Activity

OBJECTIVE Although 2-18F-fluoro-2-deoxy-glucose (18F-FDG) has established roles in the diagnosis of a variety of cancers, it has limited value in the detection of primary/recurrent lesions in the bladder, mainly because of interference by the pooled radioactivity in the urine. Our previous study revealed promising properties of L- and D-2-18F-α-methyl-phenylalanine (2-18F-FAMP) as radiotracers; i.e., their rapid blood clearance and low renal accumulation. In the present study we evaluated the utility of L- and D-2-18F-FAMP for imaging bladder cancer in a mouse model. METHODS We used the human bladder cancer cell line HT1376 to prepare a bladder cancer xenograft model in mice bearing both orthotopic and subcutaneous tumors. Biodistribution and PET imaging studies were performed at 1 and 3 h after injection of L-2-18F-FAMP or D-2-18F-FAMP. 18F-FDG was used as a control. RESULTS At 1 h after injection, greater accumulations of both L-2-18F-FAMP and D-2-18F-FAMP were observed in the orthotopic tumors compared to 18F-FDG. The orthotopic tumor-to-muscle ratio of D-2-18F-FAMP was significantly higher than that of 18F-FDG (p  less then  0.01), because of the rapid blood clearance of D-2-18F-FAMP. L-2-18F-FAMP showed the highest subcutaneous tumor-to-muscle ratio (p  less then  0.01) due to its high subcutaneous tumor uptake. Compared to L-2-18F-FAMP, D-2-18F-FAMP exhibited faster clearance and lower kidney accumulation. In the PET imaging studies, L- and D-2-18F-FAMP both clearly visualized the orthotopic bladder tumors at 1 h after injection. CONCLUSION Our study showed that L-2-18F-FAMP and D-2-18F-FAMP have the potential to detect bladder cancer.Distinct clinical characteristics have been demonstrated in patients with plaque erosion as compared with those with plaque rupture. We reasoned that greater physical activity might influence the onset of plaque erosion. In total, 97 consecutive patients with non ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndrome (ACS) who underwent optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging of the culprit lesion were enrolled. OCT-determined culprit plaque characteristics were plaque erosion (18.6%), calcified plaque (26.8%), plaque rupture (32.0%) and other (22.7%). The physical activity evaluated by estimated metabolic equivalents (METs) at ACS onset was significantly greater in the plaque erosion group than in the plaque rupture group (3.3 ± 1.7 vs. 2.1 ± 1.0, p = 0.011). The rate of ACS onset outdoors was the highest (61.1%) in the plaque erosion group. The combination of greater physical activity (> 3 METs), outdoor onset and higher body mass index (> 25.1 kg/m2) had a significant odds ratio for the incidence of plaque erosion (odds ratio 15.0, 95% confidence interval 3.81 to 59.0, p  less then  0.001). Plaque erosion was associated with greater physical activity at the onset. This finding may help to further clarify the pathogenesis of ACS Impact of physical exertion on the incidence of plaque erosion. NSTE-ACS, non ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndrome.Sunscreen use is an important aspect of sun protective behavior. Previous studies revealed deficits in sunscreen use. Our aim was to quantify sunscreen use in a nationwide representative study in Germany as well as to develop and test an item battery on reasons for none use of sunscreen. We analyzed data of the National Cancer Aid Monitoring (NCAM; wave 4; n = 3000, aged 14-45). To describe those who only use sunscreen rarely or never, we used chi2 statistics and logistic regression analysis. In addition, we utilized a newly developed item battery on barriers to sunscreen use. Here, we used Cronbach’s alpha to investigate reliability. In total, 20.7% reported using sunscreen rarely or never. Infrequent or none use of sunscreen was associated with male sex, immigrant background, none or rare sunbathing in summer, and current or past use of sunbeds. Participants with higher skin cancer risk (e.g., pale skin) were less likely to use sunscreen infrequently or never. The major reasons for not using sunscreen were inconvenience and no perceived need for applying sunscreen. Overall, internal consistency of the item battery on potential barriers to sunscreen use was very good (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.865). We found deficits in sunscreen use especially in sunbed users, men, and individuals with immigrant background. Brequinar mw Our results give important implications for future prevention and health promotion campaigns on sunscreen use.BACKGROUND Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a rare disorder, estimated to affect 1 per 10,000 live births. Patients affected with SMA often require intensive, chronic healthcare, which represents great social and economic costs. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to evaluate the direct medical costs of SMA, from the National Health System perspective in Catalonia, and provide regional data for the development of optimal disease management protocols and resource allocation decisions at the regional level. METHODS A retrospective, population-based study was designed based on admission records from primary care centres, hospitals and specialised care settings (inpatient and outpatient care), emergency services and extended care facilities obtained from a regional governmental claims database. RESULTS A total of 396 patients met the inclusion criteria. Annual direct medical costs summed €58,606 per patient, taking into account the use of healthcare resources at all levels of care and excluding the cost of prescription medication. Specialised care represented 81% of the expenses that were mostly associated with respiratory manifestations of SMA. In the year 2016, 71.26% of patients with SMA had four or more systems affected by a chronic condition, versus 23.50% in the general population, which had an impact on healthcare use. CONCLUSIONS Inpatient extended care and the increased presence of multimorbid chronic conditions in patients with SMA must be taken into account in order to develop multidisciplinary treatment protocols that reflect the complexity of SMA. Forthcoming resource allocation decisions should reflect the intensive use of specialised care registered in patients with SMA.BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES The efficacy of direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) in the management of left ventricular (LV) thrombi remains to be determined, especially in patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy. This retrospective study sought to compare the efficacy of vitamin K antagonists (VKAs) and DOACs in patients with LV thrombi and evaluate the rate of LV thrombus resolution after adjusting anticoagulation. METHODS This observational retrospective study included patients admitted to our institution for LV thrombus between January 2010 and August 2019. The rate of LV thrombus resolution was compared between VKAs and DOACs. Patients without thrombus resolution with DOAC treatment were switched to VKA agents in order to obtain an international normalized ratio (INR) of 3-4. RESULTS Between January 2010 and August 2019, 59 consecutive patients with LV thrombi detected by transthoracic echocardiography were included in the study. The mean age was 62 ± 14 years and 16.9% were women. The circumstances of LV thromare as it is possible to control INR levels (3-4) with them.Sperm morphology, as an indicator of fertility, is a critical tool in semen analysis. In this study, a smartphone-based hybrid system that fully automates the sperm morphological analysis is introduced with the aim of eliminating unwanted human factors. Proposed hybrid system consists of two progressive steps automatic segmentation of possible sperm shapes and classification of normal/ab-normal sperms. In the segmentation step, clustering techniques with/without group sparsity approach were tested to extract region of interests from the images. Subsequently, a novel publicly available morphological sperm image data set, whose labels were identified by experts as non-sperm, normal and abnormal sperm, was created as the ground truths of classification step. In the classification step, conventional and ensemble machine learning methods were applied to domain-specific features that were extracted by using wavelet transform and descriptors. Additionally, as an alternative to conventional features, three deep neural network architectures, which can extract high-level features from raw images after using statistical learning, were employed to increase the proposed method’s performance. The results show that, for the conventional features, the highest classification accuracies were achieved as 80.5% and 83.8% by using the wavelet- and descriptor-based features that were fed to the Support Vector Machines respectively. On the other hand, the Mobile-Net, which is a very convenient network for smartphones, achieved 87% accuracy. In the light of obtained results, it is seen that a fully automatic hybrid system, which uses the group sparsity to enhance segmentation performance and the Mobile-Net to obtain high-level robust features, can be an effective mobile solution for the sperm morphology analysis problem. A fully automated hybrid human sperm detection and classification system based on mobile-net.In the original version of this article, Vikas Srivastava’s last name was spelled incorrectly.Recent research on the dynamics between attentional and memory processes have outlined the idea that applying control in a conflicting situation directly leads to enhanced episodic memory of the processed information. However, in spite of a small subset of studies supporting this claim, the majority of the evidence in the field seems to support the opposite pattern. In this study, we used a face-word Stroop task to enforce different control modes either from trial to trial or in an item-specific manner. Both manipulations of congruency proved to be effective in making participants’ responses to conflicting stimuli more efficient over time by applying a trial-specific control mode. However, these manipulations had no impact on memory performance on a surprise recognition memory test. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt at measuring the memory consequences of the application of specific control modes at the trial level. The results reported here call for caution and possibly reconceptualization of the relationship between cognitive control and memory.Radical surgical resection (R0) is the only option to cure patients with borderline resectable or multivisceral intraabdominal malignancies involving major vessels. Autologous peritoneal flap has been described as a safe and versatile option for vascular reconstruction, but still limited experience exists regarding its use. An extensive literature review was performed to analyze results of vascular reconstruction with an autologous peritoneal graft. Fifteen reports were found for a total of 94 patients. No cases of arterial vascular reconstruction were found. Two different types of peritoneal patch have been described, backed (APFG, 30 patients) or not backed (ANFP, 64 patients) by posterior rectus sheath. A patch type of reconstruction was adopted in 70 patients (74.5%), while a tubular reconstruction in 24 (25.5%). Postoperative mortality was 5.3% (5 cases). Graft outcomes with very heterogeneous follow-ups (7 days-47 months) were available only in 85 patients (90.4%). Among them, a graft patency was documented in 80 patients (94.