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Background: Alopecia areata (AA) is an immune mediated disorder that attacks hair follicles with unknown pathophysiology. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small noncoding RNA molecules, and their aberrant expression or function has been involved in different autoimmune conditions. Objectives: We aimed at exploring the association between some miRNAs lesional expression and AA pathogenesis by measurement of miRNAs‐155, 146a, and 203 expression levels in the lesional skin from patchy AA patients and to evaluate their relation with the studied parameters. Subjects and Methods: Skin expression levels of miRNAs‐155, 146a, and 203 were evaluated in 50 patients with patchy AA and 25 healthy controls using reverse transcriptase‐quantitative PCR (RT‐qPCR). The activity and severity of alopecia were assessed according to AA Investigational Assessment Guidelines criteria. Results: Studied patients showed significant up‐regulation of miRNAs‐203, 146a, and 155 lesional tissue expression levels when compared to control group (p < 0.05 each). Only miRNA‐146a skin expression level was significantly higher in patients with multiple lesions (p < 0.001). However, patients with active AA had significantly higher tissue expression levels of the investigated miRNAs than those with inactive disease (P 0.001, 0.009, and 0.001, respectively). Conclusions: Investigated miRNAs seem to be role players in AA pathogenesis and may be considered potential indicators of disease activity. However, more research is needed to clarify their accurate role and clinical importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Topical β‐blockers, propranolol, and timolol were used for pyogenic granuloma (PG) treatment; however, their efficacies and safety profiles were not compared. Aims: The aim was to evaluate the safety and efficacy of propranolol 1% and timolol 0.5% creams in the treatment of pyogenic granulomas. Patients: The study included 30 PG patients. They were divided into three groups (10 patients each). Group I patients received propranolol 1% cream. Group II patients used timolol 0.5% l cream. Group III patients used placebo cream. Creams were applied twice daily for 2 months. Patients were followed up for 3 months to detect any recurrence. Results: Complete resolution was reported in 6 patients of groups I and II, while none of the control patients reported complete resolution. Despite the absent change in lesions' size in 40% of β‐blockers treated groups, they all reported decreased bleeding tendency. There was insignificant difference between the clinical responses between β‐blockers groups. No recurrence was reported in any of the patients who achieved complete resolution after 3 months of follow‐up. Younger patients respond better to β‐blockers. Three patients were deteriorated on beta‐blockers treatment. Conclusion: β‐blockers are a promising PG treatment option in cases where invasive modalities are not desirable especially in younger patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Ethnicity and insurance status have been shown to impact odds of presenting with metastatic cancer, however, the interaction of these two predictors is not well understood. We evaluate the difference in odds of presenting with metastatic disease in minorities compared to white patients despite access to the same insurance across three common cancer types. Methods: Using the National Cancer Database, a multilevel logistic regression model that estimated the odds of metastatic disease was fit, adjusting for covariates including year of diagnosis, ethnicity, insurance, income, and region. We included adults diagnosed with metastatic prostate, non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and breast cancer from 2004 to 2015. Results: The study cohort consisted of 1 191 241 prostate cancer (PCa), 1 310 986 breast cancer (BCa), and 1 183 029 NSCLC patients. Private insurance was the most protective factor against metastatic presentation. Odds of presenting with metastatic disease were 0.190 [95% CI, 0.182‐0.198], 0.616 [95% CI, 0.602‐0.630], and 0.270 [95% CI, 0.260‐0.279] for PCa, NSCLC, and BCa compared to uninsured patients, respectively. Private insurance provided the most significant benefit to non‐Hispanic White PCa patients with 81% reduction in odds of metastatic presentation and conferred the least benefit to African‐American NSCLC patients at 30.4% reduction in odds of metastatic presentation. Conclusions: Insurance status provided the single most protective effect against metastatic presentation. This benefit varied for minorities despite similar insurance. Reducing metastatic disease presentation rates requires addressing social barriers to care independent of insurance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The American College of Surgeons has always promoted education and collaborations with other countries and their scientific organizations. The International Guest Scholarship program was established in 1968 to support the travel of foreign surgeons to medical Institutions in the USA and Canada. The program has grown substantially over time and now includes different categories of scholarships and surgeons. The objective of this article is to describe the experiences gained by the international scholars who visited US and Canadian institutions through these ACS programs.Study design: In order to collect information regarding these scholarships from the surgeons who have already participated in the program, an Internet-based survey was e-mailed to alumni. The surveys were constructed to gather career information on former scholars and to analyze the perceived impact of these programs on their careers.Results: Among the international scholarships alumni, most are now Fellows of the American College of Surgeons. The majority of respondents maintained contact with their host surgeons in the USA or Canada; they began or continued research, surgical education and surgical quality improvement initiatives in their country of origin based upon their experiences as international scholars. Most of the alumni reported that the experience they had during the scholarship was inspiring, opened their minds and broadened their horizons.Conclusions: The overall effect of ACS international scholarship program should be considered as positive, as 80-90% of respondent alumni consider their experience very helpful and feel that it provided them with opportunities that would not have been possible without it. It is incumbent upon the ACS to continue along this path by identifying funding and donation sources, as well as enriching the content and goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oral administration of the total alcohol extract of Convolvulus pilosellifolius Desr. (250 and 500 md/kg) showed potent anti-ulcerogenic activity in absolute ethanol-induced ulcer model in rats; it showed percent protection of control ulcer by 69.2 and 84.6%, respectively, while standard ranitidine (100 mg/kg) exhibited 46.2%. Bio-guided work leads to isolation of two novel compounds (1 and 2), which were identified through 1 H, 13 C NMR, HMPC, HMQC and DEPT as: methyl 2-(hydroxymethyl) octanoate, named as amanitate, and 16-amino-9,13-dimethyl-17-(prop-1-en-2-yl)-hexadecahydro-1H-cyclopenta[a] phenanthren-3-ol, named as asmatol. Both compounds (50 mg/kg) possessed anti-ulcerogenic activity with 95.4% and 55.84% protection, respectively. Two known compounds (3 and 4) were also isolated and identified through comparison with authentic samples and confirmed through different NMR techniques as kampeferol and quercetin. These compounds also showed anti-ulcerogenic activity with 78.38% and 5.38% protection, respectively. The cytoprotective mechanism explains the potent anti-ulcerogenic activity of the total alcohol extract and the isolated compounds. The extract was highly safe as the LD50 was more than 5000 mg/kg. These results were well supported by the sub-chronic toxicity study, as the extract (500 mg/kg) administrated orally to rats for 35 consecutive days showed no alteration in the liver and kidney functions. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Taguchi method is only an effective approach for optimizing process performance with a single quality response. However, customers are concerned about multiple quality responses on a product. Furthermore, process engineers have preferences on process settings. Consequently, collaboration between product and process engineers is required to satisfy customers as well as process requirements. This research proposes a collaborative approach for optimizing process performance with multiple quality responses on manufactured products in the applications of the Taguchi method using the Min-Max fuzzy goal programming model. Requirements on quality responses and process factors are described by proper membership functions. Then, an optimization model is developed and then solved to minimize the maximal deviation from each goal. Four case studies are provided for illustration, where it is noted that the proposed approach (a) considers preferences on quality responses and factor settings, which are ignored by grey relational analysis, multi-response signal-to-noise (MRSN) technique, and grey-fuzzy logic approach, (b) develops mathematical relationships between each quality response and process factors, contrary to MRSN and grey analysis that combine all responses into one index, and (c) involves process knowledge about preferred process settings, which is ignored by grey relational analysis. In conclusion, the proposed collaborative optimization model may provide great support to process/product engineers in robust design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: The AJCC staging system and post-operative nomograms use patient and tumor characteristics to provide prognostic estimates after resection of retroperitoneal sarcoma (RPS). While these variables help to predict survival at the time of diagnosis and resection, the applicability of these prognostic factors to survivors of RPS remains unknown. We hypothesized that the variables evaluated in the current staging system and post-operative nomograms would have limited ability to predict conditional survival in patients surgically treated for RPS. METHODS: A retrospective study was conducted using National Cancer Institute-sponsored tumor registries. We identified 1,199 patients who underwent surgical resection for non-metastatic RPS from 1988 to 2007. Conditional survival was defined as time-specific estimates conditioned on living a certain number of years post-diagnosis. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to assess the impact of various factors on sarcoma-specific survival (SSS) at baseline and up to 5 years after diagnosis. RESULTS: Older age, male gender, histologic subtype, and high tumor grade predicted worse SSS at the time of diagnosis. After 1 year of survival, older age, male gender, and histologic subtype were no longer significant predictors of conditional survival. Only high grade tumors remained a significant predictor of worse prognosis after 5 years of survival (HR 1.95). CONCLUSIONS: This population-based study demonstrates that the factors which are predictive of survival at baseline lose significance after one year of survival. Conditional survival estimates allow clinicians to provide survivors with more meaningful prognostic estimates that may impact surveillance schedules and streamline adjuvant therapy decisions and design of future clinical trials. Cancer 2012. © 2012 American Cancer Society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which evaluates the guideline-recommended care and racial disparities related to gastric cancer. It explores that ethnic groups in the U.S. including American African and Hispanic people have higher possibility to undergo lymphadenectomy, but were less likely to have adjuvant multimodality therapy. The study concludes that substantial variations were present in treating gastric cancer among ethnic groups and improved surgical care was observed in non white race.

The article reports on results of a study of the impact of ethnicity on the presentation and prognosis of patients with gastric adenocarcinoma. A description of the experimental set-up and measurement method is provided. The study concluded that ethnicity was associated with differences in presentation and outcome of patients with gastric adenocarcinoma.

Background: Previous studies have suggested that the prognosis in patients with extremity soft-tissue sarcomas (ESTS) with isolated lymph node (LN) metastases (stage IV) is comparable to that of patients with high-risk ESTS without metastases (stage III). This study was performed to determine the outcomes of patients who underwent aggressive therapy, including lymphadenectomy in patients with LN metastasis from ESTS.Methods: Demographic details, pathology of the primary disease, timing of LN metastasis, and details of the multimodality treatment were obtained from the medical records of 35 patients with nodal metastasis from ESTS who were treated between 1981 and 2003. Survival after the diagnosis of primary disease and LN metastasis was compared with established historical outcomes for patients with American Joint Commission on Cancer (AJCC) stages III and IV ESTS.Results: Epithelioid sarcomas (23%) and malignant fibrous histiocytomas (23%) were the most common primary histologic types. Twenty (57%) patients presented with synchronous nodal metastasis. Median follow-up from the time of diagnosis of lymph node metastasis was 48.5 months. The 1-year, 2-year, and 5-year actuarial survival rates in patients with synchronous nodal metastasis after lymphadenectomy and additional therapy were 79%, 62%, and 52%, respectively. In comparison, the 1-year, 2-year, and 5-year actuarial survival rates in patients with metachronous nodal metastasis after lymphadenectomy and additional therapy were 100%, 95%, and 66%, respectively.Conclusions: Patients with isolated regional lymph node metastases who are treated with aggressive approaches, including regional LN dissection, may experience prolonged survival similar to that which more closely approximates the survival seen in patients with stage III disease (5-year survival rate, 50%) rather than the survival seen in patients with stage IV disease (5-year survival rate, 25%). These data lend support for reconsideration of the current AJCC staging system for ESTS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper utilizes the six-sigma define-measure-analyze-improve-control (DMAIC) procedure to improve quality through enhancing the measurement system capability (MSC) of a wood industry. In the first stage, the major reported defects at the customer site are identified, and then the performance of the measurement system is evaluated by conducting a gage repeatability and reproducibility (GR&R) experiment on a drilling process, i.e. the outputs of a drilling machine. The obtained results show that the measurement system is inadequate and results in wrong classification of the produced wooden parts. Thus, to improve MSC, corrective actions, including operators' training, proper selection of measuring instruments, and improved measuring methods, were implemented. To determine the achieved improvement in MSC, a second GR&R study was carried out under the same conditions. In conclusion, adopting the DMAIC procedure including GR&R study turns out to be an effective method in improving the quality system involving measurements. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the original article, the top of Fig. 1 was inadvertently cut off. The original article has been corrected. The publisher regrets the error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liquid based cytology (LBC) preparations are replacing many of the traditional methods used to examine non-gynaecological cytology specimens. However, bone marrow aspirates which historically proceeded almost all non-gynaecological cytology samples remain examined by direct air dried smears. This pilot study examined bone marrow aspirates using LBC. Material from 50 bone marrow aspirates from patients with lymphoma, multiple myeloma, leukaemia, metastatic carcinoma, myelodysplasia and other causes of anaemia were examined using ThinPrep® and the results were compared to direct smears. All cases had trephine biopsy performed during the same visit. We established a protocol for bone marrow ThinPrep® preparation as follows: 20 drops of bone marrow aspirate centrifuged in 30 ml CytoLyt® for 10 minutes at 2000 rpm; cell pellet re-suspended, then washed with CytoLyt®/ GAA mix; following further centrifugation, cell pellet transferred to PreservCyt® solution. Slides were prepared on a ThinPrep® 2000 Processor and stained with various stains. The slides were superior preparations for examination and assessment of pathological abnormality. All haemopoetic cell lines were represented and elimination of RBCs allowed quicker and easier assessment of bone marrow cells. All cases were photomicrographed and images of bone marrow ThinPrep® preparations were compared to those of direct smears and bone marrow trephine biopsies. All 50 cases were presented at the local MDT meetings over an 8 months period. The ThinPrep® preparation made a significant contribution to diagnosis and management of patients with bone marrow abnormalities. We acknowledge the support from Cytyc UK Ltd for this research project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]