 data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3.2 fb−1

Search for High-Mass Resonances Decaying to τν in pp Collisions at √s=13 TeV with the ATLAS Detector

A search for high-mass resonances decaying to τν using proton-proton collisions at √s=13 TeV produced by the Large Hadron Collider is presented. Only τ-lepton decays with hadrons in the final state are considered. The data were recorded with the ATLAS detector and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb−1. No statistically significant excess above the standard model expectation is observed; model-independent upper limits are set on the visible τν production cross section. Heavy W′ bosons with masses less than 3.7 TeV in the sequential standard model and masses less than 2.2–3.8 TeV depending on the coupling in the nonuniversal G(221) model are excluded at the 95% credibility level