Redefining Hormone Sensitive Disease in Advanced Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men in the United States. For decades, the cornerstone of medical treatment for advanced prostate cancer has been hormonal therapy, intended to lower testosterone levels, known as Androgen Deprivation Therapy (ADT). The development of hormone-resistant prostate cancer (now termed castration-resistant prostate cancer:CRPC) remains the key roadblock in successful long-term management of prostate cancer. New advancements in medical therapy for prostate cancer have added to the hormonal therapy armamentarium. These new therapeutic agents not only provide a survival benefit but also show potential for reversing hormonal resistance in metastatic CRPC, and thus redefining hormonally sensitive disease

SIMULATION AND MATHEMATICAL OPTIMIZATION OF THE HYDRATION OF CONCRETE FOR AVOIDING THERMAL CRACKS

After mixing of concrete, the hardening starts by an exothermic chemical reaction known as hydration. As the reaction rate depends on the temperature the time in the description of the hydration is replaced by the maturity which is defined as an integral over a certain function depending on the temperature. The temperature distribution is governed by the heat equation with a right hand side depending on the maturity and the temperature itself. We compare of the performance of different time integration schemes of higher order with an automatic time step control. The simulation of the heat distribution is of importance as the development of mechanical properties is driven by the hydration. During this process it is possible that the tensile stresses exceed the tensile strength and cracks occur. The goal is to produce cheap concrete without cracks. Simple crack-criterions use only temperature differences, more involved ones are based on thermal stresses. If the criterion predicts cracks some changes in the input data are needed. This can be interpreted as optimization. The final goal will be to adopt model based optimization (in contrast to simulation based optimization) to the problem of the hydration of young concrete and the avoidance of cracks. The first step is the simulation of the hydration, which we focus in this paper

The Outcome of Patients with Melanoma Is Not Associated with the Time Point of Lymphatic Mapping with Respect to Excisional Biopsy of the Primary Tumor

Background: Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) has become the standard care for melanoma and is an important diagnostic procedure. It has been doubted whether lymphoscintigraphy detects the correct sentinel lymph node (SLN) when excision of the tumor and SLNB are not performed at the same time. This would imply that this sequential approach may have an increased risk of undetected micrometastases resulting in a worse outcome. Objective: The purpose of the present study was to compare the outcome of melanoma patients having received excision of the tumor and SLNB either at the same time or consecutively. Methods: A total of 854 patients with cutaneous melanoma were enrolled in this retrospective study between September 1996 and November 2007. Disease-free (DFS) and overall survivals (OS) were estimated using the Kaplan-Meier product limit method and were analyzed by the log rank test. Results: No statistically significant difference was found regarding DFS, progression rates and OS in patients with primary tumor excision and SLNB at the same time compared with patients with excisional biopsy of primary tumor and SLNB at different times. Conclusion: These data suggest that excisional biopsy of the primary tumor does not prevent the correct SLN mapping in melanoma patients. Copyright (C) 2010 S. Karger AG, Base

Mechanical competence of bone-implant systems can accurately be determined by image-based micro-finite element analyses

The precise failure mechanisms of bone implants are still incompletely understood. Micro-computed tomography in combination with finite element analysis appears to be a potent methodology to determine the mechanical stability of bone-implant constructs. To assess this microstructural finite element (μFE) analysis approach, pull-out tests were designed and conducted on ten sheep vertebral bodies into which orthopedic screws were inserted.μFE models of the same bone-implant constructs were then built and solved, using a large-scale linear FE-solver.μFE calculated pull-out strength correlated highly with the experimentally measured pull-out strength (r 2= 0.87) thereby statistically supporting theμFE approach. These results suggest that bone-implant constructs can be analyzed usingμFE in a detailed and unprecedented way. This could potentially facilitate the development of future implant designs leading to novel and improved fracture fixation method

GNSS Double Differences used as Beacon Landing System for Aircraft Instrument Approach

When using GNSS navigation for final approach guidance of aircraft to a landing site, the only systems currently available are differential GNSS with additional integrity data called augmentation systems. These work well when the landing site is fixed in space and well surveyed. In all other cases, augmentation systems are difficult to use. Here, we propose relative navigation based on GNSS double difference measurement to accomplish the same task, but also onto moving landing platforms or at unsurveyed locations. We call this the Beacon Landing System. Furthermore, we show long term measurement data confirming the sub-meter accuracy and results from flight tests. During the flight test we successfully used the relative navigation for aircraft guidance

Patients with Intolerance Reactions to Total Knee Replacement: Combined Assessment of Allergy Diagnostics, Periprosthetic Histology, and Peri-implant Cytokine Expression Pattern

We performed a combined approach to identify suspected allergy to knee arthroplasty (TKR): patch test (PT), lymphocyte transformation test (LTT), histopathology (overall grading; T- and B-lymphocytes, macrophages, and neutrophils), and semiquantitative Real-time-PCR-based periprosthetic inflammatory mediator analysis (IFN gamma, TNF alpha, IL1-beta, IL-2, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, IL17, and TGF beta). We analyzed 25 TKR patients with yet unexplained complications like pain, effusion, and reduced range of motion. They consisted of 20 patients with proven metal sensitization (11 with PT reactions;9 with only LTT reactivity). Control specimens were from 5 complicated TKR patients without metal sensitization, 12 OA patients before arthroplasty, and 8 PT patients without arthroplasty. Lymphocytic infiltrates were seen and fibrotic (Type IV membrane) tissue response was most frequent in the metal sensitive patients, for example, in 81% of the PT positive patients. The latter also had marked periprosthetic IFN gamma expression. 8/9 patients with revision surgery using Ti-coated/oxinium based implants reported symptom relief. Our findings demonstrate that combining allergy diagnostics with histopathology and periprosthetic cytokine assessment could allow us to design better diagnostic strategies

Wie ticken Jugendliche 2016?: Lebenswelten von Jugendlichen im Alter von 14 bis 17 Jahren in Deutschland

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