706 research outputs found
The use of x-ray CT and MRI in the study of sacroiliac joints in patients with Behcet disease and acute anterior uveitis
Objective: It's controversial if Behcet Disease (BD) must be included in the group of seronegative spondyloarthropathy (SpA). Our
aim was to establish the prevalence of sacroiliitis (SI) in patients with BD using X-Ray, CT and MRI, in comparison with patients with
Acute Anterior Uveitis (AAU), that is known to belong to the subgroups of SpA.
Methods: We considered, in the period from 04/2006 to 04/2009, 21 consecutive patients with BD, positive for HLA B51 and 28
consecutive patients with AAU, positive for HLA B27. These patients were previously selected by our Rheumatological Ward.
Altogether we evaluated 98 sacroiliac joints (SIJ); each side of any patient was graded separately.
Results: X-ray of the pelvis showed advanced SI (grade 4) in 14% of the cases in patients with AAU; in BD group only 7% CT
showed advanced SI in 14% within AAU patients versus 6-12% of advanced SI (right to left) within BD patients. MR showed 14%
of advanced SI (bilateral) within AAU versus 6-11% of advanced SI (right to left) in BD patients.
Conclusions: This study supports the trend to not consider BD within the SpA, being the prevalence of SI in BD patients not very
different from general population and anyway lower than that observed in patients with AAU. On the other side the prevalence of
SI in AAU patients is higher than in BD patients and very similar to the one observed in patients with seronegative arthritis, and
anyway high enough to consider joint involvement as an important feature of the disease
Clinical predictive factors of pathologic complete response in locally advanced rectal cancer
Background: Predictive factors of pathologic complete response (pCR) after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (nCRT) in locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC) are still not identified. The purpose of this study was to define them.
Materials and Methods: Data from consecutive LARC patients treated between January 2008 and June 2014 at our Institution were included in the analysis. All patients were treated with a long course of nCRT. Demographics, initial diagnosis and tumor extension details, as well as treatment modalities characteristics were included in the univariate and logistic regression analysis.
Results: In total 99 patients received nCRT, of whom 23 patients (23.2%) achieved pCR. Patients with and without pCR were similar in term of age, sex, comobidities, BMI and tumor characteristics. Multivariate logistic regression indicated that pre-treatment tumor size <= 5 cm was a significant predictor for pCR (p = 0.035), whereas clinical N stage only showed a positive trend (p = 0.084).
Conclusions: Tumor size at diagnosis could be used to predict pCR, and thus to individualize therapy in LARC patients management. Validation in other studies is needed
Pancreas divisum. Correlation between anatomical abnormalities and bile precipitation in the gallbladder in seven patients
Pancreas divisum is a genetic defect associated with recurrent acute pancreatitis due to insufficient drainage of the accessory pancreatic duct. Seven young patients diagnosed with pancreatic divisum and thickening of the gallbladder bile as shown on magnetic resonance cholangio-pancreatography without pancreatic ductal changes underwent laparoscopic cholecystectomy. During the mean follow-up of 32 months no episode of pancreatitis was reported. There is an association between PD and higher concentration of bile in the gallbladder. Cholecystectomy can be considered curative in patients with PD in the absence of indications for major surgery
Deep Dynamic Factor Models
We propose a novel deep neural net framework - that we refer to as Deep
Dynamic Factor Model (D2FM) -, to encode the information available, from
hundreds of macroeconomic and financial time-series into a handful of
unobserved latent states. While similar in spirit to traditional dynamic factor
models (DFMs), differently from those, this new class of models allows for
nonlinearities between factors and observables due to the deep neural net
structure. However, by design, the latent states of the model can still be
interpreted as in a standard factor model. In an empirical application to the
forecast and nowcast of economic conditions in the US, we show the potential of
this framework in dealing with high dimensional, mixed frequencies and
asynchronously published time series data. In a fully real-time out-of-sample
exercise with US data, the D2FM improves over the performances of a
state-of-the-art DFM
Correlation between onco-suppressors PTEN and NM23 and clinical outcome in patients with T1 breast cancer
The aim of the present work was to evaluate the prognostic significance in patients with T1 breast cancer of tissue expression of the two oncosuppressors phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) and non-metastatic clone 23 (NM23) as detected by immunohistochemistry
Periodic Corrections in Secular Milankovitch Theory Applied to Passive Debris Removal
International audienceMost cartographic stability maps advocated for use in the new passive debris removal ideology based on orbital resonances are obtained through crude averaging methods. This means that from an operational perspective, its not clear where in the osculating space one should actually target to place the satellite on a natural disposal trajectory. It is also not obvious what effects the short-periodic terms may have on these re-entry solutions. We will derive the periodic corrections terms for the dominant perturbations affecting Earth satellites and investigate these considerations
JCV-specific T-cells producing IFN-gamma are differently associated with PmL occurrence in HIV patients and liver transplant recipients
Aim of this work was to investigate a possible correlation between the frequency of JCV-specific T-cells and PML occurrence in HIV-infected subjects and in liver transplant recipients. A significant decrease of JCV-specific T-cells was observed in HIV-PML subjects, highlighting a close relation between JCV-specific T-cell immune impairment and PML occurrence in HIV-subjects. Interestingly, liver-transplant recipients (LTR) showed a low frequency of JCV-specific T-cells, similar to HIV-PML subjects. Nevertheless, none of the enrolled LTR developed PML, suggesting the existence of different immunological mechanisms involved in the maintenance of a protective immune response in LT
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