Acute enlargement and subsequent rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm in a patient receiving chemotherapy for pancreatic carcinoma

AbstractWe report a case of ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) in a patient receiving chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer. We reviewed the literature on the effects of corticosteroids and chemotherapy on aaa formation and discuss possible mechanisms for drug action to promote aneurysm expansion and rupture. If cancer and AAA coincide and curative chemotherapy is possible, a potential impact of chemotherapy on AAA expansion should be considered. (J Vasc Surg 2000;32:197-200.

Associations between depressive symptoms and disease progression in older patients with chronic kidney disease: results of the EQUAL study

Background Depressive symptoms are associated with adverse clinical outcomes in patients with end-stage kidney disease; however, few small studies have examined this association in patients with earlier phases of chronic kidney disease (CKD). We studied associations between baseline depressive symptoms and clinical outcomes in older patients with advanced CKD and examined whether these associations differed depending on sex. Methods CKD patients (>= 65 years; estimated glomerular filtration rate <= 20 mL/min/1.73 m(2)) were included from a European multicentre prospective cohort between 2012 and 2019. Depressive symptoms were measured by the five-item Mental Health Inventory (cut-off <= 70; 0-100 scale). Cox proportional hazard analysis was used to study associations between depressive symptoms and time to dialysis initiation, all-cause mortality and these outcomes combined. A joint model was used to study the association between depressive symptoms and kidney function over time. Analyses were adjusted for potential baseline confounders. Results Overall kidney function decline in 1326 patients was -0.12 mL/min/1.73 m(2)/month. A total of 515 patients showed depressive symptoms. No significant association was found between depressive symptoms and kidney function over time (P = 0.08). Unlike women, men with depressive symptoms had an increased mortality rate compared with those without symptoms [adjusted hazard ratio 1.41 (95% confidence interval 1.03-1.93)]. Depressive symptoms were not significantly associated with a higher hazard of dialysis initiation, or with the combined outcome (i.e. dialysis initiation and all-cause mortality). Conclusions There was no significant association between depressive symptoms at baseline and decline in kidney function over time in older patients with advanced CKD. Depressive symptoms at baseline were associated with a higher mortality rate in men

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Single-molecule linewidths of terrylene in incommensurate biphenyl: Thermocycling and time-resolved experiments

The purely electronic linewidth delta of terrylene impurity molecules in monocrystalline biphenyl is studied at temperatures T between 1.7 and 3.5 K using the technique of single-molecule spectroscopy (SMS). Based on the data obtained, individual molecules appear to have their own law of delta(T) dependence; further, hysteresis effects have been observed in thermocycling experiments. The single-molecule (SM) lines investigated quickly broaden and vanish at temperatures between 3 and 3.5 K and reappear after the sample is cooled down again. At T approximate to 2 K, a slow process of spectral diffusion (SD) was observed on timescales longer than 10s. To learn about the role of faster SD processes, the technique of intensity time-frequency correlation (ITFC) SMS was applied to a stable SM line after it had been broadened by 75% as a result of a thermocycling experiment. At 2 and 2.3 K, no significant line broadening could be revealed on timescales between 0.16 ms and 10s. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Migratory connectivity of two Baltic Sea salmon populations : retrospective analysis using stable isotopes of scales

Migratory connectivity refers to the extent to which individuals of a migratory population behave in unison, and has significant conse-quences for the ecology, evolution and conservation of migratory animals. Wemade a retrospective assessment of themigratory connect-ivity of River Simojoki and River Kymijoki populations of Atlantic salmon Salmo salar L. by using stable isotope analysis of archived scales to identify the final feeding areas used before ascending rivers for spawning.We also tested differences inmigratory connectivity betweenwild and hatchery-reared salmon and compared Carlin-tag recoveries with salmon scale stable isotope analysis as methods for studying salmon migrations. Stable isotope (d13C, d15N) values from the last growth region of scales from salmon caught ascending their natal rivers were compared via discriminant analysis with those from scales of salmon caught in different Baltic Sea areas during 1989–2011. Most River Simojoki salmon had likely fed in the Baltic Proper (mean+ SD for ascending fish probability 0.59+ 0.32) with secondary likely feeding areas in the Bothnian Sea (0.21+ 0.26) and the Gulf of Finland (0.20+ 0.27). Most River Kymijoki salmon had likely fed in the Gulf of Finland (0.71+ 0.42) with the Baltic Proper (0.29+ 0.41) a secondary feeding area. The results did not indicate the Bothnia

Impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic on stroke teleconsultations in Germany in the first half of 2020

Background and purpose The effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on telemedical care have not been described on a national level. Thus, we investigated the medical stroke treatment situation before, during, and after the first lockdown in Germany. Methods In this nationwide, multicenter study, data from 14 telemedical networks including 31 network centers and 155 spoke hospitals covering large parts of Germany were analyzed regarding patients' characteristics, stroke type/severity, and acute stroke treatment. A survey focusing on potential shortcomings of in-hospital and (telemedical) stroke care during the pandemic was conducted. Results Between January 2018 and June 2020, 67,033 telemedical consultations and 38,895 telemedical stroke consultations were conducted. A significant decline of telemedical (p < 0.001) and telemedical stroke consultations (p < 0.001) during the lockdown in March/April 2020 and a reciprocal increase after relaxation of COVID-19 measures in May/June 2020 were observed. Compared to 2018–2019, neither stroke patients' age (p = 0.38), gender (p = 0.44), nor severity of ischemic stroke (p = 0.32) differed in March/April 2020. Whereas the proportion of ischemic stroke patients for whom endovascular treatment (14.3% vs. 14.6%; p = 0.85) was recommended remained stable, there was a nonsignificant trend toward a lower proportion of recommendation of intravenous thrombolysis during the lockdown (19.0% vs. 22.1%; p = 0.052). Despite the majority of participating network centers treating patients with COVID-19, there were no relevant shortcomings reported regarding in-hospital stroke treatment or telemedical stroke care. Conclusions Telemedical stroke care in Germany was able to provide full service despite the COVID-19 pandemic, but telemedical consultations declined abruptly during the lockdown period and normalized after relaxation of COVID-19 measures in Germany