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We investigated T1 relaxations of ex-vivo cancer tissues at low magnetic fields in order to check the possibility of achieving a T1 contrast higher than those obtained at high fields. The T1 relaxations of fifteen pairs (normal and cancerous) of breast tissue samples were measured at three magnetic fields, 37, 62, and 122 μT, using our superconducting quantum interference device-based ultralow field nuclear magnetic resonance setup, optimally developed for ex-vivo tissue studies. A signal reconstruction based on Bayesian statistics for noise reduction was exploited to overcome the low signal-to-noise ratio. The ductal and lobular-type tissues did not exhibit meaningful T1 contrast values between normal and cancerous tissues at the three different fields. On the other hand, an enhanced T1 contrast was obtained for the mucinous cancer tissue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trigeminal neuralgia (TN) is a severe type of facial pain. A neurovascular conflict between cranial nerve V and a nearby vessel is the main pathophysiological mechanism, but additional factors are likely necessary to elicit TN. In this study, the primary aim was to explore differences in protein expression in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of TN patients in relation to controls. Methods: Sixteen TN patients treated with microvascular decompression and 16 control patients undergoing spinal anesthesia for urological conditions were included. Lumbar CSF was collected preoperatively for the TN patients and before spinal anesthesia for the controls. A multiplexed proximity extension analysis of 91 CSF proteins was conducted using Proseek Multiplex Development 96, including biomarkers of cell communication, cell death, neurogenesis, and inflammation Results: The TN patients and the controls were of similar age, sex, and burden of co-morbidities. The TN patients exhibited higher concentrations of Clec11a, LGMN, MFG-E8, and ANGPTL-4 in CSF than the controls (q < 0.05). Conclusions: TN patients exhibited increased CSF biomarkers indicative of peripheral demyelinating injury (Clec11a), immune tolerance and destruction of myelin (LGMN), neuronal cell death (MFG-E8), and disturbances in myelin clearance (ANGPTL-8). Our findings are hypothesis-generating for candidate biomarkers and pathophysiological processes in classical TN.

Introduction Despite the high prevalence of obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) in obese patients undergoing bariatric surgery, OSA is undiagnosed in the majority of patients and thus untreated. While untreated OSA is associated with an increased risk of preoperative and postoperative complications, no evidence-based guidelines on perioperative care for these patients are available. The aim of the POPCORN study (Post-Operative Pulse oximetry without OSA sCreening vs perioperative continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) treatment following OSA scReeNing by polygraphy (PG)) is to evaluate which perioperative strategy is the most cost-effective for obese patients undergoing bariatric surgery without a history of OSA.Methods and analysis In this multicentre observational cohort study, data from 1380 patients who will undergo bariatric surgery will be collected. Patients will receive either postoperative care with pulse oximetry monitoring and supplemental oxygen during the first postoperative night, or care that includes preoperative PG and CPAP treatment in case of moderate or severe OSA. Local protocols for perioperative care in each participating hospital will determine into which cohort a patient is placed. The primary outcome is cost-effectiveness, which will be calculated by comparing all healthcare costs with the quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs, calculated using EQ-5D questionnaires). Secondary outcomes are mortality, complications within 30 days after surgery, readmissions, reoperations, length of stay, weight loss, generic quality of life (QOL), OSA-specific QOL, OSA symptoms and CPAP adherence. Patients will receive questionnaires before surgery and 1, 3, 6 and 12 months after surgery to report QALYs and other patient-reported outcomes.Ethics and dissemination Approval from the Medical Research Ethics Committees United was granted in accordance with the Dutch law for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects Act (WMO) (reference number W17.050). Results will be submitted for publication in peer-reviewed journals and presented at (inter)national conferences.Trial registration number NTR6991.

MicroRNAs (miRs) are one of the most important post-transcriptional repressors of gene expression. However, miR-574-5p has recently been shown to positively regulate the expression of microsomal prostaglandin E-synthase-1 (mPGES-1), a key enzyme in the prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) biosynthesis, by acting as decoy to the RNA-binding protein CUG-RNA binding protein 1 (CUGBP1) in human lung cancer. miR-574-5p exhibits oncogenic properties and promotes lung tumor growth in vivo via induction of mPGES-1-derived PGE2 synthesis. In a mass spectrometry-based proteomics study, we now attempted to characterize this decoy mechanism in A549 lung cancer cells at a cellular level. Besides the identification of novel CUGBP1 targets, we identified that the interaction between miR-574-5p and CUGBP1 specifically regulates mPGES-1 expression. This is supported by the fact that CUGBP1 and miR-574-5p are located in the nucleus, where CUGBP1 regulates alternative splicing. Further, in a bioinformatical approach we showed that the decoy-dependent mPGES-1 splicing pattern is unique. The specificity of miR-574-5p/CUGBP1 regulation on mPGES-1 expression supports the therapeutic strategy of pharmacological inhibition of PGE2 formation, which may provide significant therapeutic value for NSCLC patients with high miR-574-5p levels.

Sarcomas are malignancies of mesenchymal origin that occur in bone and soft tissues. Many are chemo- and radiotherapy resistant, thus conventional treatments fail to increase overall survival. Natural Killer (NK) cells exert anti-tumor activity upon detection of a complex array of tumor ligands, but this has not been thoroughly explored in the context of sarcoma immunotherapy. In this study, we investigated the NK cell receptor/ligand immune profile of primary human sarcoma explants. Analysis of tumors from 32 sarcoma patients identified the proliferative marker PCNA and DNAM-1 ligands CD112 and/or CD155 as commonly expressed antigens that could be efficiently targeted by genetically modified (GM) NK cells. Despite the strong expression of CD112 and CD155 on sarcoma cells, characterization of freshly dissociated sarcomas revealed a general decrease in tumor-infiltrating NK cells compared to the periphery, suggesting a defect in the endogenous NK cell response. We also applied a functional screening approach to identify relevant NK cell receptor/ligand interactions that induce efficient anti-tumor responses using a panel NK-92 cell lines GM to over-express 12 different activating receptors. Using GM NK-92 cells against primary sarcoma explants (n = 12) revealed that DNAM-1 over-expression on NK-92 cells led to efficient degranulation against all tested explants (n = 12). Additionally, NKG2D over-expression showed enhanced responses against 10 out of 12 explants. These results show that DNAM-1+ or NKG2D+ GM NK-92 cells may be an efficient approach in targeting sarcomas. The degranulation capacity of GM NK-92 cell lines was also tested against various established tumor cell lines, including neuroblastoma, Schwannoma, melanoma, myeloma, leukemia, prostate, pancreatic, colon, and lung cancer. Enhanced degranulation of DNAM-1+ or NKG2D+ GM NK-92 cells was observed against the majority of tumor cell lines tested. In conclusion, DNAM-1 or NKG2D over-expression elicited a dynamic increase in NK cell degranulation against all sarcoma explants and cancer cell lines tested, including those that failed to induce a notable response in WT NK-92 cells. These results support the broad therapeutic potential of DNAM-1+ or NKG2D+ GM NK-92 cells and GM human NK cells for the treatment of sarcomas and other malignancies.

Purpose: Bone metastasis is an important factor for the treatment and prognosis of breast cancer patients. Whole-body bone scintigraphy (WBBS) can evaluate skeletal metastases, and F-FDG PET/CT seems to exhibit high specificity and accuracy in detecting bone metastases. However, there is a limitation of F-FDG PET in assessing sclerotic bone metastases because some lesions may be undetectable. Recent studies showed that F-fluoride PET/CT is more sensitive than WBBS in detecting bone metastases. This study aims to evaluate the usefulness of F-fluoride PET/CT by comparing it with WBBS and F-FDG PET/CT in breast cancer patients with osteosclerotic skeletal metastases. Materials and Methods: Nine breast cancer patients with suspected bone metastases (9 females; mean age ± SD, 55.6 ± 10.0 years) underwent Tc-MDP WBBS, F-FDG PET/CT and F-fluoride PET/CT. Lesion-based analysis of five regions of the skeletons (skull, vertebral column, thoracic cage, pelvic bones and long bones of extremities) and patient-based analysis were performed. Results: F-fluoride PET/CT, F-FDG PET/CT and WBBS detected 49, 20 and 25 true metastases, respectively. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of F-fluoride PET/CT were 94.2 %, 46.3 %, 57.7 % and 91.2 %, respectively. Most true metastatic lesions on F-fluoride PET/CT had osteosclerotic change (45/49, 91.8 %), and only four lesions showed osteolytic change. Most lesions on F-FDG PET/CT also demonstrated osteosclerotic change (17/20, 85.0 %) with three osteolytic lesions. All true metastatic lesions detected on WBBS and F-FDG PET/CT were identified on F-fluoride PET/CT. Conclusion: F-fluoride PET/CT is superior to WBBS or F-FDG PET/CT in detecting osteosclerotic metastatic lesions. F-fluoride PET/CT might be useful in evaluating osteosclerotic metastases in breast cancer patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY For color images, color histograms are generally used as the color feature vectors for classifying the colors of objects. To achieve a higher success rate in color classification, feature vectors with a higher dimension are required, yet this causes a low efficiency with regard to the computation time and memory usage. Therefore, this paper proposes a method of reducing the feature vector dimension by a factor of 170 based on combining two techniques: (i) projecting a color histogram generated in 3D color space into 2D color planes and (ii) converting the color histograms to class histograms using a naive Bayesian classifier. The resulting feature vectors are then classified using a support vector machine method and template matching method to recognize the object colors. With both classification methods, a better recognition rate is achieved than when using the original large feature vectors. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an efficient and robust algorithm for parameterizing the perspective silhoutte of a canal surface and detecting each connected component of the silhoutte. Advantages of models consisting of canal surfaces to computer graphics and animation; Derivation of the parametric representation of the perspective silhoutte curve of a given canal surface; Numerical examples.