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Dit rapport werd ingediend bij het agentschap samen met een aantal afzonderlijke digitale bijlagen. Een aantal van deze bijlagen zijn niet inbegrepen in dit pdf document en zijn niet online beschikbaar. Sommige bijlagen (grondplannen, foto’s, spoorbeschrijvingen, enz.) kunnen van belang zijn voor een betere lezing en interpretatie van dit rapport. Indien u deze bijlagen wenst te raadplegen kan u daarvoor contact opnemen met: bib.oe@vlaanderen.be

Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Mass Spectrometry Imaging (MALDI MSI) allows to map endogenous and exogenous molecules along thin tissue sections without requiring any labelling. The aim of the Gliomic study (NCT 02473484) is to take advantage of MALDI-MSI to classify high-grade gliomas (HGG) by integration of MALDI-MSI to spatially-resolved proteomics data and correlation with clinical data for diagnosis and prognosis.

Background: In 30% of patients with brain metastasis (BM), BM are the first clinical manifestation of systemic malignancy, referred to as BM from cancer of unknown primary site (BM-CUPS). The value of 18F-fluordesoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET)/CT in the work-up of BM-CUPS patients remains to be defined. Patients and methods: We screened 566 patients operated for BM at the University Hospital Zurich between 2004 and 2014 and identified 127 BM-CUPS patients. Two validation cohorts (n=100 and 120 patients) from independent centers were available. Results: FDG-PET/CT was not superior to CT in localizing the primary lesion as CT (FDG-PET/CT: 73/78, 93.6%; CT: n=70/78, 89.7%; p=0.25, McNemar’s test). Thirty-six of 64 patients (56.3%) showed the same result in spotting the primary tumor and other extracranial lesions. FDG-PET/CT identified additional lesions suspicious for extracranial metastases in 28 patients (43.7%). The graded prognostic assessment (GPA) score was determined post-hoc to objectify clinical relevance of additional findings. Information from CT alone or FDG-PET/CT was used to assess extracranial metastases. Median GPA was 3 for CT vs. 2.5 for PET/CT (p= 3.8x10-5), resulting in a predicted survival of 5.3 vs. 3.8 months (p= 6.1x10-5; Wilcoxon’s test). Sensitivity of CT and FDG-PET/CT and staging capabilities were comparable in all cohorts. Conclusions: FDG-PET/CT shows similar sensitivity to detect the primary tumor in BM-CUPS patients as CT, but improves the accuracy of staging. GPA scores and predicted survival differ significantly when calculated based on CT versus FDG-PET/CT. FDG-PET/CT should be prioritized for planning the diagnostic algorithm of BM-CUPS patients and redundant CT imaging should be avoided. Further, randomized trials on BM patients should consider stratification for the respective staging methods when employing GPA scores.

Crabs of the genus Plagusia Latreille, 1804 (Crustacea: Brachyura: Plagusiidae) are well known for their habit of clinging to driftwood or ship hulls and are therefore prone to trans-oceanic transport. One of the consequences of this large dispersal potential seems to be the circumtropical distribution of one species, Plagusia depressa (Fabricius, 1775). This species comprises two subspecies, the Atlantic P. d. depressa and the Indo-Pacific P. d. squamosa (Herbst, 1790) (=P. d. tuberculata Lamarck, 1818). There are only subtle differences in adult morphology between these subspecies. For further comparison of the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific populations, we describe the morphology of the first zoeal stage of P. d. squamosa and the megalopa of P. d. depressa and present sequence data of the mitochondrial 16S rRNA gene. The comparison of zoeae, megalopae and mtDNA all provide evidence that the two subspecies of Plagusia depressa are clearly distinct. We therefore propose that Plagusia squamosa deserves species status, that the adult morphology is conserved, and that the major continents represent barriers for dispersal of this rafting tropical crab.