Long-term chorioretinal changes after photodynamic therapy for chronic central serous chorioretinopathy

PURPOSE: To evaluate morphological and functional chorioretinal changes 5 years after standard photodynamic therapy (PDT) for chronic central serous chorioretinopathy (CSC). METHODS: A retrospective, nonrandomized study, including patients with chronic CSC treated with standard PDT and followed for at least 60 months. All patients underwent a complete ophthalmological examination, and the location and number of treatments were registered. Five or more years after treatment, subfoveal and non-subfoveal treated areas were evaluated with Spectralis optical coherence tomography and microperimetry. RESULTS: Seventeen eyes of 15 patients were included, with mean age of 48.3 ± 8.4 years and a mean follow-up of 80.6 ± 12.4 months (range from 62 to 104 months). All eyes had neurosensory detachment (NSD) at baseline. Treatment was performed under the fovea in 58.8 % and in a non-foveal area in 41.2 % of the eyes. At the final visit all eyes had resolution of the NSD, with a statistical significant reduction in central macular thickness (p = 0.005) and preserved neuroretinal thickness (p = 0.839). There was a statistical difference between initial and final BCVA (p < 0.001) and a mean gain of 8.4 ± 7.8 letters. Subfoveal morphological changes in external limiting membrane (ELM) and in photoreceptor inner and outer segment junction (IS/OS) were correlated with final BCVA (p = 0.015 and p = 0.014 respectively), but not with the variation of BCVA. There was a statistical correlation between morphological changes in IS/OS line and retinal sensitivity in the central 12° and 2° (p = 0.003 and p = 0.002 respectively). The morphological changes in the subfoveal layers were not dependent on treatment location (p = 0.154, p = 0.644, and p = 1.0 for ELM, IS/OS line, and retinal pigment epithelium respectively). Subfoveal final mean choroidal thickness was 295.1 ± 68.7 μm, and showed no statistical difference from the normal population (p = 0.633). CONCLUSIONS: Morphological and functional chorioretinal changes, observed 5 or more years after standard PDT for chronic CSC, were not correlated with the location of treatment, neither with the progression of visual acuity or with the location of treatment, and are more likely to be related to the disease itself than with the treatment provided.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

DMSO removal reduces stem-cell infusion-related toxicity and allows excellent engraftment of cryopreserved unrelated cord blood and autologous stem cells

UNIFESP, GRAACC, Pediat Oncol Inst, São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, BrazilUNIFESP, GRAACC, Pediat Oncol Inst, São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, BrazilWeb of Scienc

Asymmetric Dispersal and Colonization Success of Amazonian Plant-Ants Queens

The dispersal ability of queens is central to understanding ant life-history evolution, and plays a fundamental role in ant population and community dynamics, the maintenance of genetic diversity, and the spread of invasive ants. In tropical ecosystems, species from over 40 genera of ants establish colonies in the stems, hollow thorns, or leaf pouches of specialized plants. However, little is known about the relative dispersal ability of queens competing for access to the same host plants. We used empirical data and inverse modeling—a technique developed by plant ecologists to model seed dispersal—to quantify and compare the dispersal kernels of queens from three Amazonian ant species that compete for access to host-plants. We found that the modal colonization distance of queens varied 8-fold, with the generalist ant species (Crematogaster laevis) having a greater modal distance than two specialists (Pheidole minutula, Azteca sp.) that use the same host-plants. However, our results also suggest that queens of Azteca sp. have maximal distances that are four-sixteen times greater than those of its competitors. We found large differences between ant species in both the modal and maximal distance ant queens disperse to find vacant seedlings used to found new colonies. These differences could result from interspecific differences in queen body size, and hence wing musculature, or because queens differ in their ability to identify potential host plants while in flight. Our results provide support for one of the necessary conditions underlying several of the hypothesized mechanisms promoting coexistence in tropical plant-ants. They also suggest that for some ant species limited dispersal capability could pose a significant barrier to the rescue of populations in isolated forest fragments. Finally, we demonstrate that inverse models parameterized with field data are an excellent means of quantifying the dispersal of ant queens

Large volume leukapheresis for autologous peripheral blood stem cell collection in children weighting less than 25 kg

Universidade Federal de São Paulo, GRAACC, Pediat Oncol Inst, São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Pathol, São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, GRAACC, Pediat Oncol Inst, São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Pathol, São Paulo, BrazilWeb of Scienc

Novel Machado-Joseph disease-modifying genes and pathways identified by whole-exome sequencing

Machado-Joseph disease (MJD/SCA3) is a neurodegenerative polyglutamine disorder exhibiting a wide spectrum of phenotypes. The abnormal size of the (CAG)n at ATXN3 explains ~55% of the age at onset variance, suggesting the involvement of other factors, namely genetic modifiers, whose identification remains limited. Our aim was to find novel genetic modifiers, analyse their epistatic effects and identify disease-modifying pathways contributing to MJD variable expressivity. We performed whole-exome sequencing in a discovery sample of four age at onset-concordant and four discordant first-degree relative pairs of Azorean patients, to identify candidate variants which genotypes differed for each discordant pair but were shared in each concordant pair. Variants identified by this approach were then tested in an independent multi-origin cohort of 282 MJD patients. Whole-exome sequencing identified 233 candidate variants, from which 82 variants in 53 genes were prioritized for downstream analysis. Eighteen disease-modifying pathways were identified; two of the most enriched pathways were relevant for the nervous system, namely the neuregulin signaling and the agrin interactions at neuromuscular junction. Variants at PARD3, NFKB1, CHD5, ACTG1, CFAP57, DLGAP2, ITGB1, DIDO1 and CERS4 modulate age at onset in MJD, with those identified in CFAP57, ACTG1 and DIDO1 showing consistent effects across cohorts of different geographical origins. Network analyses of the nine novel MJD modifiers highlighted several important molecular interactions, including genes/proteins previously related with MJD pathogenesis, namely between ACTG1/APOE and VCP/ITGB1. We describe novel pathways, modifiers, and their interaction partners, providing a broad molecular portrait of age at onset modulation to be further exploited as new disease-modifying targets for MJD and related diseases

AGUIA: autonomous graphical user interface assembly for clinical trials semantic data services

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>AGUIA is a front-end web application originally developed to manage clinical, demographic and biomolecular patient data collected during clinical trials at MD Anderson Cancer Center. The diversity of methods involved in patient screening and sample processing generates a variety of data types that require a resource-oriented architecture to capture the associations between the heterogeneous data elements. AGUIA uses a semantic web formalism, resource description framework (RDF), and a bottom-up design of knowledge bases that employ the S3DB tool as the starting point for the client's interface assembly.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The data web service, S3DB, meets the necessary requirements of generating the RDF and of explicitly distinguishing the description of the domain from its instantiation, while allowing for continuous editing of both. Furthermore, it uses an HTTP-REST protocol, has a SPARQL endpoint, and has open source availability in the public domain, which facilitates the development and dissemination of this application. However, S3DB alone does not address the issue of representing content in a form that makes sense for domain experts.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We identified an autonomous set of descriptors, the GBox, that provides user and domain specifications for the graphical user interface. This was achieved by identifying a formalism that makes use of an RDF schema to enable the automatic assembly of graphical user interfaces in a meaningful manner while using only resources native to the client web browser (JavaScript interpreter, document object model). We defined a generalized RDF model such that changes in the graphic descriptors are automatically and immediately (locally) reflected into the configuration of the client's interface application.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The design patterns identified for the GBox benefit from and reflect the specific requirements of interacting with data generated by clinical trials, and they contain clues for a general purpose solution to the challenge of having interfaces automatically assembled for multiple and volatile views of a domain. By coding AGUIA in JavaScript, for which all browsers include a native interpreter, a solution was found that assembles interfaces that are meaningful to the particular user, and which are also ubiquitous and lightweight, allowing the computational load to be carried by the client's machine.</p

Dynamics of the Leaf-Litter Arthropod Fauna Following Fire in a Neotropical Woodland Savanna

Fire is an important agent of disturbance in tropical savannas, but relatively few studies have analyzed how soil-and-litter dwelling arthropods respond to fire disturbance despite the critical role these organisms play in nutrient cycling and other biogeochemical processes. Following the incursion of a fire into a woodland savanna ecological reserve in Central Brazil, we monitored the dynamics of litter-arthropod populations for nearly two years in one burned and one unburned area of the reserve. We also performed a reciprocal transplant experiment to determine the effects of fire and litter type on the dynamics of litter colonization by arthropods. Overall arthropod abundance, the abundance of individual taxa, the richness of taxonomic groups, and the species richness of individual taxa (Formiciade) were lower in the burned site. However, both the ordinal-level composition of the litter arthropod fauna and the species-level composition of the litter ant fauna were not dramatically different in the burned and unburned sites. There is evidence that seasonality of rainfall interacts with fire, as differences in arthropod abundance and diversity were more pronounced in the dry than in the wet season. For many taxa the differences in abundance between burned and unburned sites were maintained even when controlling for litter availability and quality. In contrast, differences in abundance for Collembola, Formicidae, and Thysanoptera were only detected in the unmanipulated samples, which had a lower amount of litter in the burned than in the unburned site throughout most of our study period. Together these results suggest that arthropod density declines in fire-disturbed areas as a result of direct mortality, diminished resources (i.e., reduced litter cover) and less favorable microclimate (i.e., increased litter desiccation due to reduction in tree cover). Although these effects were transitory, there is evidence that the increasingly prevalent fire return interval of only 1–2 years may jeopardize the long-term conservation of litter arthropod communities

Intimate partner violence against women in an economically vulnerable urban area, Central-West Brazil

OBJETIVO: Estimar a prevalência de tipos de violência e de comportamentos de controle praticados por parceiros íntimos contra mulheres residentes em área economicamente vulnerável. MÉTODOS: Conduziu-se estudo transversal com 278 mulheres de 15 a 49 anos que tiveram parceiros íntimos alguma vez na vida, residentes em uma área metropolitana de Brasília, DF, em 2007. Utilizou-se processo de amostragem aleatória sistemática. O instrumento de pesquisa constou de um questionário com 58 perguntas desenvolvido pela Organização Mundial de Saúde. Foram analisadas as prevalências de violência física, psicológica e sexual. As variáveis independentes consideradas foram características sociodemográficas da mulher, de contexto familiar e comunitário bem como as sociodemográfi cas do parceiro, de comportamento (freqüência do uso de bebidas ou drogas ilícitas e relacionamento extraconjugal). RESULTADOS: A prevalência de violência psicológica foi a mais alta: 80,2% (n=223) das mulheres entrevistadas relataram pelo menos um ato no decorrer da vida e 50% (n=139) nos últimos 12 meses. A prevalência de violência física ao longo da vida foi (58,6%) e nos últimos 12 meses (32%), enquanto a prevalência de mulheres que sofreram violência sexual foi de 28,8% e 15,5%, respectivamente. CONCLUSÕES: As altas prevalências das violências mostram a magnitude da vulnerabilidade e das agressões praticadas contra mulheres nas relações com parceiros íntimos.OBJECTIVE: To estimate the prevalence of gender-based controlling behavior and types of violence committed by intimate partners against women living in an economically vulnerable area. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was performed with 278 women aged between 15 and 49 years, who had had at least one male intimate partner in their lives and lived in a metropolitan area of the city of Brasília, Central-West Brazil, in 2007. Systematic random sampling process was used. The research instrument consisted of a questionnaire with 58 questions, developed by the World Health Organization. Prevalences of physical, psychological and sexual violence were analyzed. Independent variables considered were women’s sociodemographic, family and community context characteristics, in addition to their partners’ sociodemographic and behavior characteristics (frequency of alcohol or illicit drug use and extra-marital relationship). RESULTS: The highest prevalence was that of psychological violence: 80.2% (n=223) of the women interviewed reported at least one act throughout their lives and 50% (n=139) in the last 12 months. Prevalence of physical violence was 58.6% throughout life and 32% in the last 12 months, whereas those of sexual violence were 28.8% and 15.5%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: High prevalences of violence show the magnitude of vulnerability and aggressions committed against women in relationships with intimate partners