Impact of an enhanced screening program on the detection of non-AIDS neoplasias in patients with human immunodeficiency virus infection

Background The incidence of non-AIDS defining cancer (NADC) is higher in people living with HIV (PLWH) than in the general population, and it is already one of the leading causes of death in the HIV-infected population. It is estimated that the situation will be aggravated by the progressive aging of PLWH. Early diagnosis through intensive cancer screening may improve the ability for therapeutic interventions and could be critical in reducing mortality, but it might also increase expenditure and harms associated with adverse events. The aim of this study is to evaluate an enhanced screening program for early diagnosis of cancer in PLWH compared to standard practice. The specific objectives are (1) to compare the frequency of cancer diagnosed at an early stage, (2) to analyze safety of the enhanced program: adverse events and unnecessary interventions, (3) to analyze the cost-utility of the program, and (4) to estimate the overall and site-specific incidence of NADC in PLWH. Methods We will conduct a multicenter, non-blinded, randomized, controlled trial, comparing two parallel arms: conventional vs enhanced screening. Data will be recorded in an electronic data collection notebook. Conventional intervention group will follow the standard of care screening in the participating centers, according to the European AIDS Clinical Society recommendations, and the enhanced intervention group will follow an expanded screening aimed to early detection of lung, liver, anal, cervical, breast, prostate, colorectal, and skin cancer. The trial will be conducted within the framework of the Spanish AIDS Research Network Cohort (CoRIS). Discussion The trial will evaluate the efficacy, safety, and efficiency of an enhanced screening program for the early diagnosis of cancer in HIV patients compared to standard of care practice. The information provided will be relevant since there are currently no studies on expanded cancer screening strategies in patients with HIV, and available data estimating cost effectiveness or cost-utility of such as programs are scarce. An enhanced program for NADC screening in patients with HIV could lead to early diagnosis and improve the prognosis of these patients, with an acceptable rate of unnecessary interventions, but it is critical to demonstrate that the benefits clearly outweigh the harms, before the strategy could be implemented

Reference systems for the determination of 10B through autoradiography images: Application to a melanoma experimental model

The amount of 10B in tissue samples may be determined by measuring the track density in the autoradiography image produced on a nuclear track detector. Different systems were evaluated as reference standards to be used for a quantitative evaluation of boron concentration. The obtained calibration curves were applied to evaluate the concentration of 10B in melanoma tumour of NIH nude mice after a biodistribution study. The histological features observed in the tissue sections were accurately reproduced by the autoradiography images.Fil: Portu, Agustina Mariana. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Constituyentes; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Carpano, M.. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Constituyentes; ArgentinaFil: Dagrosa, María Alejandra. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Constituyentes; ArgentinaFil: Nievas, S.. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Constituyentes; ArgentinaFil: Pozzi, E.. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Constituyentes; ArgentinaFil: Thorp, S.. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Constituyentes; ArgentinaFil: Cabrini, R.. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Constituyentes; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Odontología; ArgentinaFil: Liberman, S.. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Constituyentes; ArgentinaFil: Saint Martin, María Laura Gisela. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Constituyentes; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Neutron Autoradiography Combined With UV-C Sensitization: Toward the Intracellular Localization of Boron

Our group has reported the imprint formation of biological material on polycarbonate nuclear track detectors by UV-C exposure, which is used as an approach to simultaneously visualize cell imprints and nuclear tracks coming from the boron neutron capture reaction. Considering that the cell nucleus has a higher UV-C absorption than the cytoplasm and that hematoxylin preferentially stains the nucleus, we proposed to enhance the contrast between these two main cell structures by hematoxylin staining before UV-C sensitization. In this study, several experiments were performed in order to optimize UV-C exposure parameters and chemical etching conditions for cell imprint formation using the SK-BR-3 breast cancer cell line. The proposed method improves significantly the resolution of the cell imprints. It allows clear differentiation of the nucleus from the rest of the cell, together with nuclear tracks pits. Moreover, it reduces considerably the UV-C exposure time, an important experimental issue. The proposed methodology can be applied to study the boron distribution independently from the chosen cell line and/or boron compounds.Fil: Gadan, Mario Alberto. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; ArgentinaFil: Lloyd, Rodrigo. Ministerio de Ciencia. Tecnología e Innovación Productiva. Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; ArgentinaFil: Saint Martin, María Laura Gisela. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; ArgentinaFil: Olivera, María S.. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; ArgentinaFil: Policastro, Lucia Laura. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas. Oficina de Coordinacion Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Unidad Ejecutora Instituto de Nanociencia y Nanotecnologia. Unidad Ejecutora Instituto de Nanociencia y Nanotecnologia - Nodo Constituyentes | Comision Nacional de Energia Atomica. Unidad Ejecutora Instituto de Nanociencia y Nanotecnologia. Unidad Ejecutora Instituto de Nanociencia y Nanotecnologia - Nodo Constituyentes.; ArgentinaFil: Portu, Agustina Mariana. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

From nuclear track characterization to machine learning based image classification in neutron autoradiography for boron neutron capture therapy

Knowledge of the 10B microdistribution is of great relevance in BNCT studies. Since 10B concentration assesment through neutron autoradiography depends on the correct quantification of tracks in a nuclear track detector, image acquisition and processing conditions should be controlled and verified, in order to obtain accurate results to be applied in the frame of BNCT. With this aim, an image verification process was proposed, based on parameters extracted from the quantified nuclear tracks. Track characterization was performed by selecting a set of morphological and pixel-intensity uniformity parameters from the quantified objects (area, diameter, roundness, aspect ratio, heterogeneity and clumpiness). Their distributions were studied, leading to the observation of varying behaviours in images generated by different samples and acquisition conditions. The distributions corresponding to samples coming from the BNC reaction showed similar attributes in each analyzed parameter, proving to be robust to the experimental process, but sensitive to light and focus conditions. Considering those observations, a manual feature extraction was performed as a pre-processing step. A Support Vector Machine (SVM) and a fully dense Neural Network (NN) were optimized, trained, and tested. The final performance metrics were similar for both models: 93%-93% for the SVM, vs 94%-95% for the NN in accuracy and precision respectively. Based on the distribution of the predicted class probabilities, the latter had a better capacity to reject inadequate images, so the NN was selected to perform the image verification step prior to quantification. The trained NN was able to correctly classify the images regardless of their track density. The exhaustive characterization of the nuclear tracks provided new knowledge related to the autoradiographic images generation. The inclusion of machine learning in the analysis workflow proves to optimize the boron determination process and paves the way for further applications in the field of boron imaging.Fil: Viglietti, Julia S.. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia de Área de Aplicaciones de la Tecnología Nuclear. Departamento de Radiobiología; ArgentinaFil: Espain, Maria Sol. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Escuela de Ciencia y Tecnología; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia de Área de Aplicaciones de la Tecnología Nuclear. Departamento de Radiobiología; ArgentinaFil: Díaz, Rodrigo Fernando. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Escuela de Ciencia y Tecnología. Centro Internacional de Estudios Avanzados; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas. Instituto de Ciencias Fisicas. - Universidad Nacional de San Martin. Instituto de Ciencias Fisicas.; ArgentinaFil: Nieto, Luis Agustin. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Escuela de Ciencia y Tecnología. Centro Internacional de Estudios Avanzados; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas. Instituto de Ciencias Fisicas. - Universidad Nacional de San Martin. Instituto de Ciencias Fisicas.; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Constituyentes; ArgentinaFil: Szewc, Manuel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. University of Cincinnati; Estados UnidosFil: Bernardi, Guillermo Carlos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Rodríguez, Luis M.. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Fregenal, Daniel Eduardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Saint Martin, María Laura Gisela. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia de Área de Aplicaciones de la Tecnología Nuclear. Departamento de Radiobiología; ArgentinaFil: Portu, Agustina Mariana. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Escuela de Ciencia y Tecnología; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia de Área de Aplicaciones de la Tecnología Nuclear. Departamento de Radiobiología; Argentin

Long Term Costs and Outcomes in Psoriatic Arthritis Patients Not Responding to Conventional Therapy Treated with Tumor Necrosis Factor Inhibitors: The Extension of Psoriatic Arthritis Cost Evaluation (PACE) Study

n/

A National Point‐of‐Care Ultrasound Competition for Medical Students

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146850/1/jum14670_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146850/2/jum14670.pd