Aspects of Immediate and Delayed Alloplastic Breast Reconstruction After Mastectomy

Seventy percent of patients with early breast cancer can be treated by breast-conserving surgery, while the remaining 30% are forced to receive mastectomy. Nearly 30% of these patients choose breast reconstruction. In the last decade, new alternative techniques and improved surgical devices have significantly improved techniques for breast reconstruction that especially include immediate or delayed breast reconstruction with silicone implants as an excellent option. In general, implant reconstruction may be single- or two-stage procedures. Single-stage reconstruction is the preferred technique for patients with small breasts and minimal ptosis, while large breasts with ptosis require reduction mastopexy either combined with dermoglandular flap or with titane net for covering the caudal pole of the implant. Thus, excellent cosmetic results can be achieved. Recent studies showed a significant survival benefit for postmastectomy irradiation in nodal-positive patients, so that many candidates for breast reconstruction are irradiated with a higher probability of wound-healing complications after breast reconstruction and increased rates of other complications like capsular fibrosis

Breast Imaging and Translation into Targeted Oncoplastic Breast Surgery

Preoperative staging of breast cancer based on breast imaging is mandatory. Breast imaging encompasses mammography, breast sonography and MR-mammography. Earlier diagnosis of breast cancer results in a favourable oncological outcome. Limitations and influences on operative procedures of MR-mammography in diagnosis and staging of breast cancer have to be discussed. Different interventional procedures have been developed. The histological results of interventional procedures guided by ultrasound, stereotactic mammography or magnetic resonance have to be integrated in planning surgical resection margins in oncoplastic breast-conserving surgery. Image-guided wire markings are an important tool for planning these surgical resection margins. This chapter summarises the results of breast imaging, interventional procedures and wire markings for the breast-conserving therapy of breast cancer. Breast imaging and interventional procedures are the basis for a concept of targeted oncoplastic breast surgery

Online monitoring of semi-continuous emulsion copolymerization: Comparing constrained extended Kalman filtering to feed-forward calorimetry

Semi-continuous emulsion copolymerization (SCEP) is one of the major processes for the production of polymer latexes. For tailor-made copolymers, SCEP is employed because better control of polymer quality is possible compared to batch operation. To efficiently produce high quality polymers, recipe optimization and good feedback process control is required. For optimization or control purposes it is necessary to measure important product qualities such as the composition of the copolymer or the average chain length of the macromolecules. Measurements of these properties for this multi-phase process are expensive and usually not available online. State estimation and reaction calorimetry are possibilities to overcome this problem. Starting from a complex model for the considered process we develop a simplified model which enables us to estimate the concentrations of the monomers in the particle phase

Phase I trial of metastatic renal cell carcinoma with oral capecitabine and thalidomide

Background: The highly vascular nature of renal carcinoma cells suggests that inhibition of angiogenesis may be beneficial in this disease. Thalidomide has been described as inhibitor of the fibroblast growth factor (FGF) and the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Therefore and in consideration of the promising response rates of the combination of IL-2, IFN-alpha and 5-FU [1] in metastatic renal cancer, we found it reasonable to test the combination of 5-FU and thalidomide. Thus, we conducted a phase I trial to determine safety, side effects and responses to such a treatment

Simultaneous quantification of steroid hormones and endocannabinoids (ECs) in human hair using an automated supported liquid extraction (SLE) and LC-MS/MS – Insights into EC baseline values and correlation to steroid concentrations

Endogenous steroid hormones and endocannabinoids (ECs) are important regulators in the stress response of the human body. For the measurement of chronic stress, hair analysis has been established as method of choice for long-term and retrospective determination of endogenous stress markers. A sensitive liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method for the quantification of five steroid hormones (cortisone, cortisol, androstenedione, testosterone, progesterone) and four endocannabinoids (anandamide, palmitoylethanolamide, 2-arachidonylglycerol, oleoylethanolamide) in hair was developed and validated. The hair samples were extracted with methanol and cleaned up with a fully automated supported liquid extraction (SLE) before analysis. Special attention was paid to the difficulties accompanying the quantification of endogenous analytes in hair. Five different strategies for endogenous compound quantification in hair (surrogate analyte, standard addition, background correction, stripped matrix and solvent calibration) were tested and compared. As a result, the approach of the surrogate analyte was used for the quantification of steroid hormones whereas background correction was used for endocannabinoids. The measurement of 58 samples from healthy young adults allowed insights into endocannabinoid ranges in hair and the correlation to steroid hormones. No significant differences in steroid and EC concentration levels of male and female in hair were found, except for testosterone (p < 0.001) and androstenedione (p < 0.0001). Cortisol to cortisone and testosterone to androstenedione concentrations were significantly and positively correlated. There were significant intercorrelations between endocannabinoids

Controlling germanium CMP selectivity through slurry mediation by surface active agents

Due to copyright restrictions, the access to the full text of this article is only available via subscription.New developments and device performance requirements in microelectronics industry add to the challenges in chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) process. One of the recently introduced materials to semiconductor manufacturing is germanium which enables improved device performance through better channel mobility in shallow trench isolation (STI) applications for advanced circuits. This paper focuses on controlling germanium/silica selectivity for advanced STI CMP applications through slurry modification by surface active agents. Surface adsorption characteristics of cationic and anionic surfactants on germanium and silica wafers are analyzed in order to control selectivity as well as the defectivity performance of the CMP applications. The effects of surfactant charge and concentration (up to self-assembly) are studied in terms of slurry stability, material removal rates and surface defectivity. Surface charge manipulation by the surfactant adsorption on the germanium surface is presented as the main criteria on the selection of the proper surfactant/oxidizer systems for CMP. The outlined correlations are systematically presented to highlight slurry modification criteria for the desired selectivity results. Consequently, the paper evaluates the slurry selectivity control and improvement criteria for the new materials introduced to microelectronics applications with CMP requirement by evaluating the germanium silica system as a model application.European Commissio

Probing the Complex and Variable X-ray Absorption of Markarian 6 with XMM-Newton

We report on an X-ray observation of the Seyfert 1.5 galaxy Mrk 6 obtained with the EPIC instruments onboard XMM-Newton. Archival BeppoSAX PDS data from 18-120 keV were also used to constrain the underlying hard power-law continuum. The results from our spectral analyses generally favor a double partial-covering model, although other spectral models such as absorption by a mixture of partially ionized and neutral gas cannot be firmly ruled out. Our best-fitting model consists of a power law with a photon index of 1.81+/-0.20 and partial covering with large column densities up to 10^{23} cm**-2. We also detect a narrow emission line consistent with Fe Kalpha fluorescence at 6.45+/-0.04 keV with an equivalent width of ~93+/-25 eV. Joint analyses of XMM-Newton, ASCA, and BeppoSAX data further provide evidence for both spectral variability (a factor of ~2 change in absorbing column) and absorption-corrected flux variations (by ~60%) during the ~4 year period probed by the observations.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures. accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journa

Metabolomics-based Sleepiness Markers for Risk Prevention and Traffic Safety (ME-SMART): a monocentric, controlled, randomized, crossover trial

Background: Too little sleep and the consequences thereof are a heavy burden in modern societies. In contrast to alcohol or illicit drug use, there are no quick roadside or workplace tests for objective biomarkers for sleepiness. We hypothesize that changes in physiological functions (such as sleep–wake regulation) are reflected in changes of endogenous metabolism and should therefore be detectable as a change in metabolic profiles. This study will allow for creating a reliable and objective panel of candidate biomarkers being indicative for sleepiness and its behavioral outcomes. Methods: This is a monocentric, controlled, randomized, crossover, clinical study to detect potential biomarkers. Each of the anticipated 24 participants will be allocated in randomized order to each of the three study arms (control, sleep restriction, and sleep deprivation). These only differ in the amount of hours slept per night. In the control condition, participants will adhere to a 16/8 h wake/sleep regime. In both sleep restriction and sleep deprivation conditions, participants will accumulate a total sleep deficit of 8 h, achieved by different wake/sleep regimes that simulate real-life scenarios. The primary outcome is changes in the metabolic profile (i.e., metabolome) in oral fluid. Secondary outcome measures will include driving performance, psychomotor vigilance test, d2 Test of Attention, visual attention test, subjective (situational) sleepiness, electroencephalographic changes, behavioral markers of sleepiness, changes in metabolite concentrations in exhaled breath and finger sweat, and correlation of metabolic changes among biological matrices. Discussion: This is the first trial of its kind that investigates complete metabolic profiles combined with performance monitoring in humans over a multi-day period involving different sleep–wake schedules. Hereby, we aim to establish a candidate biomarker panel being indicative for sleepiness and its behavioral outcomes. To date, there are no robust and easily accessible biomarkers for the detection of sleepiness, even though the vast damage on society is well known. Thus, our findings will be of high value for many related disciplines. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier NCT05585515, released on 18.10.2022; Swiss National Clinical Trial Portal SNCTP000005089, registered on 12 August 2022

On the AAVenue to success: Advances in technologies for AAV production

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