Data_Sheet_1_Letrozole as premedication of high intensity focused ultrasound treatment of uterine fibroids: A retrospective observation study.docx

BackgroundNo reports on Letrozole as a pretreatment before ablation of uterine fibroid with high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU), so a retrospective observation study was performed to evaluate the response of different pre-HIFU medication.MethodsWe collected patients with single uterine fibroid receiving HIFU ablation from January 2018 to April 2021. All enrolled patients were classified into three group: group A (no pre-HIFU medication use), group B (Pre-HIFU letrozole use), group C (pre-HIFU gonadotrophin releasing hormone analog, GnRHa). Further associated clinical data and treatment response after HIFU treatment were reviewed and evaluated.ResultsA total of 39 patients including 21, 7, and 11 in group A, B, and C were collected respectively. After pre-HIFU medication, no difference of fibroid volume was found (A: 251.4, B: 360.6, C: 409.4 cm3, p = 0.250), and GnRHa group had significantly larger volume reduction than Letrozole users (38.6% vs. 16.4%, p = 0.007). The incidence of hypoestrogenic symptoms was higher in GnRHa group than in letrozole users (27.3% vs. 0, p = 0.170). GnRHa group had more sonication time (p = 0.001), treatment duration (p = 0.002), and ablated energy (p = 0.001) than group A and B. The treatment efficiency was higher in letrozole group than that in other 2 groups (4.52 vs. 2.39 vs. 2.34 cm3/min, p = 0.050). For patients with fibroid over 10 cm in diameter, letrozole group had even better energy efficiency (p = 0.067), treatment speed (p = 0.007), treatment efficiency (p = 0.001), NPV per energy (p = 0.005), and NPV per sonication (p = 0.004) than other 2 groups.ConclusionLetrozole as a pretreatment medication before HIFU treatment might increase the energy efficiency and treatment efficiency of its ablation of uterine leiomyoma, especially for fibroid over 10 cm. Future study of larger patient number is needed to confirm our results.</p

Rational Hydrogenation for Enhanced Mobility and High Reliability on ZnO-based Thin Film Transistors: From Simulation to Experiment

Hydrogenation is one of the effective methods for improving the performance of ZnO thin film transistors (TFTs), which originate from the fact that hydrogen (H) acts as a defect passivator and a shallow <i>n</i>-type dopant in ZnO materials. However, passivation accompanied by an excessive H doping of the channel region of a ZnO TFT is undesirable because high carrier density leads to negative threshold voltages. Herein, we report that Mg/H codoping could overcome the trade-off between performance and reliability in the ZnO TFTs. The theoretical calculation suggests that the incorporation of Mg in hydrogenated ZnO decrease the formation energy of interstitial H and increase formation energy of O-vacancy (<i>V</i>_O). The experimental results demonstrate that the existence of the diluted Mg in hydrogenated ZnO TFTs could be sufficient to boost up mobility from 10 to 32.2 cm²/(V s) at a low carrier density (∼2.0 × 10¹⁸ cm^–3), which can be attributed to the decreased electron effective mass by surface band bending. The all results verified that the Mg/H codoping can significantly passivate the <i>V</i>_O to improve device reliability and enhance mobility. Thus, this finding clearly points the way to realize high-performance metal oxide TFTs for low-cost, large-volume, flexible electronics

Integrated One Diode–One Resistor Architecture in Nanopillar SiO_<i>x</i> Resistive Switching Memory by Nanosphere Lithography

We report on a highly compact, one diode–one resistor (1D–1R) nanopillar device architecture for SiO_<i>x</i>-based ReRAM fabricated using nanosphere lithography (NSL). The intrinsic SiO_<i>x</i>-based resistive switching element and Si diode are self-aligned on an epitaxial silicon wafer using NSL and a deep-Si-etch process without conventional photolithography. AC-pulse response in 50 ns regime, multibit operation, and good reliability are demonstrated. The NSL process provides a fast and economical approach to large-scale patterning of high-density 1D–1R ReRAM with good potential for use in future applications

High-Performance Visible-Blind Ultraviolet Photodetector Based on IGZO TFT Coupled with p–n Heterojunction

A visible-blind ultraviolet (UV) photodetector was designed based on a three-terminal electronic device of thin-film transistor (TFT) coupled with two-terminal p–n junction optoelectronic device, in hope of combining the beauties of both of the devices together. Upon the uncovered back-channel surface of amorphous indium–gallium–zinc-oxide (IGZO) TFT, we fabricated PEDOT:PSS/SnO_<i>x</i>/IGZO heterojunction structure, through which the formation of a p–n junction and directional carrier transfer of photogenerated carriers were experimentally validated. As expected, the photoresponse characteristics of the newly designed photodetector, with a photoresponsivity of 984 A/W at a wavelength of 320 nm, a UV–visible rejection ratio up to 3.5 × 10⁷, and a specific detectivity up to 3.3 × 10¹⁴ Jones, are not only competitive compared to the previous reports but also better than those of the pristine IGZO phototransistor. The hybrid photodetector could be operated in the off-current region with low supply voltages (<0.1 V) and ultralow power dissipation (<10 nW under illumination and ∼0.2 pW in the dark). Moreover, by applying a short positive gate pulse onto the gate, the annoying persistent photoconductivity presented in the wide band gap oxide-based devices could be suppressed conveniently, in hope of improving the response rate. With the terrific photoresponsivity along with the advantages of photodetecting pixel integration, the proposed phototransistor could be potentially used in high-performance visible-blind UV photodetector pixel arrays

Outcomes and prognoses of patients with ovarian cancer using bevacizumab: 6-year experience in a tertiary care hospital of northern Taiwan

<div><p>Purpose</p><p>Bevacizumab (BEV) has been used for ovarian cancer (OC) for years in Taiwan, but the associated data related to outcome is scant. This retrospective study reviewed patients with OC treated with BEV and analyzed their results.</p><p>Patients and methods</p><p>All patients with OC treated with BEV from 2009 to 2015 in the Linkou branch of Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Northern Taiwan were included. According to the means of administration, the patients were classified into 6 groups as follows: A—BEV plus chemotherapy (C/T) for initial platinum-resistant (PR) recurrent OC, B—BEV plus C/T for initial platinum-sensitive (PS) recurrent OC, C—BEV alone for recurrent OC, D—BEV plus 1^st adjuvant C/T, E—BEV plus neoadjuvant C/T, and F—intraperitoneal (IP) BEV. Progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS), hazard ratios (HRs), overall response rate (ORR), and mean number of BEV cycles were analyzed for groups A to E. Clinical improvement of ascites was assessed for group F.</p><p>Results</p><p>A comparison of early use (only one round of prior C/T) versus late use (multiple rounds of prior C/T) in patients of groups A and B showed a superior PFS (8.27 vs. 3.67, p = 0.037) in the early use group. No significant differences were found between groups A and B (PFS: 4.24 vs. 4.17 months, p = 0.690; OS: 10.06 vs. 9.93 months, p = 0.819; mean BEV cycles: 4.63 vs. 5.0 p = 0.992; ORR: 48.1% vs. 53.5%, p = 0.425). Comparing the response and non-response subgroups of patients in groups A and B, a better outcome was associated with endometrioid type cell (HR = 0.28, p = 0.008), good ECOG performance status (HR = 0.51, p = 0.005), and lack of ascites (HR = 0.67, p = 0.004). Comparing group C with groups A plus B, the BEV alone group had a poorer PFS (1.02 VS. 4.19, p = 0.04) and OS (1.42 VS. 9.99 p = 0.001) than the BEV plus C/T group. In group F, a good clinical benefit rate (85.6%) of ascites improvement was noted. Two patients had grade 5 gastrointestinal bleeding and venous/arterial thromboembolic events after administration of BEV. Grade 3 neutropenia and thrombocytopenia occurred more frequently in our study.</p><p>Conclusion</p><p>Early use of BEV combined with chemotherapy had a significant benefit in PFS for patients with recurrent OC. BEV plus chemotherapy was better than BEV alone for recurrent OC. In addition, IP BEV was helpful for improving clinical ascites.</p></div

Summary of clinical performance of methylation biomarker, HPV and CA-IX.

<p>Abbreviations: HPV, human papilloma virus; CA-IX, carbonic anhydrase-IX.</p><p>^aThe studies is only using significant cervical lesion, reflects the presence of CIN2, CIN3, AIS or invasive carcinoma.</p><p>*Int. J. Cancer: 125, 2434–2440 (2009)</p><p>**British Journal of Cancer 104, 353–360 (2011)</p><p>Summary of clinical performance of methylation biomarker, HPV and CA-IX.</p

Realization of Functional Complete Stateful Boolean Logic in Memristive Crossbar

Nonvolatile stateful logic computing in memristors is a promising paradigm with which to realize the unity of information storage and processing in the same physical location that has shown great feasibility for breaking the von Neumann bottleneck in traditional computing architecture. How to reduce the computational complexity of memristor-based logic functions is a matter of concern. Here, based on a general logic expression, we proposed a method to implement the arbitrary logic of complete 16 Boolean logic in two steps with one memristor in the crossbar architecture. A representative functional complete NAND logic is successfully experimentally demonstrated in the filamentary Ag–AgGeTe–Ta memristors to prove the validity of our method. We believe our work may promote the development of the revolutionary logic in memory architectures

Clinical performance of methylation biomarker and HPV to detect CIN3⁺ /CIS and complex hyperplasia of endometrium in AGC.

<p>Abbreviations: AGC, atypical glandular cell; CIN3, cervical intraepithelial neoplasia type 3. The case number of AGC is 55, and the case number of CIN3+ is 7.</p><p>¹Methylation-Index (M-Index): the value cut off for precancer/cancer patient (cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 3 and worse, CIN3+) or not (CIN2-, including normal specimens, and CIN1 and CIN2 specimens).</p><p>²The area under the ROC curve (AUC) with 95% confidence interval (CI) of each gene was calculated for the diagnosis of CIN3+ compare with control (CIN2-).</p><p>Clinical performance of methylation biomarker and HPV to detect CIN3⁺ /CIS and complex hyperplasia of endometrium in AGC.</p

Bevacizumab dosage analysis and combined chemotherapy regimens in group A and B.

<p>PFS, progression-free survival; OS, overall survival; CI, confidence interval.</p

Study flowchart: All women were invited to participate in diagnosis of AGC with a methylation biomarker study.

<p>Physician-directed sampling was performed with a cytobrush (CooperSurgical, Inc.). Patients with Pap smear of AGC underwent colposcopy and cervical biopsy, endometrial sampling, or conization in accordance with treatment guidelines. CIN III/CIS and complex hyperplasia of the endometrium were taken as cutoff criteria for QMS-PCR of seven genes. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to select the optimal cutoff value for the methylation level of each gene. Methylation levels that were higher than the threshold were classified as “high methylation”, whereas those that were lower than the threshold were recorded as “low methylation”.</p