904 research outputs found
Post-laparotomy haemoptysis due to broncho-abdominal fistula caused by retained abdominal surgical swab
The case presented describes the migration of a surgical swab across the left hemidiaphragm over four years. The patient had at least two episodes of haemoptysis in that period and was misdiagnosed and treated for Pulmonary Tuberculosis. When the proper diagnosis was made and a lobectomy was planned for removal of the swab, the act of anaesthesia revealed a major bronchoabdominal fistula that was resolved by simply isolating that lung with an endobronchial tube. According to our search, such a left-sided broncho-abdominal fistula has, to date, not been described in the literature.Keywords: broncho-abdominal fistula, gossypibom
Biomarker analyses of clinical outcomes in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma treated with Sorafenib with or without Erlotinib in the SEARCH Trial
Purpose: Sorafenib is the current standard therapy for advanced HCC, but validated
biomarkers predicting clinical outcomes are lacking. This study aimed to identify biomarkers
predicting prognosis and/or response to sorafenib, with or without erlotinib, in HCC patients from
the phase 3 SEARCH trial.
Experimental Design: 720 patients were randomized to receive oral sorafenib 400 mg BID plus
erlotinib 150 mg QD or placebo. Fifteen growth factors relevant to the treatment regimen and/or
to HCC were measured in baseline plasma samples.
Results: Baseline plasma biomarkers were measured in 494 (69%) patients (sorafenib plus
erlotinib, n=243; sorafenib plus placebo, n=251). Treatment armâindependent analyses showed
that elevated HGF (HR, 1.687 [high vs low expression]; endpoint multiplicity adjusted [e-adj]
P=0.0001) and elevated plasma VEGF-A (HR, 1.386; e-adj P=0..0377) were significantly
associated with poor OS in multivariate analyses, and low plasma KIT (HR, 0.75 [high vs low];
P=0.0233; e-adj P=0.2793) tended to correlate with poorer OS. High plasma VEGF-C
independently correlated with longer TTP (HR, 0.633; e-adj P=0.0010) and trended toward
associating with improved disease control rate (univariate:OR, 2.047; P=0.030; e-adj P=0.420).
In 67% of evaluable patients (339/494), a multimarker signature of HGF, VEGF-A, KIT, epigen,
and VEGF-C correlated with improved median OS in multivariate analysis (HR, 0.150;
P<0.00001). No biomarker predicted efficacy from erlotinib.
Conclusions: Baseline plasma HGF, VEGF-A, KIT, and VEGF-C correlated with clinical
outcomes in HCC patients treated with sorafenib with or without erlotinib. These biomarkers
plus epigen constituted a multimarker signature for improved OS
The Methodologies of Neuroeconomics
We critically review the methodological practices of two research programs which are jointly called âneuroeconomicsâ. We defend the first of these, termed âneurocellular economicsâ (NE) by Ross (2008), from an attack on its relevance by Gul and Pesendorfer (2008) (GP). This attack arbitrarily singles out some but not all processing variables as unimportant to economics, is insensitive to the realities of empirical theory testing, and ignores the central importance to economics of âecological rationalityâ (Smith 2007). GP ironically share this last attitude with advocates of âbehavioral economics in the scannerâ (BES), the other, and better known, branch of neuroeconomics. We consider grounds for skepticism about the accomplishments of this research program to date, based on its methodological individualism, its ad hoc econometrics, its tolerance for invalid reverse inference, and its inattention to the difficulties involved in extracting temporally lagged data if peopleâs anticipation of reward causes pre-emptive blood flow
The Gluon Impact Factors
We calculate in the next-to-leading approximation the non-forward gluon
impact factors for arbitrary color state in the -channel. In the case of the
octet state we check the so-called "second bootstrap condition" for the gluon
Reggeization in QCD, using the integral representation for the impact factors.
The condition is fulfilled in the general case of an arbitrary space-time
dimension and massive quark flavors for both helicity conserving and
non-conserving parts.Comment: 32 pages, LaTeX, 1 EPS figure, uses epsf.sty and axodraw.st
Low PCA3 expression is a marker of poor differentiation in localized prostate tumors: exploratory analysis from 12,076 patients
Contains fulltext :
177804.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)BACKGROUND: Prostate cancer antigen 3 (PCA3) is a prostate cancer diagnostic biomarker that has been clinically validated. The limitations of the diagnostic role of PCA3 in initial biopsy and the prognostic role are not well established. Here, we elucidate the limitations of tissue PCA3 to predict high grade tumors in initial biopsy. RESULTS: PCA3 has a bimodal distribution in both biopsy and radical prostatectomy (RP) tissues, where low PCA3 expression was significantly associated with high grade disease (p/=8) with 55% sensitivity and high false negative rates; 42% of high Gleason (>/=8) samples had low PCA3. In RP, low PCA3 is associated with adverse pathological features, clinical recurrence outcome and greater probability of metastatic progression (p<0.001). MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 1,694 expression profiles from biopsy and 10,382 from RP patients with high risk tumors were obtained from the Decipher Genomic Resource Information Database (GRIDTM)prostate cancer database. The primary clinical endpoint was distant metastasis-free survival for RP and high Gleason grade for biopsy. Logistic regression analyses and Cox proportional hazards models were used to evaluate the association of PCA3 with clinical variables and risk of metastasis. CONCLUSIONS: There is high prevalence of high grade tumors with low PCA3 expression in the biopsy setting. Therefore, urologists should be warned that using PCA3 as stand-alone test may lead to high rate of under-diagnosis of high grade disease in initial biopsy setting
The quark part of the non-forward BFKL kernel and the ``bootstrap'' for the gluon Reggeization
We calculate the quark part of the kernel of the generalized non-forward BFKL
equation at non-zero momentum transfer in the next-to-leading logarithmic
approximation. Along with the quark contribution to the gluon Regge trajectory,
this part includes pieces coming from the quark-antiquark production and from
the quark contribution to the radiative corrections in one-gluon production in
the Reggeon-Reggeon collisions. The results obtained can be used for an
arbitrary representation of the colour group in the channel. Using the
results for the adjoint representation, we demonstrate explicitly the
fulfillment of the ``bootstrap'' condition for the gluon Reggeization in the
next-to-leading logarithmic approximation in the part concerning the quark
contribution.Comment: 26 pages, LaTeX, uses axodraw.sty; revised final comment; to appear
on Phys. Rev.
The Quark Impact Factors
We calculate in the next-to-leading approximation the non-forward quark
impact factors for both singlet and octet color representation in the
-channel. The integral representation of the octet impact factor in the
general case of arbitrary space-time dimension and massive quark flavors is
used to check the so-called "second bootstrap condition" for the gluon
Reggeization at the next-to-leading logarithmic approximation in perturbative
QCD. We find that it is satisfied for both helicity conserving and
non-conserving parts. The integrations are then performed for the explicit
calculation of the impact factors in the massless quark case.Comment: 23 pages, LaTeX, 1 EPS figure, uses epsf.sty and axodraw.st
Entanglement of two-mode Bose-Einstein condensates
We investigate the entaglement characteristics of two general bimodal
Bose-Einstein condensates - a pair of tunnel-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates
and the atom-molecule Bose-Einstein condensate. We argue that the entanglement
is only physically meaningful if the system is viewed as a bipartite system,
where the subsystems are the two modes. The indistinguishibility of the
particles in the condensate means that the atomic constituents are physically
inaccessible and thus the degree of entanglement between individual particles,
unlike the entanglement between the modes, is not experimentally relevant so
long as the particles remain in the condensed state. We calculate the
entanglement between the modes for the exact ground state of the two bimodal
condensates and consider the dynamics of the entanglement in the tunnel-coupled
case.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Physical Review A, to be presented
at the third UQ Mathematical Physics workshop, Oct. 4-6; changes made in
response to referee comment
Continuity theorems for the queueing system
In this paper continuity theorems are established for the number of losses
during a busy period of the queue. We consider an queueing
system where the service time probability distribution, slightly different in a
certain sense from the exponential distribution, is approximated by that
exponential distribution. Continuity theorems are obtained in the form of one
or two-sided stochastic inequalities. The paper shows how the bounds of these
inequalities are changed if further assumptions, associated with specific
properties of the service time distribution (precisely described in the paper),
are made. Specifically, some parametric families of service time distributions
are discussed, and the paper establishes uniform estimates (given for all
possible values of the parameter) and local estimates (where the parameter is
fixed and takes only the given value). The analysis of the paper is based on
the level crossing approach and some characterization properties of the
exponential distribution.Comment: Final revision; will be published as i
Scherk-Schwarz Supersymmetry Breaking for Quasi-localized Matter Fields and Supersymmetry Flavor Violation
We examine the soft supersymmetry breaking parameters induced by the
Scherk-Schwarz (SS) boundary condition in 5-dimensional orbifold field theory
in which the quark and lepton zero modes are quasi-localized at the orbifold
fixed points to generate the hierarchical Yukawa couplings. In such theories,
the radion corresponds to a flavon to generate the flavor hierarchy and at the
same time plays the role of the messenger of supersymmetry breaking. As a
consequence, the resulting soft scalar masses and trilinear -parameters of
matter zero modes at the compactification scale are highly flavor-dependent,
thereby can lead to dangerous flavor violations at low energy scales. We
analyze in detail the low energy flavor violations in SS-dominated
supersymmetry breaking scenario under the assumption that the compactification
scale is close to the grand unification scale and the 4-dimensional effective
theory below the compactification scale is given by the minimal supersymmetric
standard model. Our analysis can be applied to any supersymmetry breaking
mechanism giving a sizable -component of the radion superfield, e.g. the
hidden gaugino condensation model.Comment: revtex4, 22 pages, some numerical errors are corrected in
phenomenological analysis, main conclusion does not chang
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