Upfront stereotactic radiosurgery in patients with brain metastases from small cell lung cancer: retrospective analysis of 41 patients

BACKGROUND: Although the efficacy of prophylactic or therapeutic whole brain radiotherapy (WBRT) for brain metastases (BM) from small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is well established, the role of stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) has yet to be determined. In the present retrospective analysis, we investigated whether upfront SRS might be an effective treatment option for patients with BM from SCLC. METHODS: We analyzed 41 consecutive patients with a limited number of BM (≤ 10) from SCLC who received SRS as the initial treatment. No prophylactic and therapeutic WBRT was given prior to SRS. The median patient age was 69 years and the median Karnofsky performance status (KPS) score was 90. Repeat SRS was given for new distant lesions detected on follow-up neuroradiological imaging, as necessary. Overall survival, neurological death, and local and distant BM recurrence rates were analyzed. The survival results were tested with three prognostic scoring systems validated for SCLC: Diagnosis-specific graded prognostic assessment (DS-GPA), Radiation therapy oncology group -recursive partitioning analysis and Rades’s survival score. RESULTS: One- and 2-year overall survival rates were 44% and 17%, respectively. The median survival time was 8.1 months. Survival results replicated the DS-GPA (P = 0.022) and Rades’s survival score (P = 0.034). On multivariate analysis, patients with high KPS (hazard ratio (HR): 0.308, P = 0.009) and post-SRS chemotherapy (HR: 0.324, P = 0.016) had better overall survival. In total, 95/121 tumors (79%) in 34 patients (83%) with sufficient radiological follow-up data were evaluated. Six- and 12-month rates of local control failure were 0% and 14%, respectively. Six- and 12-month distant BM rates were 22% and 44%, respectively. Repeat SRS, salvage WBRT and microsurgery were subsequently required in 18, 7 and one patient, respectively. Symptomatic radiation injury developed in two patients and both were treated conservatively. CONCLUSIONS: Our survival analyses with the validated prognostic grading systems suggested upfront SRS for limited BM from SCLC to be a potential treatment option, with patient survival being slightly more than eight months after SRS. Although SRS provided durable local tumor control, repeat treatment was needed in nearly half of patients to achieve control of distant BM

Recent development of sulfide solid electrolytes and interfacial modification for all-solid-state rechargeable lithium batteries

AbstractRecent development of inorganic sulfide solid electrolytes and all-solid-state rechargeable lithium batteries with them is reviewed. Electrical conductivity, electrochemical stability and chemical stability of these sulfide electrolytes are reported. Formation of favorable solid–solid contacts between electrode and electrolyte is important in all-solid-state batteries. Useful techniques to achieving intimate electrode–electrolyte interfaces are proposed. Application of sulfur positive electrode and lithium metal negative electrode with large theoretical capacity to all-solid-state lithium batteries is demonstrated

Continuous CH4 measurements with the NIPR CFA system

第6回極域科学シンポジウム分野横断セッション：[IA] 急変する北極気候システム及びその全球的な影響の総合的解明―GRENE北極気候変動研究事業研究成果報告2015―11月19日（木）　国立極地研究所１階交流アトリウ

High Resolution Continuous Flow Analysis System developed at the Ice Core Research Center National Institute of Polar Research

第6回極域科学シンポジウム[OM] 極域気水圏11月16日（月）　統計数理研究所 セミナー室2（D304

Detection of deviance in Japanese kanji compound words

Reading fluency is based on the automatic visual recognition of words. As a manifestation of the automatic processing of words, an automatic deviance detection of visual word stimuli can be observed in the early stages of visual recognition. To clarify whether this phenomenon occurs with Japanese kanji compounds-since their lexicality is related to semantic association-we investigated the brain response by utilizing three types of deviants: differences in font type, lexically correct or incorrect Japanese kanji compound words and pseudo-kanji characters modified from correct and incorrect compounds. We employed magnetoencephalography (MEG) to evaluate the spatiotemporal profiles of the related brain regions. The study included 22 adult native Japanese speakers (16 females). The abovementioned three kinds of stimuli containing 20% deviants were presented during the MEG measurement. Activity in the occipital pole region of the brain was observed upon the detection of font-type deviance within 250 ms of stimulus onset. Although no significant activity upon detecting lexically correct/incorrect kanji compounds or pseudo-kanji character deviations was observed, the activity in the posterior transverse region of the collateral sulcus (pCoS)-which is a fusiform neighboring area-was larger when detecting lexically correct kanji compounds than when detecting pseudo-kanji characters. Taken together, these results support the notion that the automatic detection of deviance in kanji compounds may be limited to a low-level feature, such as the stimulus stroke thickness.Peer reviewe

Fe-K line probing of material around the AGN central engine with Suzaku

We systematically analyzed the high-quality Suzaku data of 88 Seyfert galaxies. We obtained a clear relation between the absorption column density and the equivalent width of the 6.4 keV line above 10$^{23}$ cm$^{-2}$, suggesting a wide-ranging column density of $10^{23-24.5}$ cm$^{-2}$ with a similar solid and a Fe abundance of 0.7--1.3 solar for Seyfert 2 galaxies. The EW of the 6.4 keV line for Seyfert 1 galaxies are typically 40--120 eV, suggesting the existence of Compton-thick matter like the torus with a column density of $>10^{23}$ cm$^{-2}$ and a solid angle of $(0.15-0.4)*4pi$, and no difference of neutral matter is visible between Seyfert 1 and 2 galaxies. An absorber with a lower column density of $10^{21-23}$ cm$^{-2}$ for Compton-thin Seyfert 2 galaxies is suggested to be not a torus but an interstellar medium. These constraints can be understood by the fact that the 6.4 keV line intensity ratio against the 10--50 keV flux is almost identical within a range of 2--3 in many Seyfert galaxies. Interestingly, objects exist with a low EW, 10--30 eV, of the 6.4 keV line, suggesting that those torus subtends only a small solid angle of $<0.2*4pi$. Ionized Fe-K$\alpha$ emission or absorption lines are detected from several percents of AGNs. Considering the ionization state and equivalent width, emitters and absorbers of ionized Fe-K lines can be explained by the same origin, and highly ionized matter is located at the broad line region. The rapid increase in EW of the ionized Fe-K emission lines at $N_{H}>10^{23}$ cm$^{-2}$ is found, like that of the cold material. It is found that these features seem to change for brighter objects with more than several $10^{44}$ erg/s such that the Fe-K line features become weak. We discuss this feature, together with the torus structure.Comment: 32 pages, 20 figures, ApJ accepte

Synthesis and pharmacological characterization of potent, selective, and orally bioavailable isoindoline class dipeptidyl peptidase IV inhibitors

Focused structure-activity relationships of isoindoline class DPP-IV inhibitors have led to the discovery of 4b as a highly selective, potent inhibitor of DPP-IV. In vivo studies in Wistar/ST rats showed that 4b was converted into the strongly active metabolite 4l in high yield, resulting in good in vivo efficacy for antihyperglycemic activity