Can host body size explain the parasite species richness in tropical freshwater fishes ?

The variability of monogenean gill ectoparasite species richness in 19 West African cyprinid species was analyzed using the following seven predictor variables : host size, number of drainage basins, number of sympatric cyprinid species, host diversity, association with mainland forest, host ecology, and monogenean biological labelling. The size of the host species accounted for 77% of the variation in the number of parasite species per host, and host ecology and additional 8%. Together the effects of host size and host ecology accounted for 85% of the variation in monogenean species richness. This study shows that the deciding factors for explaining monogenean species richness in West African cyprinid fishes are host species size and host ecology. These results were compared with main factors responsible for parasite species richness in fish communities. Other possible explanations of monogenean community structure in West African cyprinids are discussed. (Résumé d'auteur

Endometrial cancer in elderly women: which disease, which surgical management? A systematic review of the literature

International audienceObjective: Endometrial cancer primarily affects elderly women. The aim of the present literature review is to define the population of elderly women with this disease and to define the characteristics of this cancer in elderly people as well as its surgical treatment. Materials and Methods: A systematic review of the English-language literature of the last 20 years indexed in the PubMed database. Results Endometrial cancer is more aggressive in elderly women. However, surgical staging performed in elderly patients is often not concomitant with the disease’s aggressiveness in this group. Mini-invasive surgery is performed less often, for no obvious reason. Of note, oncogeriatric evaluation was not usually ruled out to determine the most appropriate surgical modality. Conclusion: Studies are needed to evaluate surgical management of endometrial cancer in elderly women, notably with the aid of oncogeriatric scores to predict surgical morbidity

L'immunothérapie dans le cancer épithélial de l'ovaire : entre espoir et réalité [Immunotherapy in epithelial ovarian carcinoma: hope and reality]

National audienceLe cancer épithélial de l'ovaire (CEO) présente un pronostic sombre avec depuis deux décennies des progrès très modestes en terme de gain de survie. L'immunologie, longtemps négligée dans le CEO, apparait maintenant central dans l'histoire naturelle de cette maladie cancéreuse. L'objet de cette revue est une mise au point sur l'état des connaissances sur l'immunologie dans le CEO et la potentielle place de l'immunothérapie dans son traitement futur. Matériel et méthodes : Interrogation de la base de données MedLine en utilisant les mots clés : " Ovarian carinoma, immunotherapy, T lymphocyte, regulator T lymphocyte, dendritic cells, macrophage, antigen, chemotherapy, surgery, clinical trials ". Nous avons retenu les éléments pertinents pour la compréhension de l'immunologie du CEO, de la place des traitements conventionnels et des stratégies d'immunothérapie à partir des articles de langue anglaise et française. Résultats : L'infiltration intra-tumorale par des cellules immunitaires conditionnent de manière majeure le pronostic du CEO. Les traitements traditionnels du CEO que sont la chirurgie et la chimiothérapie diminuent l'immunosuppression de la patiente. L'immunologie est l'une des composantes de l'action thérapeutique de la chimiothérapie et de la chirurgie. L'immunothérapie après des résultats décevants est à l'aube d'une révolution thérapeutique en cancérologie par l'arrivée de drogue ciblant le microenvironnement tumoral tolérogène. Conclusion : L'immunologie conditionne l'histoire naturelle du CEO. La modulation de l'immunosuppression associée à une stimulation de l'immunité antitumorale est probablement l'une des prochaines révolutions thérapeutiques en cancérologie. Summary: Introduction: Epithelial ovarian carcinoma (EOC) has a worst prognosis with little progress in term of survival for the last two decades. Immunology received little interest in EOC in the past, but now appears very important in the natural history of this cancer. This review is an EOC immunology state of art and focuses on the place of immunotherapy in future. Material and methods: A systematic review of published studies was performed. Medline baseline interrogation was performed with the following keywords: " Ovarian carinoma, immunotherapy, T lymphocyte, regulator T lymphocyte, dendritic cells, macrophage, antigen, chemotherapy, surgery, clinical trials ". Identified publications (English or French) were assessed for the understanding of EOC immunology and the place of conventional treatment and immunotherapy strategy. Results: Intratumoral infiltration by immune cells is a strong prognosis factor in EOC. Surgery and chemotherapy in EOC decrease imunosuppression in patients. The antitumoral immunity is a part of the therapeutic action of surgery and chemotherapy. Until now, immunotherapy gave some disappointing results, but the new drugs that target the tolerogenic tumoral microenvironnement rise and give a new hope in the treatment of cancer. Conclusion: Immunology controls the EOC natural history. The modulation of immunosuppressive microenvironment associated with the stimulation of antitumoral immunity could be the next revolution in the treatment of cancer

A quantitative deficiency in peripheral blood Vγ9Vδ2 cells is a negative prognostic biomarker in ovarian cancer patients.

International audienceVγ9Vδ2 cells are cytotoxic T cells that are able to recognize epithelial ovarian carcinoma (EOC) cells. Therefore, Vγ9Vδ2 cell-based adoptive transfer is an attractive therapy for EOC. However, the inefficient ex vivo expansion after specific stimulation of Vγ9Vδ2 cells from some patients and the relationships between Vγ9Vδ2 cells and clinical course of EOC are issues that remain to be clarified. Herein, peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from 60 EOC patients were stimulated with bromohydrin pyrophosphate (BrHPP) or zoledronate, which are specific agonists of Vγ9Vδ2 cells. The compounds differed in their efficacies to induce ex vivo Vγ9Vδ2 PBMC expansion, but 16/60 samples remained inefficiently expanded with both stimuli. Interestingly, the Vγ9Vδ2 cells in these low-responding PBMCs displayed before expansion (ex vivo PBMCs) an altered production of the pro-inflammatory cytokines IFN-γ and TNF-α, a decreased naive fraction and a reduced frequency. No evidence of an involvement of CD4(+)CD25(+)Foxp3(+) regulatory cells was observed. Importantly, our data also demonstrate that a Vγ9Vδ2 cell frequency of 0.35% or less in EOC PBMCs could be used to predict low responses to both BrHPP and zoledronate. Moreover, our data highlight that such a deficiency is not correlated with advanced EOC stages but is associated with more refractory states to platinum-based chemotherapy and is an independent predictor of shorter disease-free survival after treatment. These results are the first to suggest a potential contribution of Vγ9Vδ2 cells to the anti-tumor effects of chemotherapeutic agents and they strengthen interest in strategies that might increase Vγ9Vδ2 cells in cancer patients

Experimental and Numerical Characterization of a New 45 kWel Multisource High-Flux Solar Simulator

The performance of a new high-flux solar simulator consisting of 18 × 2.5 kWel radiation modules has been evaluated. Grayscale images of the radiative flux distribution at the focus are acquired for each module individually using a water-cooled Lambertian target plate and a CCD camera. Raw images are corrected for dark current, normalized by the exposure time and calibrated with local absolute heat flux measurements to produce radiative flux maps with 180 µm resolution. The resulting measured peak flux is 1.0–1.5 ± 0.2 MW m−2 per radiation module and 21.7 ± 2 MW m−2 for the sum of all 18 radiation modules. Integrating the flux distribution for all 18 radiation modules over a circular area of 5 cm diameter yields a mean radiative flux of 3.8 MW m−2 and an incident radiative power of 7.5 kW. A Monte Carlo ray-tracing simulation of the simulator is calibrated with the experimental results. The agreement between experimental and numerical results is characterized in terms of a 4.2% difference in peak flux and correlation coefficients of 0.9990 and 0.9995 for the local and mean radial flux profiles, respectively. The best-fit simulation parameters include the lamp efficiency of 39.4% and the mirror surface error of 0.85 mrad

Malaria Lethality in Children under 5 Years of Age and Study of Risk Factors in MbujiMayi Paediatric Environment, a Neglected Deadly Epidemic in the Democratic of Republic of Congo

The objective of this study was to determine the risk factors for malaria lethality in the MbujiMayi paediatric environment, a follow-up study of hospitalised cases over 5 years was conducted between January 2016 and December 2020 in the four hospitals. The case rate was 6.9% for the total (139 cases of death for 2017 cases of severe malaria for 5 years,) and varied from year to year (10.7% in 2016 to 4.6% in 2020). Cox Proportional Risk Model results including significant covariates in multivariate analysis [HR (IC95%)]. In multivariate analysis, two models were considered. The case-fatality rate was independently associated with late arrival after 48 hours [3.1 (1.9–5.1); p < 0.001], types of pre-hospital recourse such as recourse to the church [1.4 (1.1–2.1),; p = 0.042) and tradipractor [3.2 (1.8–6.1); p < 0.001] for severe malaria, children under 12 months of age [1.8 (1.2–2.8); p < 0.001], those with circulatory collapse [2.6 (1.1–6.1); p < 0.001] and those in deep coma [1.9 (1.1–3.4); p = 0.016]. The second model with the number of associated syndromes, showed that the risk was 1.7 plus for children with a complex clinical picture, made up of the combination of several signs [1.7 (1.1–2.6); p < 0.001]. These results highlight the need for more information campaigns to encourage people to seek institutional care for malaria. Our results also suggest that prophylactic treatment may be advisable for children under 5 years of age

Analysis of adequacy levels for human resources improvement within primary health care framework in Africa

Human resources in health care system in sub-Saharan Africa are generally picturing a lack of adequacy between expected skills from the professionals and health care needs expressed by the populations. It is, however, possible to analyse these various lacks of adequacy related to human resource management and their determinants to enhance the effectiveness of the health care system. From two projects focused on nurse professionals within the health care system in Central Africa, we present an analytic grid for adequacy levels looking into the following aspects: - adequacy between skills-based profiles for health system professionals, quality of care and service delivery (health care system /medical standards), needs and expectations from the populations, - adequacy between allocation of health system professionals, quality of care and services delivered (health care system /medical standards), needs and expectations from the populations, - adequacy between human resource management within health care system and medical standards, - adequacy between human resource management within education/teaching/training and needs from health care system and education sectors, - adequacy between basic and on-going education and realities of tasks expected and implemented by different categories of professionals within the health care system body, - adequacy between intentions for initial and on-going trainings and teaching programs in health sciences for trainers (teachers/supervisors/health care system professionals/ directors (teaching managers) of schools...). This tool is necessary for decision-makers as well as for health care system professionals who share common objectives for changes at each level of intervention within the health system. Setting this adequacy implies interdisciplinary and participative approaches for concerned actors in order to provide an overall vision of a more broaden system than health district, small island with self-rationality, and in which they operate

Dendritic cells are defective in breast cancer patients: a potential role for polyamine in this immunodeficiency

INTRODUCTION: Dendritic cells (DCs) are antigen-presenting cells that are currently employed in cancer clinical trials. However, it is not clear whether their ability to induce tumour-specific immune responses when they are isolated from cancer patients is reduced relative to their ability in vivo. We determined the phenotype and functional activity of DCs from cancer patients and investigated the effect of putrescine, a polyamine molecule that is released in large amounts by cancer cells and has been implicated in metastatic invasion, on DCs. METHODS: The IL-4/GM-CSF (granulocyte–macrophage colony-stimulating factor) procedure for culturing blood monocyte-derived DCs was applied to cells from healthy donors and patients (17 with breast, 7 with colorectal and 10 with renal cell carcinoma). The same peroxide-treated tumour cells (M74 cell line) were used for DC pulsing. We investigated the effects of stimulation of autologous lymphocytes by DCs pulsed with treated tumour cells (DC-Tu), and cytolytic activity of T cells was determined in the same target cells. RESULTS: Certain differences were observed between donors and breast cancer patients. The yield of DCs was dramatically weaker, and expression of MHC class II was lower and the percentage of HLA-DR(-)Lin(- )cells higher in patients. Whatever combination of maturating agents was used, expression of markers of mature DCs was significantly lower in patients. Also, DCs from patients exhibited reduced ability to stimulate cytotoxic T lymphocytes. After DC-Tu stimulation, specific cytolytic activity was enhanced by up to 40% when DCs were from donors but only up to 10% when they were from patients. IFN-γ production was repeatedly found to be enhanced in donors but not in patients. By adding putrescine to DCs from donors, it was possible to enhance the HLA-DR(-)Lin(- )cell percentage and to reduce the final cytolytic activity of lymphocytes after DC-Tu stimulation, mimicking defective DC function. These putrescine-induced deficiencies were reversed by treating DCs with all-trans retinoic acid. CONCLUSION: These data are consistent with blockade of antigen-presenting cells at an early stage of differentiation in patients with breast cancer. Putrescine released in the microenvironmement of DCs could be involved in this blockade. Use of all-trans retinoic acid treatment to reverse this blockade and favour ex vivo expansion of antigen-specific T lymphocytes is of real interest

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements