Cause of Death and Predictors of All-Cause Mortality in Anticoagulated Patients With Nonvalvular Atrial Fibrillation : Data From ROCKET AF

M. Kaste on työryhmän ROCKET AF Steering Comm jäsen.Background-Atrial fibrillation is associated with higher mortality. Identification of causes of death and contemporary risk factors for all-cause mortality may guide interventions. Methods and Results-In the Rivaroxaban Once Daily Oral Direct Factor Xa Inhibition Compared with Vitamin K Antagonism for Prevention of Stroke and Embolism Trial in Atrial Fibrillation (ROCKET AF) study, patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation were randomized to rivaroxaban or dose-adjusted warfarin. Cox proportional hazards regression with backward elimination identified factors at randomization that were independently associated with all-cause mortality in the 14 171 participants in the intention-to-treat population. The median age was 73 years, and the mean CHADS(2) score was 3.5. Over 1.9 years of median follow-up, 1214 (8.6%) patients died. Kaplan-Meier mortality rates were 4.2% at 1 year and 8.9% at 2 years. The majority of classified deaths (1081) were cardiovascular (72%), whereas only 6% were nonhemorrhagic stroke or systemic embolism. No significant difference in all-cause mortality was observed between the rivaroxaban and warfarin arms (P=0.15). Heart failure (hazard ratio 1.51, 95% CI 1.33-1.70, P= 75 years (hazard ratio 1.69, 95% CI 1.51-1.90, P Conclusions-In a large population of patients anticoagulated for nonvalvular atrial fibrillation, approximate to 7 in 10 deaths were cardiovascular, whereasPeer reviewe

Single Self-Assembled InAs/GaAs Quantum Dots in Photonic Nanostructures: The Role of Nanofabrication

Single self-assembled InAs/GaAs quantum dots are a promising solid-state quantum technology, with which vacuum Rabi splitting, single-photon-level nonlinearities, and bright, pure, and indistinguishable single-photon generation have been demonstrated. For such achievements, nanofabrication is used to create structures in which the quantum dot preferentially interacts with strongly confined optical modes. An open question is the extent to which such nanofabrication may also have an adverse influence, through the creation of traps and surface states that could induce blinking, spectral diffusion, and dephasing. Here, we use photoluminescence imaging to locate the positions of single InAs=GaAs quantum dots with respect to alignment marks with \u3c5 nm uncertainty, allowing us to measure their behavior before and after fabrication. We track the quantum-dot emission linewidth and photon statistics as a function of the distance from an etched surface and find that the linewidth is significantly broadened (up to several gigahertz) for etched surfaces within a couple hundred nanometers of the quantum dot. However, we do not observe an appreciable reduction of the quantum-dot radiative efficiency due to blinking. We also show that atomiclayer deposition can stabilize spectral diffusion of the quantum-dot emission and partially recover its linewidth

PCNA and p53 expression in oral leukoplakia with different degrees of keratinization Expressão do PCNA e p53 em leucoplasias de mucosa jugal com diferentes graus de queratinização

Leukoplakias are oral lesions that may have many clinical and histological aspects and they are usually associated with malignancy when dysplastic alterations are shown. However, these transformations may occur in non-dysplastic lesions that show harmless clinical aspect. For this reason, the proposal was to study the p53 and PCNA immunohistochemical expression in non-dysplastic leukoplakias, trying to correlate the results only with the epithelial keratinization degree. For this, 24 leukoplakias degrees I, II and III of Grinspan were used, all of them located in oral mucosa. Most of the leukoplakias showed p53 and PCNA expression in their different keratinization degrees. The p53 marking was confined to the basal and parabasal layers, while the PCNA marking occurred in practically all epithelial layers. The expression pattern of these markers was histologically and statistically similar between the lesions with these keratinization variations. It was evident that non-dysplastic epithelium of leukoplakias showed submicroscopical signs of alterations that lead to malignant transformation, and that the keratinization degree did not correlate to a greater risk of this event.<br>As leucoplasias são lesões orais que podem apresentar vários aspectos clínicos e histológicos e são associadas à malignidade geralmente quando apresentam alterações displásicas. Contudo, essas transformações podem ocorrer em lesões sem displasia que apresentam aspecto clínico inocente. Por esse motivo nossa proposta foi estudar a expressão imuno-histoquímica do p53 e PCNA em leucoplasias sem displasias, buscando correlacionar os resultados apenas com o grau de queratinização epitelial. Para isso foram utilizadas as leucoplasias Grau I, II e III de Grinspan, num total de 24 lesões, todas localizadas em mucosa jugal. A maior parte das leucoplasias, em seus diferentes graus de queratinização, apresentou expressão de p53 e PCNA. A marcação do p53 restringiu-se às camadas basal e parabasal, enquanto a do PCNA ocorreu em praticamente todas as camadas epiteliais. O padrão de expressão desses marcadores foi histologicamente e estatisticamente semelhante entre as lesões com esta variação de queratinização. Ficou evidente que os epitélios não displásicos das leucoplasias possuem sinais sub-microscópicos de alterações direcionadas à transformação maligna e o grau de queratinização não se correlacionou ao maior risco desse acontecimento