IJCEP1108001

Abstract: A diagnosis of lung cancer at its early stages is vital for improving the survival rate of patients. MicroRNAs (miRNAs), a family of 19-to 25-nucleotide non-coding small RNAs, are frequently dysregulated in lung cancer. The objective of this study was to investigate the potential of circulating miRNAs for early detection of lung cancer. We searched the published literature for the miRNA microarray data of primary lung cancer and selected 15 miRNAs that were most frequently up-regulated in lung cancer tissues. Total plasma RNA including miRNAs was isolated, polyadenylated and reverse-transcribed into cDNAs. The levels of miRNAs were determined by real-time RT-PCR in 74 lung cancer patients and 68 age-matched cancer-free controls. We found that the levels of miR-155, miR-197, and miR-182 in the plasma of lung cancer including stage I patients were significantly elevated compared with controls (P<0.001). The combination of these 3 miRNAs yielded 81.33% sensitivity and 86.76% specificity in discriminating lung cancer patients from controls. The levels of miR-155 and miR-197 were higher in the plasma from lung cancer patients with metastasis than in those without metastasis (P<0.05) and were significantly decreased in responsive patients during chemotherapy (P<0.001). These results indicate that miR-155, miR-197, and miR-182 can be potential non-invasive biomarkers for early detection of lung cancer

SPINE20 A global advocacy group promoting evidence-based spine care of value

PURPOSE: The Global Burden of Diseases (GBD) Studies have estimated that low back pain is one of the costliest ailments worldwide. Subsequent to GBD publications, leadership of the four largest global spine societies agreed to form SPINE20. This article introduces the concept of SPINE20, the recommendations, and the future of this global advocacy group linked to G20 annual summits. METHODS: The founders of SPINE20 advocacy group coordinated with G20 Saudi Arabia to conduct the SPINE20 summit in 2020. The summit was intended to promote evidence-based recommendations to use the most reliable information from high-level research. Eight areas of importance to mitigate spine disorders were identified through a voting process of the participating societies. Twelve recommendations were discussed and vetted. RESULTS: The areas of immediate concern were "Aging spine," "Future of spine care," "Spinal cord injuries," "Children and adolescent spine," "Spine-related disability," "Spine Educational Standards," "Patient safety," and "Burden on economy." Twelve recommendations were created and endorsed by 31/33 spine societies and 2 journals globally during a vetted process through the SPINE20.org website and during the virtual inaugural meeting November 10-11, 2020 held from the G20 platform. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first time that international spine societies have joined to support actions to mitigate the burden of spine disorders across the globe. SPINE20 seeks to change awareness and treatment of spine pain by supporting local projects that implement value-based practices with healthcare policies that are culturally sensitive based on scientific evidence

Clinicopathological parameters, recurrence, locoregional and distant metastasis in 115 T1-T2 oral squamous cell carcinoma patients

The incidence of oral squamous cell carcinoma remains high. Oral and oro-pharyngeal carcinomas are the sixth most common cancer in the world. Several clinicopathological parameters have been implicated in prognosis, recurrence and survival, following oral squamous cell carcinoma. In this retrospective analysis, clinicopathological parameters of 115 T1/T2 OSCC were studied and compared to recurrence and death from tumour-related causes. The study protocol was approved by the Joint UCL/UCLH committees of the ethics for human research. The patients' data was entered onto proformas, which were validated and checked by interval sampling. The fields included a range of clinical, operative and histopathological variables related to the status of the surgical margins. Data collection also included recurrence, cause of death, date of death and last clinic review. Causes of death were collated in 4 categories (1) death from locoregional spread, (2) death from distant metastasis, (3) death from bronchopulmonary pneumonia, and (4) death from any non-tumour event that lead to cardiorespiratory failure. The patients' population comprised 65 males and 50 females. Their mean age at the 1 diagnosis of OSCC was 61.7 years. Two-thirds of the patients were Caucasians. Primary sites were mainly identified in the tongue, floor of mouth (FOM), buccal mucosa and alveolus. Most of the identified OSCCs were low-risk (T1N0 and T2N0). All patients underwent primary resection neck dissection and reconstruction when necessary. Twenty-two patients needed adjuvant radiotherapy. Pathological analysis revealed that half of the patients had moderately differentiated OSCC. pTNM slightly differed from the cTNM and showed that 70.4% of the patients had low-risk OSCC. Tumour clearance was ultimately achieved in 107 patients. Follow-up resulted in a 3-year survival of 74.8% and a 5-year survival of 72.2%. Recurrence was identified in 23 males and 20 females. The mean age of 1 diagnosis of the recurrence group was 59.53 years. Most common oral sites included the lateral border of tongue and floor of mouth. Recurrence was associated with clinical N-stage disease. The surgical margins in this group was evaluated and found that 17 had non-cohesive invasion, 30 had dysplasia at margin, 21 had vascular invasion, 9 had nerve invasion and 3 had bony invasion. Severe dysplasia was present in 37 patients. Tumour clearance was achieved in only 8 patients. The mean depth of tumour invasion in the recurrence group was 7.6 mm. An interesting finding was that 5/11 patients who died of distant metastasis had their primary disease in the tongue. Nodal disease comparison showed that 8/10 patients who died of locoregional metastasis and 8/11 patients who died from distant metastasis had clinical nodal involvement. Comparing this to pathological nodal disease (pTNM) showed that 10/10 patients and 10/11 patients who died from locoregional and distant metastasis, respectively, had nodal disease. All patients who died from locoregional and distant metastasis were shown to have recurrence after the primary tumour resection. Squamous cell carcinoma of the oral cavity has a poor overall prognosis with a high tendency to recur at the primary site and extend to involve the cervical lymph nodes. Several clinicopathological parameters can be employed to assess outcome, recurrence and overall survival. © 2010 Jerjes et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd

Optimal Control for maximizing Link Velocity of Robotic Variable Stiffness Joints

In this paper we evaluate the potential of Variable Stiffness Actuation to utilize its inherent joint elasticity and capability to adjust the intrinsic joint stiffness. These abilities make it possible to realize fundamentally different motion control schemes in comparison to intrinsically stiff robots. In this paper we treat the problem of how to generate optimally fast link side velocity at a certain time instant by fully exploiting the elastic energy transfer effects between motor, joint elasticity, stiffness adjustment mechanism, and link. Based on optimal control theory we show that it is possible to significantly and optimally exceed the motor maximum velocity by appropriate motor commands. We solve the problem for models of increasing complexity in order to consecutively elaborate the core insights into the chosen problem. Finally, we present experimental results with a VIA joint prototype, confirming the correctness of the developed formalism

Chemotherapy Options for Blastic Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cell Neoplasm

BPDCN is ultimately a bone marrow disease requiring induction-type eradication therapy followed by hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) to achieve long-lasting remissions or cure. Various regimens have been applied to this disease with varying success. A cumulative review of the literature suggests more intense regimens have greater efficacy with acute lymphoblastic leukemia regimens preferred to acute myeloid leukemia regimens. This approach benefits fit patients who are eligible for HSCT; however, most BPDCN patients require other treatment options. The recent FDA approval of the CD123-targeted agent tagraxofusp provides a novel therapeutic alternative to traditional chemotherapy but with potential toxicities

Post-allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation viral reactivations and viremias: a focused review on human herpesvirus-6, BK virus and adenovirus

Human cytomegalovirus and Epstein-Barr virus have been recognized as potential drivers of morbidity and mortality of patients undergoing allogeneic stem cell transplantation for years. Specific protocols for monitoring, prophylaxis and pre-emptive therapy are in place in many transplant settings. In this review, we focus on the next three most frequent viruses, human herpesvirus-6, BK virus and adenovirus, causing reactivation and/or viremia after allogeneic transplant, which are increasingly detected in patients in the post-transplant period owing to emerging techniques of molecular biology, recipients\u27 characteristics, treatment modalities used for conditioning and factors related donors or stem cell source. Given the less frequent detection of an illness related to these viruses, there are often no specific protocols in place for the management of affected patients. While some patients develop significant morbidity (generally older), others may not need therapy at all (generally younger or children). Furthermore, some of the antiviral therapies used are potentially toxic. With the addition of increased risk of secondary infections, risk of graft failure or increased risk of graft-versus-host disease as well as the relationship with other post-transplant complications, the outcomes of patients with these viremias remain unsatisfactory and even long-term survivors experience increased morbidity

Inventories in the Open Economy Macro Model

Currently, large efforts are unertaken to bring robotic applications to domestic environments. Especially physical human-robot cooperation is a major concern and various design and control methodologies were developed on the way to achieve this task. In particular, this necessitates the evaluation of injury risks a human is exposed to in case he is hit by a robot. In this video several blunt impact tests are shown, leading to an assessment of which factors dominate injury severity. We will illustrate the effect robot speed, robot mass, and constraints in the environment have on safety in humanrobot impacts. It will be shown that the intuition of high impact loads being transmitted by heavy robots is wrong. Furthermore, the conclusion is induced that free impacts are by far less dangerous than being crushed

Robotic Agents Capable of Natural and Safe Physical Interaction with Human Co-Workers

Many future application scenarios of robotics envision robotic agents to be in close physical interaction with humans: On the factory floor, robotic agents shall support their human co-workers with the dull and health threatening parts of their jobs. In their homes, robotic agents shall enable people to stay independent, even if they have disabilities that require physical help in their daily life – a pressing need for our aging societies. A key requirement for such robotic agents is that they are safety-aware, that is, that they know when actions may hurt or threaten humans and actively refrain from performing them. Safe robot control systems are a current research focus in control theory. The control system designs, however, are a bit paranoid: programmers build “software fences” around people, effectively preventing physical interactions. To physically interact in a competent manner robotic agents have to reason about the task context, the human, and her intentions. In this paper, we propose to extend cognition-enabled robot control by introducing humans, physical interaction events, and safe movements as first class objects into the plan language. We show the power of the safety-aware control approach in a real-world scenario with a leading-edge autonomous manipulation platform. Finally, we share our experimental recordings through an online knowledge processing system, and invite the reader to explore the data with queries based on the concepts discussed in this paper

Tumores primarios de la pared torácica Primary tumors of the thorax wall

Introducción: se revisan aspectos teóricos en los tumores primarios de la pared torácica, sobre todo en la clasificación y en aspectos clínicos, diagnósticos y terapéuticos, con el propósito de conocer los resultados del tratamiento en el centro. Métodos: se realizó un estudio retrospectivo descriptivo para analizar los resultados del tratamiento quirúrgico en 22 pacientes (muestra) con tumores primarios de la pared torácica, en un período de 15 años (enero de 1993 a diciembre de 2008), en los servicios de cirugía general y ortopedia del Hospital "Amalia Simoni" de Camagüey. Resultados: hubo ligero predominio del sexo femenino y del grupo de edad entre 17 a 44 años (media 39,4), la comorbilidad que predominó fue la hipertensión arterial, el hemitórax derecho fue el más afectado, y las costillas de la 1 a la 4 las más lesionadas, y predominaron las afecciones benignas, entre ellas, el osteocondroma. El tratamiento más utilizado fue la resección quirúrgica, y la complicación posoperatoria que predominó fue la bronconeumonía. El índice de recidiva tumoral fue alto, no siempre por cáncer. Hubo 4 fallecidos por enfermedad maligna avanzada, y no se presentaron muertes perioperatorias. Conclusiones: fueron comparados los resultados con los de otros reportes y se hallaron puntos de coincidencia en diversos aspectos, pero también discrepantes, se trata de unificar criterios para mejorar el diagnóstico y los resultados del tratamiento en estos enfermos. La mayoría de los pacientes no presentaron complicaciones, y la recidiva tumoral estuvo por encima de lo esperado. La resección tumoral siempre debe ser amplia. El resultado global fue satisfactorio.<br>Introduction: the theoretical features in the primary tumors of the thorax wall, especially in the classification and clinical, diagnostic y therapeutical features were reviewed to know the results of treatment in our institution. Methods: a descriptive and retrospective study was conducted to analyze the results of surgical treatment in 22 patients (sample) with primary tumors of the thorax wall during 15 years (from January,1993 to December, 2008) in the services of general surgery and orthopedics of the "Amalia Simoni" Hospital of the Camagüey province. Results: there was a slight predominance of female sex and the age group from 17 to 44 years (mean, 39.4), the predominant comorbid disease was the high blood pressure, the right hemithorax was the more involved and the ribs from 1 to 4 were the more injured with predominance of benign affections including the osteochondroma. The treatment more applied was the surgical resection and the postoperative complication predominant was the bronchopneumonia. The tumor relapse rate was high but not always due to cancer. The were 4 deceased due to advanced malignant disease without perioperative deaths. Conclusions: results were compared to other reports with coincidence points in different features but also differing and try to unify criteria to improve diagnosis y the results of treatment of these patients. Most of patients were without complications and the tumor relapse was over the expected. The tumor resection always must to be wide. Global result was satisfactory