Skin measurement devices to assess skin quality: A systematic review on reliability and validity

Background: Many treatments aim to slow down or reverse the visible signs of skin aging and thereby improve skin quality. Measurement devices are frequently employed to measure the effects of these treatments to improve skin quality, for example, skin elasticity, color, and texture. However, it remains unknown which of these devices is most reliable and valid. Materials and methods: MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane Central, Web of Science, and Google Scholar databases were searched. Instruments were scored on reporting construct validity by means of convergent validity, interobserver, intraobserver, and interinstrument reliability. Results: For the evaluation of skin color, 11 studies were included describing 16 measurement devices, analyzing 3172 subjects. The most reliable device for skin color assessment is the Minolta Chromameter CR-300 due to good interobserver, intraobserver, and interinstrument reliability. For skin elasticity, seven studies assessed nine types of devices analyzing 290 subjects in total. No intra and interobserver reliability was reported. Skin texture was assessed in two studies evaluating 72 subjects using three different types of measurement devices. The PRIMOS device reported excellent intra and interobserver reliability. None of the included reviewed devices could be determined to be valid based on construct validity. Conclusion: The most reliable devices to evaluate skin color and texture in ordinary skin were, respectively, the Minolta Chromameter and PRIMOS. No reliable device is available to measure skin elasticity in ordinary skin and none of the included devices could be determined to be designated as valid

The impact of loco-regional recurrences on metastatic progression in early-stage breast cancer: a multistate model

To study whether the effects of prognostic factors associated with the occurrence of distant metastases (DM) at primary diagnosis change after the incidence of loco-regional recurrences (LRR) among women treated for invasive stage I or II breast cancer. The study population consisted of 3,601 women, enrolled in EORTC trials 10801, 10854, or 10902 treated for early-stage breast cancer. Data were analysed in a multivariate, multistate model by using multivariate Cox regression models, including a state-dependent covariate. The presence of a LRR in itself is a significant prognostic risk factor (HR: 3.64; 95%-CI: 2.02-6.5) for the occurrence of DM. Main prognostic risk factors for a DM are young age at diagnosis (</=40: HR: 1.79; 95%-CI: 1.28-2.51), larger tumour size (HR: 1.58; 95%-CI: 1.35-1.84) and node positivity (HR: 2.00; 95%-CI: 1.74-2.30). Adjuvant chemotherapy is protective for a DM (HR: 0.66; 95%-CI: 0.55-0.80). After the occurrence of a LRR the latter protective effect has disappeared (P = 0.009). The presence of LRR in itself is a significant risk factor for DM. For patients who are at risk of developing LRR, effective local control should be the main target of therapy

Discovering duplicate tasks in transition systems for the simplification of process models

This work presents a set of methods to improve the understandability of process models. Traditionally, simplification methods trade off quality metrics, such as fitness or precision. Conversely, the methods proposed in this paper produce simplified models while preserving or even increasing fidelity metrics. The first problem addressed in the paper is the discovery of duplicate tasks. A new method is proposed that avoids overfitting by working on the transition system generated by the log. The method is able to discover duplicate tasks even in the presence of concurrency and choice. The second problem is the structural simplification of the model by identifying optional and repetitive tasks. The tasks are substituted by annotated events that allow the removal of silent tasks and reduce the complexity of the model. An important feature of the methods proposed in this paper is that they are independent from the actual miner used for process discovery.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Synchronisation of egg hatching of brown hairstreak (Thecla betulae) and budburst of blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) in a warmer future

Synchronisation of the phenology of insect herbivores and their larval food plant is essential for the herbivores’ fitness. The monophagous brown hairstreak (Thecla betulae) lays its eggs during summer, hibernates as an egg, and hatches in April or May in the Netherlands. Its main larval food plant blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) flowers in early spring, just before the leaves appear. As soon as the Blackthorn opens its buds, and this varies with spring temperatures, food becomes available for the brown hairstreak. However, the suitability of the leaves as food for the young caterpillars is expected to decrease rapidly. Therefore, the timing of egg hatch is an important factor for larval growth. This study evaluates food availability for brown hairstreak at different temperatures. Egg hatch and budburst were monitored from 2004 to 2008 at different sites in the Netherlands. Results showed ample food availability at all monitored temperatures and sites but the degree of synchrony varied strongly with spring temperatures. To further study the effect of temperature on synchronisation, an experiment using normal temperatures of a reference year (T) and temperatures of T + 5°C was carried out in climate chambers. At T + 5°C, both budburst and egg hatch took place about 20 days earlier and thus, on average, elevated temperature did not affect synchrony. However, the total period of budburst was 11 days longer, whereas the period of egg hatching was 3 days shorter. The implications for larval growth by the brown hairstreak under a warmer climate are considered.

Overdiagnosis and overtreatment of breast cancer: Progression of ductal carcinoma in situ: the pathological perspective

Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is encountered much more frequently in the screening population compared to the symptomatic setting. The behaviour of DCIS is highly variable and this presents difficulties in choosing appropriate treatment strategies for individual cases. This review discusses the current data on the frequency and rate of progression of DCIS, the value and limitations of clinicopathological and biological variables in predicting disease behaviour and suggests strategies to develop more robust means of predicting progression of DCIS

Efficacy of adjuvant chemotherapy according to hormone receptor status in young patients with breast cancer: a pooled analysis

Introduction Breast cancer at a young age is associated with an unfavorable prognosis. Very young patients with breast cancer therefore are advised to undergo adjuvant chemotherapy irrespective of tumor stage or grade. However, chemotherapy alone may not be adequate in young patients with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer. Therefore, we studied the effect of adjuvant chemotherapy in young patients with breast cancer in relation to hormone receptor status. Methods Paraffin-embedded tumor material was collected from 480 early-stage breast cancer patients younger than 41 years who participated in one of four European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer trials. Using immunohistochemistry on the whole series of tumors, we assessed estrogen receptor (ER) status and progesterone receptor (PgR) status in a standardized way. Endpoints in this study were overall survival (OS) and distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS). The median follow-up period was 7.3 years. Results Overall, patients with ER-positive tumors had better OS rates (hazard ratio [HR] 0.63; P = 0.02) compared with those with ER-negative tumors. However, in the subgroup of patients who received chemotherapy, no significant difference in OS (HR 0.87; P = 0.63) and DMFS (HR 1.36; P = 0.23) was found between patients with ER-positive tumors or those with ER-negative tumors. These differences were similar for PgR status. Conclusion Young patients with hormone receptor-positive tumors benefit less from adjuvant systemic chemotherapy than patients with hormone receptor-negative tumors. These results confirm that chemotherapy alone cannot be considered optimal adjuvant systemic treatment in breast cancer patients 40 years old or younger with hormone receptor-positive tumors

Impact of established prognostic factors and molecular subtype in very young breast cancer patients: pooled analysis of four EORTC randomized controlled trials

Young age at the time of diagnosis of breast cancer is an independent factor of poor prognosis. In many treatment guidelines, the recommendation is to treat young patients with adjuvant chemotherapy regardless of tumor characteristics. However, limited data on prognostic factors are available for young breast cancer patients. The purpose of this study was to determine the prognostic value of established clinical and pathological prognostic factors in young breast cancer patients. Data from four European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) clinical trials were pooled, resulting in a dataset consisting of 9,938 early breast cancer patients with a median follow-up of 11 years. For 549 patients aged less than 40 years at the time of diagnosis, including 341 node negative patients who did not receive chemotherapy, paraffin tumor blocks were processed for immunohistochemistry using a tissue microarray. Cox proportional hazard analysis was applied to assess the association of clinical and pathological factors with overall and distant metastasis free survival. For young patients, tumor size (P = 0.01), nodal status (P = 0.006) and molecular subtype (P = 0.02) were independent prognostic factors for overall survival. In the node negative subgroup, only molecular subtype was a prognostic factor for overall survival (P = 0.02). Young node negative patients bearing luminal A tumors had an overall survival rate of 94% at 10 years' follow-up compared to 72% for patients with basal-type tumors. Molecular subtype is a strong independent prognostic factor in breast cancer patients younger than 40 years of age. These data support the use of established prognostic factors as a diagnostic tool to assess disease outcome and to plan systemic treatment strategies in young breast cancer patient

eFORGE v2.0: updated analysis of cell type-specific signal in epigenomic data

SUMMARY: The Illumina Infinium EPIC BeadChip is a new high-throughput array for DNA methylation analysis, extending the earlier 450k array by over 400,000 new sites. Previously, a method named eFORGE was developed to provide insights into cell type-specific and cell composition effects for 450k data. Here, we present a significantly updated and improved version of eFORGE that can analyse both EPIC and 450k array data. New features include analysis of chromatin states, TF motifs and DNase I footprints, providing tools for EWAS interpretation and epigenome editing. AVAILABILITY: eFORGE v2.0 is implemented as a web tool available from https://eforge.altiusinstitute.org and https://eforge-tf.altiusinstitute.org/. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online

Ranked Adjusted Rand: integrating distance and partition information in a measure of clustering agreement

BACKGROUND: Biological information is commonly used to cluster or classify entities of interest such as genes, conditions, species or samples. However, different sources of data can be used to classify the same set of entities and methods allowing the comparison of the performance of two data sources or the determination of how well a given classification agrees with another are frequently needed, especially in the absence of a universally accepted "gold standard" classification. RESULTS: Here, we describe a novel measure – the Ranked Adjusted Rand (RAR) index. RAR differs from existing methods by evaluating the extent of agreement between any two groupings, taking into account the intercluster distances. This characteristic is relevant to evaluate cases of pairs of entities grouped in the same cluster by one method and separated by another. The latter method may assign them to close neighbour clusters or, on the contrary, to clusters that are far apart from each other. RAR is applicable even when intercluster distance information is absent for both or one of the groupings. In the first case, RAR is equal to its predecessor, Adjusted Rand (HA) index. Artificially designed clusterings were used to demonstrate situations in which only RAR was able to detect differences in the grouping patterns. A study with larger simulated clusterings ensured that in realistic conditions, RAR is effectively integrating distance and partition information. The new method was applied to biological examples to compare 1) two microbial typing methods, 2) two gene regulatory network distances and 3) microarray gene expression data with pathway information. In the first application, one of the methods does not provide intercluster distances while the other originated a hierarchical clustering. RAR proved to be more sensitive than HA in the choice of a threshold for defining clusters in the hierarchical method that maximizes agreement between the results of both methods. CONCLUSION: RAR has its major advantage in combining cluster distance and partition information, while the previously available methods used only the latter. RAR should be used in the research problems were HA was previously used, because in the absence of inter cluster distance effects it is an equally effective measure, and in the presence of distance effects it is a more complete one