Surgical treatment of metastatic vertebral tumors

Surgical treatment of metastatic spinal cord compression is controversial. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of our current surgical treatments and the use of spinal instrumentation. In this retrospective study covering the years between 1990 and 2006, 100 patients with spinal metastases which were secondary to various cancers underwent posterior and/or anterior decompression with spinal stabilization for the purposes of reduction of pain, and/or to help correct or improve neurological deficits. The group was made up of 60 men and 40 women whose ages ranged from 16 to 83 years (average of 60 years), and the average follow-up period was 14 months. The effect of treatment upon pain relief and neural deficits was assessed, and the cumulative survival rate was calculated by the Kaplan-Meier method. The average surgical time was 185min. This was calculated based on the following times, listed here with the surgery type:178min for posterior surgery;245min for anterior surgery;465 min for combined surgery;and 475min for total en bloc spondylectomy. Average blood loss during surgery was 1,630 ml for posterior surgery, 1,760 ml for anterior surgery, 1,930 ml for combined surgery, and 3,640 ml for total en bloc spondylectomy. Preoperative pain and paralysis were improved by 88% and 53%, respectively. In regards to surgical complications, postoperative epidural hematoma was observed in 2 patients, and instrumentation-related infection was observed in 1. Only 2 patients died within 2 months of surgery. In conclusion, posterior and/or anterior decompression with spinal stabilization is a safe and effective treatment for patients with spinal metastases, and can improve their quality of life.</p

SNP HiTLink: a high-throughput linkage analysis system employing dense SNP data

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>During this recent decade, microarray-based single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data are becoming more widely used as markers for linkage analysis in the identification of loci for disease-associated genes. Although microarray-based SNP analyses have markedly reduced genotyping time and cost compared with microsatellite-based analyses, applying these enormous data to linkage analysis programs is a time-consuming step, thus, necessitating a high-throughput platform.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We have developed SNP HiTLink (SNP High Throughput Linkage analysis system). In this system, SNP chip data of the Affymetrix Mapping 100 k/500 k array set and Genome-Wide Human SNP array 5.0/6.0 can be directly imported and passed to parametric or model-free linkage analysis programs; MLINK, Superlink, Merlin and Allegro. Various marker-selecting functions are implemented to avoid the effect of typing-error data, markers in linkage equilibrium or to select informative data.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The results using the 100 k SNP dataset were comparable or even superior to those obtained from analyses using microsatellite markers in terms of LOD scores obtained. General personal computers are sufficient to execute the process, as runtime for whole-genome analysis was less than a few hours. This system can be widely applied to linkage analysis using microarray-based SNP data and with which one can expect high-throughput and reliable linkage analysis.</p

In-situ NMR Study of Hydrothermal Reactions of Hazardous Chlorinated Organic Compounds: CH2Cl2 (INTERFACE SCIENCE-Solutions and Interfaces)

Hydrothermal decomposition of a hazardous chlorinated organic compound, dichloromethane, has been investigated using in-situ NMR spectroscopy. It is found that the hydrolysis of dichloromethane yields methanediol as an intermediate. Methanediol is a hydrated form of formaldehyde and easily transformed into methanol and formic acid under basic conditions. In the temperature range of 70-140 °C, the Cannizzaro-type reaction occurs: methanediol produces the reduced form, methanol and the oxydized form, formic acid. At higher temperatures between 200 and 250 °C, on the other hand, two methanediol molecules form glycolic acid which has a new C-C bond. The reaction rate constants and activation energies for the dechlorination and the Cannizzaro-type reactions have been obtained

Noncatalytic Cannizzaro-type Reaction of Formaldehyde in Hot Water (INTERFACE SCIENCE-Solutions and Interfaces)

In water at 250 °C and 4 MPa, methanol and formic acid are produced from the disproportionation reaction of formaldehyde without a catalyst, although at mild conditions, this reaction usually occurs in the presence of a large amount of base catalyst. Formic acid further undergoes the hydride transfer reaction with formaldehyde, and the final yield of methanol exceeds 50%