575 research outputs found
Association between low-dose pulsed intravenous cyclophosphamide therapy and amenorrhea in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus: A case-control study
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The risk for amenorrhea following treatment of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients with low-dose intravenous cyclophosphamide (IVCY) has not been fully explored. Our objective was to ascertain the incidence of amenorrhea following treatment with low-dose IVCY and the association between amenorrhea and the clinical parameters of SLE.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A case-control retrospective study of premenopausal women ≤ 45 years old who had been treated for SLE with low-dose IVCY (500 mg/body/pulse) plus high-dose glucocorticoids (0.8-1.0 mg/kg/day of prednisolone; IVCY group) or glucocorticoids alone (0.8-1.0 mg/kg/day of prednisolone; steroid group) in our hospital from 2000 through 2009 was conducted using a questionnaire survey and medical record review.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Twenty-nine subjects in the IVCY group and 33 subjects in the steroid group returned the questionnaire. A multivariate analysis revealed that age at initiation of treatment ≥ 40 years old was significantly associated with amenorrhea [<it>p </it>= 0.009; odds ratio (OR) 10.2; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.8-58.7]. IVCY treatment may display a trend for association with amenorrhea (<it>p </it>= 0.07; OR 2.9; 95% CI 0.9-9.4). Sustained amenorrhea developed in 4 subjects in the IVCY group and 1 subject in the steroid group; all of these patients were ≥ 40 years old. Menses resumed in all subjects < 40 years old, irrespective of treatment.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Although low-dose IVCY may increase the risk for amenorrhea, our data suggest that patients < 40 years old have a minimum risk for sustained amenorrhea with low-dose IVCY treatment. A higher risk for sustained amenorrhea following treatment with IVCY is a consideration for patients ≥ 40 years old.</p
Updated consensus statement on the use of rituximab in patients with rheumatoid arthritis
Background Since initial approval for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), rituximab has been evaluated in clinical trials involving various populations with RA. Information has also been gathered from registries. This report therefore updates the 2007 consensus document on the use of rituximab in the treatment of RA. Methods Preparation of this new document involved many international experts experienced in the treatment of RA. Following a meeting to agree upon the core agenda, a systematic literature review was undertaken to identify all relevant data. Data were then interrogated by a drafting committee, with subsequent review and discussion by a wider expert committee leading to the formulation of an updated consensus statement. These committees also included patients with RA. Results The new statement covers wide-ranging issues including the use of rituximab in earlier RA and impact on structural progression, and aspects particularly pertinent to rituximab such as co-medication, optimal dosage regimens, repeat treatment cycles and how to manage non-response. Biological therapy following rituximab usage is also addressed, and safety concerns including appropriate screening for hepatitis, immunoglobulin levels and infection risk. This consensus statement will support clinicians and inform patients when using B-cell depletion in the management of RA, providing up-to-date information and highlighting areas for further research. Conclusion New therapeutic strategies and treatment options for RA, a chronic destructive and disabling disease, have expanded over recent years. These have been summarised in general strategic suggestions and specific management recommendations, emphasising the importance of expedient disease-modifying antirheumatic drug implementation and tight disease control. This consensus statement is in line with these fundamental principles of management
Charge separation relative to the reaction plane in Pb-Pb collisions at TeV
Measurements of charge dependent azimuthal correlations with the ALICE
detector at the LHC are reported for Pb-Pb collisions at TeV. Two- and three-particle charge-dependent azimuthal correlations in
the pseudo-rapidity range are presented as a function of the
collision centrality, particle separation in pseudo-rapidity, and transverse
momentum. A clear signal compatible with a charge-dependent separation relative
to the reaction plane is observed, which shows little or no collision energy
dependence when compared to measurements at RHIC energies. This provides a new
insight for understanding the nature of the charge dependent azimuthal
correlations observed at RHIC and LHC energies.Comment: 12 pages, 3 captioned figures, authors from page 2 to 6, published
version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/286
A note on comonotonicity and positivity of the control components of decoupled quadratic FBSDE
In this small note we are concerned with the solution of Forward-Backward
Stochastic Differential Equations (FBSDE) with drivers that grow quadratically
in the control component (quadratic growth FBSDE or qgFBSDE). The main theorem
is a comparison result that allows comparing componentwise the signs of the
control processes of two different qgFBSDE. As a byproduct one obtains
conditions that allow establishing the positivity of the control process.Comment: accepted for publicatio
Multiplicity dependence of jet-like two-particle correlations in p-Pb collisions at = 5.02 TeV
Two-particle angular correlations between unidentified charged trigger and
associated particles are measured by the ALICE detector in p-Pb collisions at a
nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy of 5.02 TeV. The transverse-momentum
range 0.7 5.0 GeV/ is examined,
to include correlations induced by jets originating from low
momen\-tum-transfer scatterings (minijets). The correlations expressed as
associated yield per trigger particle are obtained in the pseudorapidity range
. The near-side long-range pseudorapidity correlations observed in
high-multiplicity p-Pb collisions are subtracted from both near-side
short-range and away-side correlations in order to remove the non-jet-like
components. The yields in the jet-like peaks are found to be invariant with
event multiplicity with the exception of events with low multiplicity. This
invariance is consistent with the particles being produced via the incoherent
fragmentation of multiple parton--parton scatterings, while the yield related
to the previously observed ridge structures is not jet-related. The number of
uncorrelated sources of particle production is found to increase linearly with
multiplicity, suggesting no saturation of the number of multi-parton
interactions even in the highest multiplicity p-Pb collisions. Further, the
number scales in the intermediate multiplicity region with the number of binary
nucleon-nucleon collisions estimated with a Glauber Monte-Carlo simulation.Comment: 23 pages, 6 captioned figures, 1 table, authors from page 17,
published version, figures at
http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/161
Transverse sphericity of primary charged particles in minimum bias proton-proton collisions at , 2.76 and 7 TeV
Measurements of the sphericity of primary charged particles in minimum bias
proton--proton collisions at , 2.76 and 7 TeV with the ALICE
detector at the LHC are presented. The observable is linearized to be collinear
safe and is measured in the plane perpendicular to the beam direction using
primary charged tracks with GeV/c in . The
mean sphericity as a function of the charged particle multiplicity at
mid-rapidity () is reported for events with different
scales ("soft" and "hard") defined by the transverse momentum of the leading
particle. In addition, the mean charged particle transverse momentum versus
multiplicity is presented for the different event classes, and the sphericity
distributions in bins of multiplicity are presented. The data are compared with
calculations of standard Monte Carlo event generators. The transverse
sphericity is found to grow with multiplicity at all collision energies, with a
steeper rise at low , whereas the event generators show the
opposite tendency. The combined study of the sphericity and the mean with multiplicity indicates that most of the tested event generators
produce events with higher multiplicity by generating more back-to-back jets
resulting in decreased sphericity (and isotropy). The PYTHIA6 generator with
tune PERUGIA-2011 exhibits a noticeable improvement in describing the data,
compared to the other tested generators.Comment: 21 pages, 9 captioned figures, 3 tables, authors from page 16,
published version, figures from
http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/308
Multi-particle azimuthal correlations in p-Pb and Pb-Pb collisions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider
Measurements of multi-particle azimuthal correlations (cumulants) for charged
particles in p-Pb and Pb-Pb collisions are presented. They help address the
question of whether there is evidence for global, flow-like, azimuthal
correlations in the p-Pb system. Comparisons are made to measurements from the
larger Pb-Pb system, where such evidence is established. In particular, the
second harmonic two-particle cumulants are found to decrease with multiplicity,
characteristic of a dominance of few-particle correlations in p-Pb collisions.
However, when a gap is placed to suppress such correlations,
the two-particle cumulants begin to rise at high-multiplicity, indicating the
presence of global azimuthal correlations. The Pb-Pb values are higher than the
p-Pb values at similar multiplicities. In both systems, the second harmonic
four-particle cumulants exhibit a transition from positive to negative values
when the multiplicity increases. The negative values allow for a measurement of
to be made, which is found to be higher in Pb-Pb collisions at
similar multiplicities. The second harmonic six-particle cumulants are also
found to be higher in Pb-Pb collisions. In Pb-Pb collisions, we generally find
which is indicative of a Bessel-Gaussian
function for the distribution. For very high-multiplicity Pb-Pb
collisions, we observe that the four- and six-particle cumulants become
consistent with 0. Finally, third harmonic two-particle cumulants in p-Pb and
Pb-Pb are measured. These are found to be similar for overlapping
multiplicities, when a gap is placed.Comment: 25 pages, 11 captioned figures, 3 tables, authors from page 20,
published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/87
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
Centrality dependence of charged particle production at large transverse momentum in Pb-Pb collisions at TeV
The inclusive transverse momentum () distributions of primary
charged particles are measured in the pseudo-rapidity range as a
function of event centrality in Pb-Pb collisions at
TeV with ALICE at the LHC. The data are presented in the range
GeV/ for nine centrality intervals from 70-80% to 0-5%.
The Pb-Pb spectra are presented in terms of the nuclear modification factor
using a pp reference spectrum measured at the same collision
energy. We observe that the suppression of high- particles strongly
depends on event centrality. In central collisions (0-5%) the yield is most
suppressed with at -7 GeV/. Above
GeV/, there is a significant rise in the nuclear modification
factor, which reaches for GeV/. In
peripheral collisions (70-80%), the suppression is weaker with almost independently of . The measured nuclear
modification factors are compared to other measurements and model calculations.Comment: 17 pages, 4 captioned figures, 2 tables, authors from page 12,
published version, figures at
http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/284
Particle-yield modification in jet-like azimuthal di-hadron correlations in Pb-Pb collisions at = 2.76 TeV
The yield of charged particles associated with high- trigger
particles ( GeV/) is measured with the ALICE detector in
Pb-Pb collisions at = 2.76 TeV relative to proton-proton
collisions at the same energy. The conditional per-trigger yields are extracted
from the narrow jet-like correlation peaks in azimuthal di-hadron correlations.
In the 5% most central collisions, we observe that the yield of associated
charged particles with transverse momenta GeV/ on the
away-side drops to about 60% of that observed in pp collisions, while on the
near-side a moderate enhancement of 20-30% is found.Comment: 15 pages, 2 captioned figures, 1 table, authors from page 10,
published version, figures at
http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/350
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