Improved Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma Diagnosis in Jaundiced and Non-Jaundiced Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma Patients through the Combination of Routine Clinical Markers Associated to Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma Pathophysiology.

BACKGROUND:There is still no reliable biomarker for the diagnosis of pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA 19-9) is a tumor marker only recommended for pancreatic adenocarcinoma follow-up. One of the clinical problems lies in distinguishing between this cancer and other benign pancreatic diseases such as chronic pancreatitis. In this study we will assess the value of panels of serum molecules related to pancreatic cancer physiopathology to determine whether alone or in combination could help to discriminate between these two pathologies. METHODS:CA 19-9, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), C-reactive protein, albumin, insulin growth factor-1 (IGF-1) and IGF binding protein-3 were measured using routine clinical analyzers in a cohort of 47 pancreatic adenocarcinoma, 20 chronic pancreatitis and 15 healthy controls. RESULTS:The combination of CA 19-9, IGF-1 and albumin resulted in a combined area under the curve (AUC) of 0.959 with 93.6% sensitivity and 95% specificity, much higher than CA 19-9 alone. An algorithm was defined to classify the patients as chronic pancreatitis or pancreatic cancer with the above specificity and sensitivity. In an independent validation group of 20 pancreatic adenocarcinoma and 13 chronic pancreatitis patients, the combination of the four molecules classified correctly all pancreatic adenocarcinoma and 12 out of 13 chronic pancreatitis patients. CONCLUSIONS:Although this panel of markers should be validated in larger cohorts, the high sensitivity and specificity values and the convenience to measure these parameters in clinical laboratories shows great promise for improving pancreatic adenocarcinoma diagnosis

Acte de celebració dels 40 anys d'estudis politècnics a Girona

Acte de commemoració del 40è aniversari dels estudis politècnics a Girona i atorgament de la medalla de la Universitat al doctor Josep Arnau, que es va dur a terme el 18 de febrer de 2014. L'acte el va presidir el rector, Sergi Bonet, i va comptar amb la presència del conseller d'Empresa i Ocupació, Felip Puig; de l'alcalde de Girona, Carles Puigdemont; de la presidenta del Consell Social, Rosa Núria Aleixandre; del director de l'EPS, Joaquim Salvi; i del president del Patronat de l'EPS, Jaume Juher. En el decurs de la commemoració, es va presentar també el llibre editat amb motiu d'aquests 40 anys de l'EPS, a càrrec de Jaume Vilalta, periodista i presentador del programa "Què, qui, com?" de TV3. Així mateix, es va projectar un vídeo coproduït per l'EPS i el seu Patronat. Es va concedir la medalla de la Universitat de Girona al Dr. Josep Arnau Figuerola, primer director de l'Escola Politècnica SuperiorL’elogi de la seva figura va anar a càrrec de l’actual director, Joaquim Salvi, que va glossar els inicis del centre i va parlar amb detall de les històries que s’hi convoquen, des dels primers cursos fins a la cessió de terrenys per a l’ampliació de l’Escola. També va esmentar l’evolució professional, política i cívica de Josep Arna

Inauguració del curs acadèmic 2016-2017

Acte d'inauguració del Curs Acadèmic 2016-2017 dedicat a la transferència del coneixement. En la cerimònia ha participat un representant de cadascun dels tres col·lectius de la universitat . En nom dels estudiants ha parlat Joan González, en nom del del personal d’administració i serveis, Marc Sabater, i en nom del personal docent i investigador, Teresa Puig. També han intervingut: el rector de la Universitat, Sergi Bonet; el Dr. Jordi Ferrer, secretari general i vicerector de Relacions Iberoamericanes; la Dra. Rosa-Núria Aleixandre, del Consell Social i el Sr. Eudald Casadesús, delegat del Govern de la Generalitat de Catalunya. La Lliçò inaugural l'ha pronunciat la doctora Carme Carretero, professora de Tecnologia dels Aliments de la UdG i directora acadèmica del Campus Sectorial d’Alimentació i Gastronomia, intitulada 'La transferència del coneixement: tercera missió de la universitat

Inauguració del Novè Simposi: Llengua, Educació i Immigració

Acte d' inauguració del Novè Simposi: Llengua, Educació i Immigraci

Inauguració del X Simposi Llengua, educació i immigració: balanç i perspectives

Acte d'inauguració del Xè Simposi Llengua, educació i immigració: balanç i perspectives, a càrrec de Josep M. Serra, degà de la Facultat d’Educació i Psicologia, Xavier Triadó, director adjunt de l’Institut de Ciències de l’Educació de la Universitat de Barcelona; Josep Polanco, director dels Serveis Territorials d’Ensenyament a Girona; Rosa Núria Aleixandre, presidenta del Consell Social de la Universitat de Girona; Josep Duran, director de l’Institut de Ciències de l’Educació de la Universitat de Girona i Carles Serra, delegat del rector per compromís social de la Universitat de Giron

Comparative Study of Blood-Based Biomarkers, α2,3-Sialic Acid PSA and PHI, for High-Risk Prostate Cancer Detection

Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) is the most commonly used serum marker for prostate cancer (PCa), although it is not specific and sensitive enough to allow the differential diagnosis of the more aggressive tumors. For that, new diagnostic methods are being developed, such as PCA-3, PSA isoforms that have resulted in the 4K score or the Prostate Health Index (PHI), and PSA glycoforms. In the present study, we have compared the PHI with our recently developed PSA glycoform assay, based on the determination of the α2,3-sialic acid percentage of serum PSA (% α2,3-SA), in a cohort of 79 patients, which include 50 PCa of different grades and 29 benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH) patients. The % α2,3-SA could distinguish high-risk PCa patients from the rest of patients better than the PHI (area under the curve (AUC) of 0.971 vs. 0.840), although the PHI correlated better with the Gleason score than the % α2,3-SA. The combination of both markers increased the AUC up to 0.985 resulting in 100% sensitivity and 94.7% specificity to differentiate high-risk PCa from the other low and intermediate-risk PCa and BPH patients. These results suggest that both serum markers complement each other and offer an improved diagnostic tool to identify high-risk PCa, which is an important requirement for guiding treatment decisionsThis work was supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (CDTI grant IDI20130186 and grant BIO 2015-66356-R), by the Generalitat de Catalunya, Spain (grant 2014 SGR 229), and by Roche Diagnostics (Barcelona, Spain). We thank Mireia Lopez-Siles for her support with GraphPad Prism

Improved Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma Diagnosis in Jaundiced and Non-Jaundiced Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma Patients through the Combination of Routine Clinical Markers Associated to Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma Pathophysiology

Background There is still no reliable biomarker for the diagnosis of pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Carbohydrate antigen 19–9 (CA 19–9) is a tumor marker only recommended for pancreatic adenocarcinoma follow-up. One of the clinical problems lies in distinguishing between this cancer and other benign pancreatic diseases such as chronic pancreatitis. In this study we will assess the value of panels of serum molecules related to pancreatic cancer physiopathology to determine whether alone or in combination could help to discriminate between these two pathologies. Methods CA 19–9, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), C-reactive protein, albumin, insulin growth factor- 1 (IGF-1) and IGF binding protein-3 were measured using routine clinical analyzers in a cohort of 47 pancreatic adenocarcinoma, 20 chronic pancreatitis and 15 healthy controls. Results The combination of CA 19–9, IGF-1 and albumin resulted in a combined area under the curve (AUC) of 0.959 with 93.6% sensitivity and 95% specificity, much higher than CA 19–9 alone. An algorithm was defined to classify the patients as chronic pancreatitis or pancreatic cancer with the above specificity and sensitivity. In an independent validation group of 20 pancreatic adenocarcinoma and 13 chronic pancreatitis patients, the combination of the four molecules classified correctly all pancreatic adenocarcinoma and 12 out of 13 chronic pancreatitis patients. Conclusions Although this panel of markers should be validated in larger cohorts, the high sensitivity and specificity values and the convenience to measure these parameters in clinical laboratories shows great promise for improving pancreatic adenocarcinoma diagnosi

Receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve for diagnosis of pancreatic cancer versus chronic pancreatitis.

<p>Diagnostic performance of CA 19–9, IGF-1 and albumin combination (dotted line) compared with CA 19–9 alone (solid line).</p

Scatter dot plots of serum levels of CA 19–9, CEA, albumin, C-reactive protein, IFG-1 and IGFBP3 in non-jaundiced and jaundiced pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC 1 andPDAC2, respectively), chronic pancreatitis (CP) and healthy control (HC) groups.

<p>The values of individual sera are represented with dots. The center line in the box represents the median, and the top (Q3) and bottom (Q1), the 75^th and 25^th percentiles, respectively.</p

Receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve for diagnosis of pancreatic cancer versus chronic pancreatitis in the validation set of patients.

<p>Diagnostic performance of CA 19–9, IGF-1 and albumin combination (dotted line) compared with CA 19–9 alone (solid line).</p