Long-term follow-up, quality of life, and survival of patients with Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome

ObjectiveTo study survival and to characterize long-term functional impairments and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of patients with Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome (LEMS).MethodsIn this observational study, survival of patients with LEMS, separately for nontumor (NT) and small cell lung cancer (SCLC), was compared to that of the Dutch general population and patients with SCLC. Disease course in patients with LEMS was recorded retrospectively. Several scales for functional impairments and health-related quality of life were assessed.ResultsWe included 150 patients with LEMS. Survival was similar to that of the general population in 65 patients with NT-LEMS. Tumor survival was significantly longer in 81 patients with SCLC-LEMS compared to patients with non-LEMS SCLC (overall median survival 17 vs 7.0 months, p <0.0001). At diagnosis, 39 (62%) of 63 patients with complete follow-up data were independent for activities of daily living, improving to 85% at the 1-year follow-up. The physical HRQOL composite score (55.9) was significantly lower than in the general population (76.3, p <0.0001) and comparable to that of patients with myasthenia gravis (60.5). The mental HRQOL composite score was 71.8 in patients with LEMS, comparable to that of the general population (77.9, p = 0.19) and patients with myasthenia gravis (70.3).ConclusionsThis study shows that patients with NT-LEMS have normal survival. Patients with SCLC-LEMS have an improved tumor survival, even after correction for tumor stage. A majority of patients with LEMS report a stable disease course and remain or become independent for self-care after treatment

P187 celiprolol double peak occurrence and gastric motility: Nonlinear mixed effect modeling of bioavailability data obtained in dogs

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/31349/1/0000259.pd

The Q2Q^2-dependence of the generalised Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn integral for the deuteron, proton and neutron

The Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn (GDH) sum rule connects the anomalous contribution to the magnetic moment of the target nucleus with an energy-weighted integral of the difference of the helicity-dependent photoabsorption cross sections. The data collected by HERMES with a deuterium target are presented together with a re-analysis of previous measurements on the proton. This provides a measurement of the generalised GDH integral covering simultaneously the nucleon-resonance and the deep inelastic scattering regions. The contribution of the nucleon-resonance region is seen to decrease rapidly with increasing $Q^2$. The DIS contribution is sizeable over the full measured range, even down to the lowest measured $Q^2$. As expected, at higher $Q^2$ the data are found to be in agreement with previous measurements of the first moment of $g_1$. From data on the deuteron and proton, the GDH integral for the neutron has been derived and the proton--neutron difference evaluated. This difference is found to satisfy the fundamental Bjorken sum rule at $Q^2 = 5$ GeV$^2$.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figure

Search for Doubly-Charged Higgs Boson Production at HERA

A search for the single production of doubly-charged Higgs bosons H^{\pm \pm} in ep collisions is presented. The signal is searched for via the Higgs decays into a high mass pair of same charge leptons, one of them being an electron. The analysis uses up to 118 pb^{-1} of ep data collected by the H1 experiment at HERA. No evidence for doubly-charged Higgs production is observed and mass dependent upper limits are derived on the Yukawa couplings h_{el} of the Higgs boson to an electron-lepton pair. Assuming that the doubly-charged Higgs only decays into an electron and a muon via a coupling of electromagnetic strength h_{e \mu} = \sqrt{4 \pi \alpha_{em}} = 0.3, a lower limit of 141 GeV on the H^{\pm\pm} mass is obtained at the 95% confidence level. For a doubly-charged Higgs decaying only into an electron and a tau and a coupling h_{e\tau} = 0.3, masses below 112 GeV are ruled out.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Molecular markers for tolerance of European ash (Fraxinus excelsior) to dieback disease identified using Associative Transcriptomics

Tree disease epidemics are a global problem, impacting food security, biodiversity and national economies. The potential for conservation and breeding in trees is hampered by complex genomes and long lifecycles, with most species lacking genomic resources. The European Ash tree Fraxinus excelsior is being devastated by the fungal pathogen Hymenoscyphus fraxineus, which causes ash dieback disease. Taking this system as an example and utilizing Associative Transcriptomics for the first time in a plant pathology study, we discovered gene sequence and gene expression variants across a genetic diversity panel scored for disease symptoms and identified markers strongly associated with canopy damage in infected trees. Using these markers we predicted phenotypes in a test panel of unrelated trees, successfully identifying individuals with a low level of susceptibility to the disease. Co-expression analysis suggested that pre-priming of defence responses may underlie reduced susceptibility to ash dieback

First Measurement of the Tensor Structure Function b1b_1 of the Deuteron

The \Hermes experiment has investigated the tensor spin structure of the deuteron using the 27.6 GeV/c positron beam of \Hera. The use of a tensor polarized deuteron gas target with only a negligible residual vector polarization enabled the first measurement of the tensor asymmetry \At and the tensor structure function \bd for average values of the Bj{\o}rken variable $0.01<0.45$ and of the squared four-momentum transfer $0.5 {\rm GeV^2} <5 {\rm GeV^2}$. The quantities \At and \bd are found to be non-zero. The rise of \bd for decreasing values of $x$ can be interpreted to originate from the same mechanism that leads to nuclear shadowing in unpolarized scattering

Flavor decomposition of the sea quark helicity distributions in the nucleon from semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering

Double-spin asymmetries of semi-inclusive cross sections for the production of identified pions and kaons have been measured in deep-inelastic scattering of polarized positrons on a polarized deuterium target. Five helicity distributions including those for three sea quark flavors were extracted from these data together with re-analyzed previous data for identified pions from a hydrogen target. These distributions are consistent with zero for all three sea flavors. A recently predicted flavor asymmetry in the polarization of the light quark sea appears to be disfavored by the data.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure