Positive Relationship between L-type Amino Acid Transporter 1 Expression and Liver Metastasis in T3 Colorectal Cancer

The aim of this retrospective study was to evaluate L-type amino acid transporter 1 (LAT1) expression in colorectal cancer with invasion to the subserosal layer (T3), its relationship with clinicopathological characteristics, and its potential metastatic significance. LAT1 expression was measured by immunohistochemistry in tumors from 65 patients with primary colorectal carcinomas. LAT1 expression was deemed positive when more than 10% of the tumor cells showed distinct membranous immunoreactivity. Positive LAT1 expression was demonstrated in 29.2% (19 of 65) of primary tumors. LAT1 expression showed no significant relationship with clinicopathological characteristics, such as age, gender, tumor location, tumor size, macroscopic/microscopic classification, or lymph node metastasis. However, LAT1 expression showed a positive relationship with liver metastasis (P < 0.05). LAT1 expression in cancer cells may be a good marker for predicting potential metastasis to the liver in colorectal cancer

Broadband terahertz light source pumped by a 1 μm picosecond laser

We obtained a frequency tunable, low-coherence, picosecond, terahertz (THz) output with a high repetition rate from a picosecond Nd:YVO₄ bounce laser in combination with tandem periodically poled stoichiometric lithium tantalate and 4'-dimethylamino-N-methyl-4-stilbazolium tosylate crystals. The frequency of the THz output was tunable in the range 2.1-7.1 THz with a linewidth of ~3.5 THz at 2.2 THz. The THz output had a maximum peak power of ~180 mW and an average power of ~0.65 μW at 3.9 THz. This system has the potential to realize ultra-high speed, THz coherence tomography.6 page(s

Neutrophil-rich Pulmonary Carcinoma: Clinicopathological Characteristics and Cytokine Expression and Their Relationship with Lymph Node Metastasis

A small subset of carcinomas of various origins are associated with high numbers of tumor-infiltrating neutrophils (TINs). Here, we examined the characteristics of non-small-cell pulmonary carcinomas with high numbers of TINs, and their relationship with lymph node (LN) metastasis. The study included 100 patients diagnosed and treated for primary pulmonary carcinoma at Showa University Northern Yokohama Hospital from 2011 to 2012. We histopathologically defined tumors with > 10 neutrophils per high-power field as neutrophilrich. Among the 100 patients, 40 were classed as having neutrophilrich pulmonary cancer (NRPC), and tissue samples from these patients were prepared for further examination. Comparison of the clinicopathological factors (age, gender, tumor size, histological type, and grade) in NRPC cases with or without LN metastasis showed that none of the above factors was significantly correlated with LN metastasis. Immunohistochemical analysis of two cytokines that play a major role in granulopoiesis, granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) and macrophage-CSF (M-CSF), revealed that the expression of M-CSF, but not G-CSF, was significantly correlated with LN metastasis. Furthermore, coexpression of M-CSF and the M-CSF receptor was significantly correlated with LN metastasis, but coexpression of G-CSF and the G-CSF receptor did not show such a correlation. These findings indicate that M-CSF-producing NRPCs show a significantly high lymph node metastasis potential

Diffusion-tensor-based method for robust and practical estimation of axial and radial diffusional kurtosis.

OBJECTIVES: A new method that can estimate diffusional kurtosis image (DKI), estimated DKI (eDKI), parallel and perpendicular to neuronal fibres from greatly limited image data was designed to enable quick and practical assessment of DKI in clinics. The purpose of this study was to discuss the potential of this method for clinical use.\nMETHODS: Fourteen healthy volunteers were examined with a 3-Tesla MRI. The diffusion-weighting parameters included five different b-values (0, 500, 1,500, 2,000 and 2,500 s/mm2) with 64 different encoding directions for each of the b-values. K values were calculated by both conventional DKI (convDKI) and eDKI from these complete data, and also from the data that the encoding directions were abstracted to 32, 21, 15, 12 and 6. Error-pixel ratio and the root mean square error (RMSE) compared with the standard were compared between the methods (Wilcoxon signed-rank test: P < 0.05 was considered significant).\nRESULTS: Error-pixel ratio was smaller in eDKI than in convDKI and the difference was significant. In addition, RMSE was significantly smaller in eDKI than in convDKI, or otherwise the differences were not significant when they were obtained from the same data set.\nCONCLUSION: eDKI might be useful for assessing DKI in clinical settings

Oncologic Outcomes of Laparoscopic Radical Hysterectomy Using the No-Look No-Touch Technique for Early Stage Cervical Cancer: A Propensity Score-Adjusted Analysis

We evaluated oncologic outcomes of laparoscopic radical hysterectomy using the no-look no-touch technique (NLNT). We analyzed patients with early stage (IA2, IB1, and IIA1, FIGO2008) cervical cancer treated between December 2014 and December 2019. The primary endpoint was disease-free survival (DFS). We compared the outcomes of the abdominal radical hysterectomy (ARH) and NLNT groups using a Cox model with inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW), according to propensity scores. We also evaluated NLNT&rsquo;s non-inferiority to ARH using an evaluation of heterogeneity between the results of the Laparoscopic Approach to Cervical Cancer (LACC) trial and our study. ARH and NLNT were performed in 118 and 113 patients, respectively. The median follow-up duration was 3.2 years. After IPTW adjustment, the 3-year DFS rates (NLNT 92.4%; ARH 94.0%) and overall survival rates did not differ significantly between the groups. Furthermore, the 3-year DFS rates for patients with tumor sizes &ge; 2 cm in the NLNT (85.0%) and ARH (90.3%) groups did not differ significantly. No significant heterogeneity was observed between the LACC trial and our study (I2 = 60.5%, p = 0.111), although there was a trend toward a lower hazard ratio in our study. Laparoscopic radical hysterectomy using NLNT provides a favorable prognosis for early stage cervical cancer

GR-FET application for high-frequency detection device

A small forbidden gap matched to low-energy photons (meV) and a quasi-Dirac electron system are both definitive characteristics of bilayer graphene (GR) that has gained it considerable interest in realizing a broadly tunable sensor for application in the microwave region around gigahertz (GHz) and terahertz (THz) regimes. In this work, a systematic study is presented which explores the GHz/THz detection limit of both bilayer and single-layer graphene field-effect transistor (GR-FET) devices. Several major improvements to the wiring setup, insulation architecture, graphite source, and bolometric heating of the GR-FET sensor were made in order to extend microwave photoresponse past previous reports of 40 GHz and to further improve THz detection