Rate of Clinical Complete Response for 1 Year or More in Bone-Metastatic Breast Cancer after Comprehensive Treatments including Autologous Formalin-Fixed Tumor Vaccine

Introduction. No effective treatment has been developed for bone-metastatic breast cancer. We found 3 cases with clinical complete response (cCR) of the bone metastasis and longer overall survival of the retrospectively examined cohort treated comprehensively including autologous formalin-fixed tumor vaccine (AFTV). Patients and Methods. AFTV was prepared individually for each patient from their own formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded breast cancer tissues. Results. Three patients maintained cCR status of the bone metastasis for 17 months or more. Rate of cCR for 1 year or more appeared to be 15% (3/20) after comprehensive treatments including AFTV. The median overall survival time (60.0 months) and the 3- to 8-year survival rates after diagnosis of bone metastasis were greater than those of historical control cohorts in Japan (1988–2002) and in the nationwide population-based cohort study of Denmark (1999–2007). Conclusion. Bone-metastatic breast cancer may be curable after comprehensive treatments including AFTV, although larger scale clinical trial is required

Can we diagnose sarcopenia using anterior femoral muscle thickness in patients with cardiovascular disease?

Objective: Making the diagnosis of sarcopenia is not always easy and this is especially true for those with cardiovascular disease. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether it is possible to diagnose sarcopenia by using ultrasound-guided measurements of anterior femoral muscle thickness. Methods: We investigated the utility of ultrasound-guided measurements of anterior femoral muscle thickness in 1075 hospitalized patients with cardiovascular disease (675 men). As a comparison, sarcopenia was assessed by skeletal muscle mass index using bioelectrical impedance analysis and the Asia Working Group for Sarcopenia criteria. Results: When the receiver operating characteristic curve using muscle thickness was examined, we found this could be used to make the diagnosis of sarcopenia (men: cutoff value 2.425 cm, area under the curve 0.796; women: cutoff value 1.995 cm, area under the curve 0.746). The prevalence of sarcopenia according to the criteria with skeletal muscle mass index was 34.2% in men and 51.8% in women, while its prevalence according to the cutoff value of muscle thickness was 29.2% in men and 36.7% in women. Conclusion: Ultrasound-guided measurement of the anterior femoral muscle thickness is a simple and useful method to help make the diagnosis of sarcopenia in patients with cardiovascular disease

Development of the japanese virtual observatory (jvo) prototype,” in Optimizing Scientific Return for Astronomy through Information Technologies

ABSTRACT The Japanese Virtual Observatory (JVO) project has been conducted by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). JVO aims at providing easy access to federated astronomical databases (especially SUBARU, Nobeyama and ALMA) and data analysis environment using the Grid technology. We defined JVOQL (JVO Query Language) for efficient retrieval of astronomical data from a federated database. We then constructed the first version of the JVO prototype in order to study technical feasibility including functionality of JVOQL, remote operations using Globus toolkit. The prototype consists of several components as follows: JVO portal to accept users' requests described in JVOQL, JVO Controller to parse them into individual query requests, and distributed database servers containing Suprime-Cam data of the Subaru telescope and 2MASS data. We confirmed that this prototype actually worked to access to a federated database. We construct the second version of the JVO prototype system to improve usability, which includes new user interfaces, efficient remote operations, and introduction of analysis tools. In the course of this, Grid service and XML database is employed. In this presentation we describe its design and structure of the new JVO prototype system

Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems XV Development of Japanese Virtual Observatory (JVO) : Experience on Interoperation with other Virtual Observatories and its Future Plan

Abstract. Virtual Observatries (VOs) are emerging research environment for astronomy, and 16 countries and regions have funded to develop their VOs based on international standard protocols for interoperability. National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) started its VO project (Japanese Virtual Observatory -JVO) in 2002, and developed its prototypes. We have succeeded to interoperate the latest JVO prototype system with VOs in the USA and Europe since December 2004. Some observed data by the Subaru telescope, ASCA satellite operated by the JAXA/ISAS, etc. are connected to the prototype. Successful interoperation of the JVO prototype with other VOs means that astronomers in the world will be able to utilize top-level data obtained by these telescopes from anywhere in the world at anytime. System design of the JVO system, experiences during our development including problems of current standard protocols defined in the IVOA, and proposals to resolve these problems in the near future are described. 2 Ohishi et al