Invasive Papillary Carcinoma of the Breast Presenting as Post-Traumatic Recurrent Hemorrhagic Cysts

We report the sonographic features of an intracystic papillary carcinoma of the breast presenting as recurrent hemorrhagic cysts following trauma. A 56-year-old woman presented with palpable breast masses after a traumatic event; sonography showed multiple, well-defined, hemorrhagic cysts. Hemorrhagic fluid was evacuated by fine needle aspiration with no residual lesions. Cytology was negative for malignancy. Five months later, the mass reappeared; sonography demonstrated multiple cysts with solid nodules. US-guided core biopsy and surgery revealed invasive papillary carcinoma. We suggest close follow-up of cystic masses, even with negative cytology, and performance of surgical excisional biopsy in cases of rapid refilling after aspiration

The impact of air pollution on hospital admissions: Evidence from Italy

In this paper we study the impact of air pollution on hospital admissions for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease for 103 Italian provinces, over the period from 2004 to 2009. We use information on annual mean concentrations of carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, particulate matter, and ozone measured at monitoring station level to build province-level indicators of pollution. Hence, we estimate a regression model for hospital admissions, where we allow our aggregate measures of pollution to be subject to measurement error and correlated with the error term. We also adopt standard errors for estimates that are robust to serial and spatial correlation in the error term, to allow for temporal persistence and geographical concentration of unobservable risk factors.We find that higher levels of particulate matter are associated with higher levels of hospitalisation for children, while ozone plays an important role in explaining hospital admissions of the elderly. Other factors that appear to have an effect on hospital admissions for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are precipitation and provincial unemployment rate

Mutation analysis of the Gadd45 gene at exon 4 in atypical fibroxanthoma

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Atypical fibroxanthoma (AFX) histologically mimics high-grade sarcoma in the skin, although it follows a benign clinical course. AFX occurs in the sun-exposed skin and for this reason, an association with ultraviolet light has long been suspected. Bax and Gadd45 are p53 effector proteins. Bax is a programmed cell death protein and belongs to the Bcl-2 family. Gadd45 is a multifunctional DNA damage-inducible gene associated with the process of DNA damage.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Immunohistochemical expression of Bax was analyzed in 7 cases of AFX, and in 7 cases of benign fibrous histiocytoma (BFH) used as a comparison. The expression pattern of Bax was compared to previously reported p53 and Gadd45 expressions in a correspondent series. Mutation of the Gadd45 gene at exon 4 was also analyzed in AFX.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>AFX and BFH showed immunoreactivities respectively for Bax (3/7, 0/7), Gadd45 (4/7, 1/7) and p53 (2/7, 0/7). There was no exact correlation between p53 expression and Bax or Gadd45 expression. However, the pattern of expression between Bax and Gadd45 was also the same, with the exception of one case. No mutation of the Gadd45 gene at exon 4 was observed in a series of 6 AFX cases where DNA was available (0/6).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These results suggest a possible association between Bax and Gadd45 in AFX, and may refute any possibility of dysfunction of Gadd45 in terms of gene mutation, at least at exon 4 of the Gadd45 gene.</p

Infrastructural support to promote farmer adoption of improved technologies.

The paper considers the factors responsible for technology adoption and suggests the infrastructures needed to hasten adoption. Case studies from Bangladesh are used to illustrate the beneficial effects of some of the infrastructural support systems on technology adoption

Pan-cancer analysis of whole genomes

Cancer is driven by genetic change, and the advent of massively parallel sequencing has enabled systematic documentation of this variation at the whole-genome scale(1-3). Here we report the integrative analysis of 2,658 whole-cancer genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types from the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). We describe the generation of the PCAWG resource, facilitated by international data sharing using compute clouds. On average, cancer genomes contained 4-5 driver mutations when combining coding and non-coding genomic elements; however, in around 5% of cases no drivers were identified, suggesting that cancer driver discovery is not yet complete. Chromothripsis, in which many clustered structural variants arise in a single catastrophic event, is frequently an early event in tumour evolution; in acral melanoma, for example, these events precede most somatic point mutations and affect several cancer-associated genes simultaneously. Cancers with abnormal telomere maintenance often originate from tissues with low replicative activity and show several mechanisms of preventing telomere attrition to critical levels. Common and rare germline variants affect patterns of somatic mutation, including point mutations, structural variants and somatic retrotransposition. A collection of papers from the PCAWG Consortium describes non-coding mutations that drive cancer beyond those in the TERT promoter(4); identifies new signatures of mutational processes that cause base substitutions, small insertions and deletions and structural variation(5,6); analyses timings and patterns of tumour evolution(7); describes the diverse transcriptional consequences of somatic mutation on splicing, expression levels, fusion genes and promoter activity(8,9); and evaluates a range of more-specialized features of cancer genomes(8,10-18).Peer reviewe

Synthesis, characterization and reactivity of single-sitealuminium amides bearing benzotriazole phenoxideligands: catalysis for ring-opening polymerization oflactide and carbon dioxide/propylene oxide coupling

New aluminium complexes containing bis-BTP ligands (BTP = N,O-bidentate benzotriazole phenoxide) were synthesized and structurally characterized. Amine elimination of Al(NMe2)3 with RBTP-H ligands (CMe2PhBTP-H = 2-(2H-benzotriazol-2-yl)-4,6-bis(1-methyl-1-phenylethyl)phenol, t-BuBTP-H = 2-(2H-benzotriazol-2-yl)-4,6-di-tert-butylphenol and TMClBTP-H = 2-tert-butyl-6-(5-chloro-2H-benzotriazol-2-yl)-4-methylphenol) (2.0 mol equiv.) in toluene or hexane afforded the penta-coordinated single-site amidoaluminium complexes [(RBTP)2Al(NMe2)] (R = CMe2Ph for 1; R = t-Bu for 2; R = TMCl for 3) in satisfactory yields. With the addition of H2O (0.5 molar equiv.), the hydrolysis of Al amides 2 and 3 in a mixed solvent of THF/toluene at 25 °C produced oxo-bridged bimetallic aluminium complexes [{(RBTP)2Al}2(μ-O)] (R = t-Bu for 4 and R = TMCl for 5) in ≥70% yield. According to single crystal X-ray diffraction studies, complex 2 shows a monomeric Al(III) amide with bis(t-BuBTP) ligands and one –NMe2 group, whereas alumoxane 4 is a dinuclear species, in which the bonding mode of the Al–O–Al moiety from μ2-oxo assumes a linear type. Catalysis for ring-opening polymerization of lactide (LA) and CO2/propylene oxide (PO) coupling was systematically studied. Single-site Al amide 3 is an efficient initiator for LA polymerizations with a living character; the polymerization displays a first-order dependence on the concentration of L-LA. Bimetallic BTP-ligated alumoxane 5 is an active catalyst (TOF: 120 h−1) for the coupling of CO2 with PO in the presence of n-Bu4NBr to give propylene carbonate under mild conditions