Primary cerebral immunoglobulin light chain amyloidoma in a patient with multiple sclerosis

A man in his 60s, known with multiple sclerosis, presented with seizures and paresis of the left arm and leg. Brain imaging showed a white matter lesion, right parietal, which was progressive over the last 6 years and not typical for multiple sclerosis. Brain biopsy showed a B-cell infiltrate with IgA lambda monotypic plasma cell differentiation and amyloid deposits, typed as lambda immunoglobulin light chain (AL). Bone marrow biopsy and PET/CT ruled out a systemic lymphoma. Extended history taking, blood and urine testing (including cardiac biomarkers) identified no evidence of systemic amyloidosis-induced organ dysfunction.Primary cerebral AL amyloidoma is a very rare entity where optimal treatment is difficult to assess. The patient was treated with locally applied volumetric modulated arc radiotherapy, 24 Gy, divided in 12 fractions. Afterwards, the paresis of the left arm partially resolved, and the function of the left leg improved. Seizures did not occur anymore

A pan-cancer analysis of the microbiome in metastatic cancer

Microbial communities are resident to multiple niches of the human body and are important modulators of the host immune system and responses to anticancer therapies. Recent studies have shown that complex microbial communities are present within primary tumors. To investigate the presence and relevance of the microbiome in metastases, we integrated mapping and assembly-based metagenomics, genomics, transcriptomics, and clinical data of 4,160 metastatic tumor biopsies. We identified organ-specific tropisms of microbes, enrichments of anaerobic bacteria in hypoxic tumors, associations between microbial diversity and tumor-infiltrating neutrophils, and the association of Fusobacterium with resistance to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) in lung cancer. Furthermore, longitudinal tumor sampling revealed temporal evolution of the microbial communities and identified bacteria depleted upon ICB. Together, we generated a pan-cancer resource of the metastatic tumor microbiome that may contribute to advancing treatment strategies.Pattern Recognition and Bioinformatic

Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science

One of the central goals in any scientific endeavor is to understand causality. Experiments that seek to demonstrate a cause/effect relation most often manipulate the postulated causal factor. Aarts et al. describe the replication of 100 experiments reported in papers published in 2008 in three high-ranking psychology journals. Assessing whether the replication and the original experiment yielded the same result according to several criteria, they find that about one-third to one-half of the original findings were also observed in the replication study