Consideration of mouth opening when using positioning stents during radiotherapy for tongue cancer: a retrospective study

Background: The aim was to clarify the range of mouth opening required to minimize the development of oral mucositis on the palate while using a positioning stent during radiotherapy in patients with tongue cancer. A positioning stent is used to reduce the severity of oral mucositis; however, requirements for fabricating the device have not been standardized. In particular, the range of mouth opening required while using a stent to prevent radiation-induced oral mucositis has not been determined. Material and methods: We retrospectively analyzed medical records and computed tomography (CT) images of nine patients who had undergone radiotherapy for tongue cancer. Irradiation dose for the palate and range of mouth opening while using the positioning stent was calculated from CT images and the radiotherapy treatment planning program. Results: The irradiation dose presented as medians and interquartile range (IQR) for the palate was 1.6 (IQR: 1.1–2.2) Gy with the use of the positioning stent and 37.2 (IQR: 17.5–44.1) Gy without the use of the positioning stent. The was 19–37 [mean ± standard deviation (SD): 26 ± 5.6] mm, and it attenuation amount of irradiation dose to the palate (r = 0.673, p = 0.0467). Regression equation was y = 0.21x + 19. Conclusions: Our study may be useful for deriving the relationship between the attenuation amount of irradiation of the palate with the positioning stent and the amount of mouth opening required for this attenuation.

Amplified EPOR/JAK2 Genes Define a Unique Subtype of Acute Erythroid Leukemia

ゲノム解析から急性赤白血病の変異プロファイルと治療標的を解明 --特定の遺伝子変異群の組み合わせと、特徴となる遺伝子の増幅が鍵--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-08-05.Acute erythroid leukemia (AEL) is a unique subtype of acute myeloid leukemia characterized by prominent erythroid proliferation whose molecular basis is poorly understood. To elucidate the underlying mechanism of erythroid proliferation, we analyzed 121 AEL using whole-genome/exome and/or targeted-capture sequencing, together with transcriptome analysis of 21 AEL samples. Combining publicly available sequencing data, we found a high frequency of gains/amplifications involving EPOR/JAK2 in TP53-mutated cases, particularly those having >80% erythroblasts designated as pure erythroid leukemia (10/13). These cases were frequently accompanied by gains/amplifications of ERG/ETS2 and associated with a very poor prognosis, even compared with other TP53-mutated AEL. In addition to activation of the STAT5 pathway, a common feature across all AEL cases, these AEL cases exhibited enhanced cell proliferation and heme metabolism and often showed high sensitivity to ruxolitinib in vitro and in xenograft models, highlighting a potential role of JAK2 inhibition in therapeutics of AEL

Information and perspective for doubly-strange hypernuclei with nuclear emulsion detector

The study on doubly-strange hypernuclei has been performed with nuclear emulsion detector at KEK-PS and J-PARC for 30 years. Detected 47 candidate events of doubly-strange hypernuclei show characteristics for the Λ-Λ and Ξ-N interactions. The Λ-Λ interaction is weakly at-tractive and the binding energy of two Λ hyperons to nuclei shows linear dependence on the mass number of a nucleus. The Ξ– hyperon is found to be bound by the 14N nucleus, forming the Ξ15C hypernucleus, with larger energy than that given by Coulomb force. Also, the level scheme of the Ξ– hyperon in the Ξ15C hypernucleus can be seen. With the light source of hard X-ray instead of an optical microscope, since it will enable to count grains constituting tracks in the emulsion, charge recognitions of light nuclei, especially H+ and He2+, can be possible. This would work effectively in determining the nuclides of doubly-strange hypernuclei. The ‘overall-scanning method’ to scan whole volume of the emulsion sheets will allow to detect nearly 1 x 103 events of doubly-strange hypernuclei, which is the expected number recorded in the emulsion of the E07 experiment, with machine learning in the near future

A Method for Particle Identification in Nuclear Emulsion

The particle identification technique in nuclear emulsion is on-going by measuring multiple Coulomb scattering, which means measuring second difference. Several thousands of tracks of the Ξ- Hyperion and pion in nuclear emulsion stacks are generated by GEANT 4 simulation and obtained second difference in constant Sagitta Method. On the other hand, the second difference of Ξ- Hyperion and pion tracks are measured in nuclear emulsion of E373 experiment. The consistency of a second difference in the constant Sagitta Method of Ξ- Hyperion and pion tracks in nuclear emulsion of E373 experimental and simulation results are also confirmed

Cardiovascular modeling of congenital heart disease based on neonatal echocardiographic images.

This paper proposes a 3-D cardiovascular modeling system based on neonatal echocardiographic images. With the system, medical doctors can interactively construct patient-specific cardiovascular models, and share the complex topology and the shape information. For the construction of cardiovascular models with a variety of congenital heart diseases, we propose a set of algorithms and interface that enable editing of the topology and shape of the 3-D models. In order to facilitate interactivity, the centerline and radius of the vessels are used to edit the surface of the heart vessels. This forms a skeleton where the centerlines of blood vessel serve as the nodes and edges, while the radius of the blood vessel is given as an attribute value to each node. Moreover, parent-child relationships are given to each skeleton. They are expressed as the directed acyclic graph, where the skeletons are viewed as graph nodes and the connecting points are graph edges. The cardiovascular models generated from some patient data confirmed that the developed technique is capable of constructing cardiovascular disease models in a tolerable timeframe. It is successful in representing the important structures of the patient-specific heart vessels for better understanding in preoperative planning and electric medical recording of the congenital heart disease

Analysis of a Single-Λ Hypernuclear Event in KEK-PS E373 Nuclear Emulsion Experiment

The purpose of this research is to identify a single-Λ hypernucleus and its decay products which support to get more information about hyperon-nucleon interaction. Before performing the analysis of a single-Λ hypernucleus, first, we have deduced the density of emulsion by calibrating the range-energy relation using alpha decay events data from thorium series. It is very important for the mass reconstruction of hypernucleus events in nuclear emulsion. And we have reconstructed a single-Λ hypernucleus event by using the kinematical reconstruction for mesonic and non-mesonic decay modes. From the result of our analysis, we can uniquely identify that single-Λ hypernucleus is ${}_\Lambda ^9 B$ and decay products are 4He,3He, proton and neutron

Analysis of a Single-Λ Hypernuclear Event in KEK-PS E373 Nuclear Emulsion Experiment

The purpose of this research is to identify a single-Λ hypernucleus and its decay products which support to get more information about hyperon-nucleon interaction. Before performing the analysis of a single-Λ hypernucleus, first, we have deduced the density of emulsion by calibrating the range-energy relation using alpha decay events data from thorium series. It is very important for the mass reconstruction of hypernucleus events in nuclear emulsion. And we have reconstructed a single-Λ hypernucleus event by using the kinematical reconstruction for mesonic and non-mesonic decay modes. From the result of our analysis, we can uniquely identify that single-Λ hypernucleus is B Λ 9 ${}_\Lambda ^9 B$ and decay products are 4He,3He, proton and neutron