Feasibility of Tomotherapy-Based Image-Guided Radiotherapy to Reduce Aspiration Risk in Patients with Non-Laryngeal and Non-Pharyngeal Head and Neck Cancer

Purpose

The study aims to assess the feasibility of Tomotherapy-based image-guided radiotherapy (IGRT) to reduce the aspiration risk in patients with non-laryngeal and non-hypopharyngeal cancer. A retrospective review of 48 patients undergoing radiation for non-laryngeal and non-hypopharyngeal head and neck cancers was conducted. All patients had a modified barium swallow (MBS) prior to treatment, which was repeated one month following radiotherapy. Mean middle and inferior pharyngeal dose was recorded and correlated with the MBS results to determine aspiration risk.

Results

Mean pharyngeal dose was 23.2 Gy for the whole group. Two patients (4.2%) developed trace aspiration following radiotherapy which resolved with swallowing therapy. At a median follow-up of 19 months (1–48 months), all patients were able to resume normal oral feeding without aspiration.

Conclusion and Clinical Relevance

IGRT may reduce the aspiration risk by decreasing the mean pharyngeal dose in the presence of large cervical lymph nodes. Further prospective studies with IGRT should be performed in patients with non-laryngeal and non-hypopharyngeal head and neck cancers to verify this hypothesis.     

Features analysis for identification of date and party hubs in protein interaction network of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Saccharomyces Cerevisiae</Emphasis>

Background  

It has been understood that biological networks have modular organizations which are the sources of their observed complexity. Analysis of networks and motifs has shown that two types of hubs, party hubs and date hubs, are responsible for this complexity. Party hubs are local coordinators because of their high co-expressions with their partners, whereas date hubs display low co-expressions and are assumed as global connectors. However there is no mutual agreement on these concepts in related literature with different studies reporting their results on different data sets. We investigated whether there is a relation between the biological features of Saccharomyces Cerevisiae 's proteins and their roles as non-hubs, intermediately connected, party hubs, and date hubs. We propose a classifier that separates these four classes.     

Skeletal muscle ECF pH error signal for exercise ventilatory control

Evans, Allison B., Larry W. Tsai, David A. Oelberg, HomayounKazemi, and David M. Systrom. Skeletal muscle ECF pH error signalfor exercise ventilatory control. J. Appl.Physiol. 84(1): 90-96, 1998.An autonomic reflexlinking exercising skeletal muscle metabolism to central ventilatorycontrol is thought to be mediated by neural afferents having freeendings that terminate in the interstitial fluid of muscle. Todetermine whether changes in muscle extracellular fluid pH(pH_e) can provide an errorsignal for exercise ventilatory control,pH_e was measured duringelectrically induced contraction by³¹P-magnetic resonancespectroscopy and the chemical shift of a phosphorylated, pH-sensitivemarker that distributes to the extracellular fluid (phenylphosphonicacid). Seven lightly anesthetized rats underwentunilateral continuous 5-Hz sciatic nerve stimulation in an 8.45-Tnuclear magnetic resonance magnet, which resulted in a mixed lacticacidosis and respiratory alkalosis, with no net change in arterial pH.Skeletal muscle intracellular pH fell from 7.30 ± 0.03 units atrest to 6.72 ± 0.05 units at 2.4 min of stimulation and then roseto 7.05 ± 0.01 units (P < 0.05), despite ongoing stimulation and muscle contraction.Despite arterial hypocapnia, pH_eshowed an immediate drop from its resting baseline of 7.40 ± 0.01 to 7.16 ± 0.04 units (P < 0.05)and remained acidic throughout the stimulation protocol. During the on-and off-transients for 5-Hz stimulation, changes in the pH gradientbetween intracellular and extracellular compartments suggestedtime-dependent recruitment of sarcolemmal ion-transport mechanisms.pH_e of exercising skeletal musclemeets temporal and qualitative criteria necessary for a ventilatorymetaboreflex mediator in a setting where arterial pH doesnot.

     

Correlation Between Vase Life and Biochemical Parameters in Ornamental Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) Affected by Spraying Chemical Materials During the Growth Stages

Journal of Plant Growth Regulation - The study was conducted to investigate the correlation between vase life and biochemical parameters in sunflower. The experiment was arranged in a randomized...     

Conquering the cytokine storm in COVID-19-induced ARDS using placenta-derived decidua stromal cells

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is the most common cause of death in COVID-19 patients. The cytokine storm is the main driver of the severity and magnitude of ARDS. Placenta-derived decidua stromal cells (DSCs) have a stronger immunosuppressive effect than other sources of mesenchymal stromal cells. Safety and efficacy study included 10 patients with a median age of 50 (range 14–68) years with COVID-19-induced ARDS. DSCs were administered 1–2 times at a dose of 1 × 10⁶/kg. End points were safety and efficacy by survival, oxygenation and effects on levels of cytokines. Oxygenation levels increased from a median of 80.5% (range 69–88) to 95% (range 78–99) (p = 0.012), and pulmonary infiltrates disappeared in all patients. Levels of IL-6 decreased from a median of 69.3 (range 35.0–253.4) to 11 (range 4.0–38.3) pg/ml (p = 0.018), and CRP decreased from 69 (range 5–169) to 6 (range 2–31) mg/ml (p = 0.028). Two patients died, one of a myocardial infarction and the other of multiple organ failure, diagnosed before the DSC therapy. The other patients recovered and left the intensive care unit (ICU) within a median of 6 (range 3–12) days. DSC therapy is safe and capable of improving oxygenation, decreasing inflammatory cytokine level and clearing pulmonary infiltrates in patients with COVID-19.     

Effects of cadmium on photoreceptors and ganglionic cells of retinal layer in mice embryo--an ultrastructural study

Cadmium (Cd) is one of the environmental contaminant and because of its non-decomposable character, it can damage nature. In this study, TEM was used in order to assess the ultrastructural effects of Cd on photorececptor and ganglionic cells of mouse retinal layer. Apoptotic nuclei, heterochromatic nuclei, deletion of nucleus membrane, invisible nucleolus, and apoptotic cells with mitochondrial changes were observed in mice embryo (days 15 of gestation) following CdCl2 injection to mothers on day 9 of gestation. Cadmium exposure caused apoptotic changes both in photoreceptors and ganglionic cells.     

Splenic lesions: FNA findings in 48 cases

OBJECTIVE: To study fine needle aspiration (FNA) cytological findings of splenic lesions and assess the role of FNA in the diagnosis of splenomegaly or splenic tumours. METHODS: This study consisted of 48 cases, 25 males and 23 females. The ages ranged between 3 and 71 years. Most of these cases were aspirated under ultrasonographic guidance and a small number were also aspirated directly by using a 22- to 23-gauge needles. The smears were stained with Wright-Giemsa and Papanicolaou methods. Special stains were used whenever necessary. RESULTS: In this study 14 cases were diagnosed as lymphoma-leukaemia, 7 cases as tuberculosis, 12 cases as kala-azar, 2 cases as hydatid cyst, 3 cases as storage diseases, 3 cases as simple cyst, 2 cases as myeloproliferative disorders, 2 cases as malignant tumours and 3 cases as hamartomas (these were wrongly diagnosed as malignant tumours). CONCLUSION: Splenic aspiration is a safe procedure and is very useful in the diagnosis of parasitic and infectious diseases, especially in endemic countries like Iran.     

In Vitro Infectivity Assessment by Drug Susceptibility Comparison of Recombinant Leishmania major Expressing Enhanced Green Fluorescent Protein or EGFP-Luciferase Fused Genes with Wild-Type Parasite

Leishmaniasis is a worldwide uncontrolled parasitic disease due to the lack of effective drug and vaccine. To speed up effective drug development, we need powerful methods to rapidly assess drug effectiveness against the intracellular form of Leishmania in high throughput assays. Reporter gene technology has proven to be an excellent tool for drug screening in vitro. The effects of reporter proteins on parasite infectivity should be identified both in vitro and in vivo. In this research, we initially compared the infectivity rate of recombinant Leishmania major expressing stably enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) alone or EGFP-luciferase (EGFP-LUC) with the wild-type strain. Next, we evaluated the sensitivity of these parasites to amphotericin B (AmB) as a standard drug in 2 parasitic phases, promastigote and amastigote. This comparison was made by MTT and nitric oxide (NO) assay and by quantifying the specific signals derived from reporter genes like EGFP intensity and luciferase activity. To study the amastigote form, both B10R and THP-1 macrophage cell lines were infected in the stationary phase and were exposed to AmB at different time points. Our results clearly revealed that the 3 parasite lines had similar in vitro infectivity rates with comparable parasite-induced levels of NO following interferon-γ/lipopolysaccharide induction. Based on our results we proposed the more reporter gene, the faster and more sensitive evaluation of the drug efficiency.