Laparoscopic Radical Trachelectomy

Introduction: The standard treatment for patients with early-stage cervical cancer has been radical hysterectomy. However, for women interested in future fertility, radical trachelectomy is now considered a safe and feasible option. The use of minimally invasive surgical techniques to perform this procedure has recently been reported. Case Description: We report the first case of a laparoscopic radical trachelectomy performed in a developing country. The patient is a nulligravid, 30-y-old female with stage IB1 adenocarcinoma of the cervix who desired future fertility. She underwent a laparoscopic radical trachelectomy and bilateral pelvic lymph node dissection. The operative time was 340 min, and the estimated blood loss was 100mL. There were no intraoperative or postoperative complications. The final pathology showed no evidence of residual disease, and all pelvic lymph nodes were negative. At 20 mo of follow-up, the patient is having regular menses but has not yet attempted to become pregnant. There is no evidence of recurrence. Conclusion: Laparoscopic radical trachelectomy with pelvic lymphadenectomy in a young woman who desires future fertility may also be an alternative technique in the treatment of early cervical cancer in developing countries

Not seeing the forest for the trees: size of the minimum spanning trees (MSTs) forest and branch significance in MST-based phylogenetic analysis

Copyright: © 2015 Teixeira et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are creditedTrees, including minimum spanning trees (MSTs), are commonly used in phylogenetic studies. But, for the research community, it may be unclear that the presented tree is just a hypothesis, chosen from among many possible alternatives. In this scenario, it is important to quantify our confidence in both the trees and the branches/edges included in such trees. In this paper, we address this problem for MSTs by introducing a new edge betweenness metric for undirected and weighted graphs. This spanning edge betweenness metric is defined as the fraction of equivalent MSTs where a given edge is present. The metric provides a per edge statistic that is similar to that of the bootstrap approach frequently used in phylogenetics to support the grouping of taxa. We provide methods for the exact computation of this metric based on the well known Kirchhoff's matrix tree theorem. Moreover, we implement and make available a module for the PHYLOViZ software and evaluate the proposed metric concerning both effectiveness and computational performance. Analysis of trees generated using multilocus sequence typing data (MLST) and the goeBURST algorithm revealed that the space of possible MSTs in real data sets is extremely large. Selection of the edge to be represented using bootstrap could lead to unreliable results since alternative edges are present in the same fraction of equivalent MSTs. The choice of the MST to be presented, results from criteria implemented in the algorithm that must be based in biologically plausible models.AST, PTM, JAC and APF were partly supported by national funds through FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (http://www.fct.pt/), under project/grants NETDYN PTDC/EIA-CCO/118533/2010, DATASTORM EXCL/EEI-ESS/0257/2012 and UID/CEC/50021/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Frame localisation optical projection tomography

Funder: EPSRC IPESAbstract: We present a tomographic reconstruction algorithm (flOPT), which is applied to Optical Projection Tomography (OPT) images, that is robust to mechanical jitter and systematic angular and spatial drift. OPT relies on precise mechanical rotation and is less mechanically stable than large-scale computer tomography (CT) scanning systems, leading to reconstruction artefacts. The algorithm uses multiple (5+) tracked fiducial beads to recover the sample pose and the image rays are then back-projected at each orientation. The quality of the image reconstruction using the proposed algorithm shows an improvement when compared to the Radon transform. Moreover, when adding a systematic spatial and angular mechanical drift, the reconstruction shows a significant improvement over the Radon transform

Palliative Laparoscopic End Colostomy in a Nonagenarian

Patients with advanced gynecologic malignancy often require fecal diversion as a sole procedure in cases of obstruction or fistula formation. This unique patient population has a frequent history of advanced age, prior abdominal surgery, pelvic radiation, poor nutritional status and medical comorbidities. The use of laparoscopic colostomy for palliative fecal diversion in this context has not been well described in the gynecologic oncology literature. We present the first case of palliative laparoscopic end-colostomy in a nonagenarian as a sole procedure for fecal diversion in advanced gynecologic malignancy. Palliative laparoscopic end-colostomy is a safe, feasible, and effective method to optimize quality of life in select elderly women with advanced gynecologic malignancy

Determining post-operative morbidity and mortality following gynecological oncology surgery : protocol for a multicenter, international, prospective cohort study (Global Gynaecological Oncology Surgical Outcomes Collaborative—GO SOAR)

Funding: The NHS Grampian Endowment Fund; Medtronic; Karl Storz.Peer reviewedPostprintsupplementary_dat

Editorial: Catalysis in Iberoamerica: Recent Trends

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The impact of robotic surgery on gynecologic oncology

The objective of this article was to review the published scientific literature pertaining to robotic surgery and its applications in gynecologic malignancies and to summarize the impact of robotic surgery on the field of gynecologic oncology. Summarizing data from different gynecologic disease-sites, robotic-assisted surgery is safe, feasible, and demonstrates equivalent histopathologic and oncologic outcomes. In general, benefits to robotic surgery include decreased blood loss, fewer perioperative complications and decreased length of hospital stay. Disadvantages include accessibility to robot surgical systems, decreased haptic sensation and fixed cost as well as cost of disposable equipment. As robotic surgery becomes readily available it will be imperative to develop standardized training modalities. Further research is needed to validate the role of robotic surgery in the treatment of gynecologic malignancies

Fractional variational calculus of variable order

We study the fundamental problem of the calculus of variations with variable order fractional operators. Fractional integrals are considered in the sense of Riemann-Liouville while derivatives are of Caputo type.Comment: Submitted 26-Sept-2011; accepted 18-Oct-2011; withdrawn by the authors 21-Dec-2011; resubmitted 27-Dec-2011; revised 20-March-2012; accepted 13-April-2012; to 'Advances in Harmonic Analysis and Operator Theory', The Stefan Samko Anniversary Volume (Eds: A. Almeida, L. Castro, F.-O. Speck), Operator Theory: Advances and Applications, Birkh\"auser Verlag (http://www.springer.com/series/4850