Total humerus replacement for osteosarcoma with proximal part of humerus: a case report

Incisional biopsy and intramedullary pinning were performed for pathological fracture associated with a malignant bone tumor of the proximal humerus. Osteosarcoma, for which preoperative chemotherapy had been performed, was confirmed by postoperative pathological examination. To achieve wide resection and acquire a safe resected margin, total humerus replacement was performed, and the whole humerus was reconstructed using the Howmedica Modular Reconstruction system. The patient resumed normal activities, although mild contracture of the elbow joint remains 8 years after surgery

Should the surgeon or the general practitioner (GP) follow up patients after surgery for colon cancer? A randomized controlled trial protocol focusing on quality of life, cost-effectiveness and serious clinical events

This trial has been registered at ClinicalTrials.gov. The trial registration number is: NCT00572143.© 2008 Augestad et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0),which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Studies on the influence of host plants and effect of chemical stimulants on the feeding behavior in the muga silkworm, Antheraea assamensis

The feeding habits of Antheraea assamensis, Helfer (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae) larvae towards the leaves of its four different host plants, Persea bombycina King ex. Hook (Laurales: Lauraceae), Litsea polhantha Jussieu, L. salicifolia Roxburgh ex. Nees and L. citrata Blume, and the chemical basis of feeding preference were investigated. Nutritional superiority of young and medium leaves with respect to soluble protein, total phenol and phenylalanine ammonia lyase activity was observed in the leaves of P. bombycina compared to other host plants. Attraction and feeding tests with detached leaves and artificial diet with different chemical stimulants revealed that a mixture of the flavonoids, myrcetin, and 7, 2’, 4’ trimethoxy dihydroxy flavone with sterol compound β-sitosterol elicited the most biting behavior by A. assamensis larvae. While linalyl acetate alone attracted larvae towards the leaves of the host plants, a mixture of caryophyllene, decyl aldehyde and dodecyl aldehyde was found to both attract them to the host leaves and cause biting behavior. Azaindole was found to deter them from the host plants

Assessment of predictive models for chlorophyll-a concentration of a tropical lake

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This study assesses four predictive ecological models; Fuzzy Logic (FL), Recurrent Artificial Neural Network (RANN), Hybrid Evolutionary Algorithm (HEA) and multiple linear regressions (MLR) to forecast chlorophyll- a concentration using limnological data from 2001 through 2004 of unstratified shallow, oligotrophic to mesotrophic tropical Putrajaya Lake (Malaysia). Performances of the models are assessed using Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), correlation coefficient (r), and Area under the Receiving Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC). Chlorophyll-a have been used to estimate algal biomass in aquatic ecosystem as it is common in most algae. Algal biomass indicates of the trophic status of a water body. Chlorophyll- a therefore, is an effective indicator for monitoring eutrophication which is a common problem of lakes and reservoirs all over the world. Assessments of these predictive models are necessary towards developing a reliable algorithm to estimate chlorophyll- a concentration for eutrophication management of tropical lakes.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Same data set was used for models development and the data was divided into two sets; training and testing to avoid biasness in results. FL and RANN models were developed using parameters selected through sensitivity analysis. The selected variables were water temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, ammonia nitrogen, nitrate nitrogen and Secchi depth. Dissolved oxygen, selected through stepwise procedure, was used to develop the MLR model. HEA model used parameters selected using genetic algorithm (GA). The selected parameters were pH, Secchi depth, dissolved oxygen and nitrate nitrogen. RMSE, r, and AUC values for MLR model were (4.60, 0.5, and 0.76), FL model were (4.49, 0.6, and 0.84), RANN model were (4.28, 0.7, and 0.79) and HEA model were (4.27, 0.7, and 0.82) respectively. Performance inconsistencies between four models in terms of performance criteria in this study resulted from the methodology used in measuring the performance. RMSE is based on the level of error of prediction whereas AUC is based on binary classification task.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Overall, HEA produced the best performance in terms of RMSE, r, and AUC values. This was followed by FL, RANN, and MLR.</p

Progression of an osteoid osteoma to an osteoblastoma. Case report.

The authors report the unusual case of a 25-year-old man with occipitocervical pain related to a lesion of the C-1 lateral mass. Initially this lesion measured 8 mm and exhibited radiological features of an osteoid osteoma. Seven years later, as pain increased and became unresponsive to antiinflammatory drugs, computerized tomography scanning demonstrated progression to a 16-mm lesion, highly suspicious of an osteoblastoma. After mobilization of the vertebral artery from the C-1 groove, the lesion was completely resected via an anterolateral approach. Complete symptomatic relief, restoration of cervical range of motion and preservation of cervical stability were achieved immediately after surgery, and the results were confirmed at the 4-year follow-up examination. Pathological examination of tissue samples confirmed the diagnosis of osteoblastoma. Osteoid osteoma rarely evolves to osteoblastoma. Deterioration of a patient's ability to control pain is a warning sign. Insight into such cases underlines the importance of close long-term radiological follow-up examination in patients with conservatively treated osteoid osteomas.Case ReportsJournal Articleinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Indian research on aging and dementia

All the articles published in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry (IJP) from 1958 to 2009 on aging, dementia and other mental health issues of late life were systematically reviewed. There were only a limited number of research articles on dementia in the IJP. Most of the Indian studies on dementia were published elsewhere. People above the age of 60 years constitute about 5% of patients seen in tertiary care settings. High prevalence of psychiatric morbidity was reported among community resident older people. Depression was the commonest mental health problem in late life. We need to develop community-based interventions for management of common conditions like depression in late life. The effectiveness of these interventions needs to be established. It is important to identify risk factors for depression and dementia in our population. We could then try and modify these factors to reduce the prevalence of these conditions