The Two-Nucleon Potential from Chiral Lagrangians

Chiral symmetry is consistently implemented in the two-nucleon problem at low-energy through the general effective chiral lagrangian. The potential is obtained up to a certain order in chiral perturbation theory both in momentum and coordinate space. Results of a fit to scattering phase shifts and bound state data are presented, where satisfactory agreement is found for laboratory energies up to about 100 Mev.Comment: Postscript file; figures available by reques

Mind your head: two cases of mucosal metastasis of BRAF-mutated melanoma of the scalp

Mucosal melanomas are rare and only a small portion bear BRAF mutations while cutaneous melanomas have a much higher prevalence and often harbor BRAF mutations. We present two cases in which, after a malignant melanocytic mucosal lesion with a BRAF mutation was found, the primary cutaneous source was identified and clonality confirmed between the lesions. In both cases, primary lesions occurred on the scalp, an often-overlooked site. Both lesions showed signs of regression implying that in due time these lesions could have been fully regressed and might never have been detected. In that case, the metastatic mucosal lesion would erroneously be identified as a BRAF-mutated mucosal melanoma. These cases give warrant; a careful dermatological inspection should be instigated when confronted with a BRAF-mutated mucosal melanoma. We hypothesize that some BRAF-mutated mucosal melanomas might actually represent metastases of regressed cutaneous melanomas.MTG4Molecular tumour pathology - and tumour genetic

A novel succinate dehydrogenase subunit B germline variant associated with head and neck paraganglioma in a Dutch kindred: A family-based study

Genome Instability and Cance

The hyperon-nucleon interaction: conventional versus effective field theory approach

Hyperon-nucleon interactions are presented that are derived either in the conventional meson-exchange picture or within leading order chiral effective field theory. The chiral potential consists of one-pseudoscalar-meson exchanges and non-derivative four-baryon contact terms. With regard to meson-exchange hyperon-nucleon models we focus on the new potential of the Juelich group, whose most salient feature is that the contributions in the scalar--isoscalar (\sigma) and vector--isovector (\rho) exchange channels are constrained by a microscopic model of correlated \pi\pi and KKbar exchange.Comment: 28 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Lecture Notes in Physic

Neuroendocrine neoplasms of the middle ear: unpredictable tumor behavior and tendency for recurrence

Background Middle ear adenomatous neuroendocrine tumors (MEANTs) are rare temporal bone tumors. This study evaluates its clinical behavior and therapy outcome.Method Retrospective case review in a tertiary referral center evaluating histopathology, immunohistochemistry, treatment, and outcome.Results Nine patients were diagnosed with MEANT. One patient presented with locally invasive tumor and underwent extensive en-bloc tumor resection with adjuvant radiotherapy. Seven of eight patients with locally non-aggressive tumor confined to the tympanomastoid space underwent tumor resection. Two patients were disease-free, five presented recurrence, even after apparent successful surgery. All tumors showed neuroendocrine features. Histopathology and immunohistochemistry did not yield prognostic tumor characteristics.Conclusion MEANTs are rare tumors with uncertain biological behavior and subsequent unpredictable clinical course. The preferred treatment is complete surgical tumor resection. They have a high tendency for recurrence, irrespective of negative intermediary surgery. As of yet, there are no prognostic biomarkers, including histopathology and immunohistochemistry.Otorhinolaryngolog

Short-Term Outcomes of Secondary Liver Surgery for Initially Unresectable Colorectal Liver Metastases following Modern Induction Systemic Therapy in the Dutch CAIRO5 Trial

Objective: To present short-term outcomes of liver surgery in patients with initially unresectable colorectal liver metastases (CRLM) downsized by chemotherapy plus targeted agents. Background: The increase of complex hepatic resections of CRLM, technical innovations pushing boundaries of respectability, and use of intensified induction systemic regimens warrant for safety data in a homogeneous multicenter prospective cohort. Methods: Patients with initially unresectable CRLM, who underwent complete resection after induction systemic regimens with doublet or triplet chemotherapy, both plus targeted therapy, were selected from the ongoing phase III CAIRO5 study (NCT02162563). Short-term outcomes and risk factors for severe postoperative morbidity (Clavien Dindo grade ≥ 3) were analyzed using logistic regression analysis. Results: A total of 173 patients underwent resection of CRLM after induction systemic therapy. The median number of metastases was 9 and 161 (93%) patients had bilobar disease. Thirty-six (20.8%) 2-stage resections and 88 (51%) major resections (>3 liver segments) were performed. Severe postoperative morbidity and 90-day mortality was 15.6% and 2.9%, respectively. After multivariable analysis, blood transfusion (odds ratio [OR] 2.9 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.1-6.4], P = 0.03), major resection (OR 2.9 [95% CI 1.1-7.5], P = 0.03), and triplet chemotherapy (OR 2.6 [95% CI 1.1-7.5], P = 0.03) were independently correlated with severe postoperative complications. No association was found between number of cycles of systemic therapy and severe complications (r = -0.038, P = 0.31). Conclusion: In patients with initially unresectable CRLM undergoing modern induction systemic therapy and extensive liver surgery, severe postoperative morbidity and 90-day mortality were 15.6% and 2.7%, respectively. Triplet chemotherapy, blood transfusion, and major resections were associated with severe postoperative morbidity

A framework for analysis of linear ultrasound videos to detect fetal presentation and heartbeat.

Confirmation of pregnancy viability (presence of fetal cardiac activity) and diagnosis of fetal presentation (head or buttock in the maternal pelvis) are the first essential components of ultrasound assessment in obstetrics. The former is useful in assessing the presence of an on-going pregnancy and the latter is essential for labour management. We propose an automated framework for detection of fetal presentation and heartbeat from a predefined free-hand ultrasound sweep of the maternal abdomen. Our method exploits the presence of key anatomical sonographic image patterns in carefully designed scanning protocols to develop, for the first time, an automated framework allowing novice sonographers to detect fetal breech presentation and heartbeat from an ultrasound sweep. The framework consists of a classification regime for a frame by frame categorization of each 2D slice of the video. The classification scores are then regularized through a conditional random field model, taking into account the temporal relationship between the video frames. Subsequently, if consecutive frames of the fetal heart are detected, a kernelized linear dynamical model is used to identify whether a heartbeat can be detected in the sequence. In a dataset of 323 predefined free-hand videos, covering the mother's abdomen in a straight sweep, the fetal skull, abdomen, and heart were detected with a mean classification accuracy of 83.4%. Furthermore, for the detection of the heartbeat an overall classification accuracy of 93.1% was achieved

Role of N*(1650) in the near threshold pp --> p Lambda K+ and pp --> p Sigma0 K+ reactions

We investigate the pp --> p Lambda K+ and pp --> p Sigma0 K+ reactions at beam energies near their thresholds within an effective Lagrangian model, where the strangeness production proceeds via the excitation of N*(1650), N*(1710), and N*(1720) baryonic resonances. It is found that the $N^*$(1650) resonance dominates both these reactions at near threshold energies. The contributions from this resonance together with the final state interaction among the outgoing particles are able to explain the observed beam energy dependence of the ratio of the cross sections of the two reactions in the near threshold region.Comment: Revised version, Fig. 4 is updated with the revised data, to appear in Phys. Rev. C (Rapid Communications

Pregnancy outcomes and risk of placental malaria after artemisinin-based and quinine-based treatment for uncomplicated falciparum malaria in pregnancy: a WorldWide Antimalarial Resistance Network systematic review and individual patient data meta-analysis.

Malaria in pregnancy, including asymptomatic infection, has a detrimental impact on foetal development. Individual patient data (IPD) meta-analysis was conducted to compare the association between antimalarial treatments and adverse pregnancy outcomes, including placental malaria, accompanied with the gestational age at diagnosis of uncomplicated falciparum malaria infection. A systematic review and one-stage IPD meta-analysis of studies assessing the efficacy of artemisinin-based and quinine-based treatments for patent microscopic uncomplicated falciparum malaria infection (hereinafter uncomplicated falciparum malaria) in pregnancy was conducted. The risks of stillbirth (pregnancy loss at ≥ 28.0 weeks of gestation), moderate to late preterm birth (PTB, live birth between 32.0 and < 37.0 weeks), small for gestational age (SGA, birthweight of < 10th percentile), and placental malaria (defined as deposition of malaria pigment in the placenta with or without parasites) after different treatments of uncomplicated falciparum malaria were assessed by mixed-effects logistic regression, using artemether-lumefantrine, the most used antimalarial, as the reference standard. Registration PROSPERO: CRD42018104013. Of the 22 eligible studies (n = 5015), IPD from16 studies were shared, representing 95.0% (n = 4765) of the women enrolled in literature. Malaria treatment in this pooled analysis mostly occurred in the second (68.4%, 3064/4501) or third trimester (31.6%, 1421/4501), with gestational age confirmed by ultrasound in 91.5% (4120/4503). Quinine (n = 184) and five commonly used artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) were included: artemether-lumefantrine (n = 1087), artesunate-amodiaquine (n = 775), artesunate-mefloquine (n = 965), and dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine (n = 837). The overall pooled proportion of stillbirth was 1.1% (84/4361), PTB 10.0% (619/4131), SGA 32.3% (1007/3707), and placental malaria 80.1% (2543/3035), and there were no significant differences of considered outcomes by ACT. Higher parasitaemia before treatment was associated with a higher risk of SGA (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 1.14 per 10-fold increase, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.03 to 1.26, p = 0.009) and deposition of malaria pigment in the placenta (aOR 1.67 per 10-fold increase, 95% CI 1.42 to 1.96, p < 0.001). The risks of stillbirth, PTB, SGA, and placental malaria were not different between the commonly used ACTs. The risk of SGA was high among pregnant women infected with falciparum malaria despite treatment with highly effective drugs. Reduction of malaria-associated adverse birth outcomes requires effective prevention in pregnant women