Fractal Characteristics of May-Grünwald-Giemsa Stained Chromatin Are Independent Prognostic Factors for Survival in Multiple Myeloma

The use of computerized image analysis for the study of nuclear texture features has provided important prognostic information for several neoplasias. Recently fractal characteristics of the chromatin structure in routinely stained smears have shown to be independent prognostic factors in acute leukemia. In the present study we investigated the influence of the fractal dimension (FD) of chromatin on survival of patients with multiple myeloma.We analyzed 67 newly diagnosed patients from our Institution treated in the Brazilian Multiple Myeloma Study Group. Diagnostic work-up consisted of peripheral blood counts, bone marrow cytology, bone radiograms, serum biochemistry and cytogenetics. The International Staging System (ISS) was used. In every patient, at least 40 digital nuclear images from diagnostic May-Grünwald-Giemsa stained bone marrow smears were acquired and transformed into pseudo-3D images. FD was determined by the Minkowski-Bouligand method extended to three dimensions. Goodness-of-fit of FD was estimated by the R(2) values in the log-log plots. The influence of diagnostic features on overall survival was analyzed in Cox regressions. Patients that underwent autologous bone marrow transplantation were censored at the day of transplantation.Median age was 56 years. According to ISS, 14% of the patients were stage I, 39% were stage II and 47% were stage III. Additional features of a bad prognosis were observed in 46% of the cases. When stratifying for ISS, both FD and its goodness-of-fit were significant prognostic factors in univariate analyses. Patients with higher FD values or lower goodness-of-fit showed a worse outcome. In the multivariate Cox-regression, FD, R(2), and ISS stage entered the final model, which showed to be stable in a bootstrap resampling study.Fractal characteristics of the chromatin texture in routine cytological preparations revealed relevant prognostic information in patients with multiple myeloma

Rhizobial Inoculation, Alone or Coinoculated with Azospirillum brasilense, Promotes Growth of Wetland Rice

ABSTRACT Rhizobia and associative bacteria promote growth in rice plants (Oryza sativa L.) through a series of mechanisms, but most studies on inoculation have been performed based on inoculation with these bacteria in a separate or singular manner. The objective of this study was to assess the efficiency of single/isolated inoculation and inoculation combined with symbiotic rhizobia from forage legume and with Azospirillum brasilense on promoting growth and the root colonization process in wetland rice. Two rhizobia among four isolates from a greenhouse and a laboratory experiment were selected that efficiently promoted seed germination and rice plant growth in a sterilized substrate and in soil. The two most efficient isolates (UFRGS Vp16 and UFRGS Lc348) were inoculated alone or in combination with a commercial product containing A. brasilense in two field experiments using two wetland rice cultivars over two growing seasons. In the field experiments, these isolates coinoculated with A. brasilense promoted larger increases in the agronomic variables of wetland rice compared to the control without inoculation. Confocal laser microscopy confirmed the presence of inoculated bacteria tagged with gfp (UFRGS Vp16, UFRGS Lc348, and A. brasilense) colonizing the root surface of the rice seedlings, mainly in the root hairs and lateral roots

Is the international staging system superior to the Durie-Salmon staging system? A comparison in multiple myeloma patients undergoing autologous transplant

The international staging system (ISS) for multiple myeloma (MM) is a validated alternative to the Durie–Salmon staging system (DSS) for predicting survival at diagnosis. We compared these staging systems for predicting outcomes after upfront autologous stem cell transplantation by analyzing the outcomes of 729 patients between 1995 and 2002. With a median follow-up of 56 months, the univariate probabilities (95% CI) of non-relapse mortality (NRM), relapse, progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) at 5 years were 7, 68, 25 and 52%, respectively. The median OS for stages I, II, III by DSS and ISS were 82, 68, 50 and 64, 68, 45 months, respectively. The concordance between the two staging systems was only 36%. Staging systems were formally compared using Cox models fit with DSS and ISS stages. The relative risks of PFS and OS were significantly different for stages I vs II and II vs III for DSS, but only for stages II vs III for ISS. Although both systems were predictive of PFS and OS, the DSS was superior in formal statistical comparison using Brier score. However, neither system was strongly predictive of outcomes, indicating the need for newer schemes incorporating other prognostic markers.P. N. Hari, M-J Zhang, V. Roy, W. S. Pérez, A. Bashey, L. B. To, G. Elfenbein, C. O. Freytes, R. P. Gale, J. Gibson, R. A. Kyle, H. M. Lazarus, P. L. McCarthy, G. A. Milone, S. Pavlovsky, D. E. Reece, G. Schiller, J. Vela-Ojeda, D. Weisdorf and D. Vesol