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In recent years non dermatophyte fungi (NDF) are often described as responsible for onychomycosis. The problem related to these fungi concern their identification and treatment. Nowadays a number of Aspergillus were observed in this kind of pathologies but the identification at level of species is frequently omitted. In this work we analysed 26 cases of onychomycosis caused by Aspergillus, belonging to 8 different species. The identification were based on micro- and macro-morphological characteristics; physiological characters; and molecular analysis (B-tubulin gene). 3 species are very interesting: A. perii, a species recently described; A.nominus, never described before in onychomycosis, and A.melleus, likely a new opportunistic fungus involved in medical mycology. Though the identification of these fungi is an additional workload for the laboratory of medical mycology, there is the need to increase the number of identified NDF in order to improve the management of onychomycosis.

Single-Cell Analysis is a growing field that endeavors to obtain genetic profiles of individual cells. Disruption of cell-cell junctions and digestion of extracellular matrix in tissues requires tissue-specific mechanical and chemical dissociation protocols. Here, a new approach for dissociating tissues into constituent cells is described. Placing a tissue biopsy core within a liquid-filled cavity and applying an electric field between two parallel plate electrodes facilitates rapid dissociation of complex tissues into single cells. Different solution compositions, electric field strengths, and oscillation frequencies are investigated experimentally and with COMSOL Multiphysics. The method is compared with standard chemical and mechanical approaches for tissue dissociation. Treatment of tissue samples at 100 V/cm 1 kHz facilitated dissociation of 95 ± 4% of biopsy tissue sections in as little as 5 min, threefold faster than conventional chemical-mechanical techniques. The approach affords good dissociation of tissues into single cells while preserving cell viability, morphology, and cell cycle progression, suggesting utility for sample preparation of tissue specimens for direct Single-Cell Analysis., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

The history of the scientific enterprise demonstrates that it has supported gender, identity, and racial inequity. Further, its institutions have allowed discrimination, harassment, and personal harm of racialized persons and women. This has resulted in a suboptimal and demographically narrow research and innovation system, a concomitant limited lens on research agendas, and less effective knowledge translation between science and society. We argue that, to reverse this situation, the scientific community must reexamine its values and then collectively embark upon a moonshot-level new agenda for equity. This new agenda should be based upon the foundational value that scientific research and technological innovation should be prefaced upon progress toward a better world for all of society and that the process of how we conduct research is just as important as the results of research. Such an agenda will attract individuals who have been historically excluded from participation in science, but we will need to engage in substantial work to overcome the longstanding obstacles to their full participation. We highlight the need to implement this new agenda via a coordinated systems approach, recognizing the mutually reinforcing feedback dynamics among all science system components and aligning our equity efforts across them., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing interest., (Copyright © 2022 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.)

Women in Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering (WiMPBME) is a Task Group established in 2014 under the International Union of Physical and Engineering Scientists in Medicine (IUPESM). The group's main role is to identify, develop, implement, and coordinate various tasks and projects related to women's needs and roles in medical physics and biomedical engineering around the world. The current paper summarizes the past, present and future goals and activities undertaken or planned by the Task group in order to motivate, nurture and support women in medical physics and biomedical engineering throughout their professional careers. In addition, the article includes the historical pathway followed by various women's groups and subcommittees from 2004 up to the present day and depicts future aims to further these professions in a gender-balanced manner., Competing Interests: Conflict of interestnone., (© The Author(s) under exclusive licence to International Union for Physical and Engineering Sciences in Medicine (IUPESM) 2022.)

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many people, including those in the fields of science and engineering, to work from home. The new working environment caused by the pandemic is assumed to have a different impact on the amount of work that women and men can do from home. Particularly, if the major burden of child and other types of care is still predominantly on the shoulders of women. As such, a survey was conducted to assess the main issues that biomedical engineers, medical physicists (academics and professionals), and other similar professionals have been facing when working from home during the pandemic. A survey was created and disseminated worldwide. It originated from a committee of International Union for Physical and Engineering Sciences in Medicine (IUPESM; Women in Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering Task Group) and supported by the Union. The ethics clearance was received from Carleton University. The survey was deployed on the Survey Monkey platform and the results were analyzed using IBM SPSS software. The analyses mainly consisted of frequency of the demographic parameters and the cross-tabulation of gender with all relevant variables describing the impact of work at home. A total of 921 responses from biomedical professions in 76 countries were received: 339 males, 573 females, and nine prefer-not-to-say/other. Regarding marital/partnership status, 85% of males were married or in partnership, and 15% were single, whereas 72% of females were married or in partnership, and 26% were single. More women were working from home during the pandemic (68%) versus 50% of men. More men had access to an office at home (68%) versus 64% for women. The proportion of men spending more than 3 h on child care and schooling per day was 12%, while for women it was 22%; for household duties, 8% of men spent more than 3 h; for women, this was 12.5%. It is interesting to note that 44% of men spent between 1 and 3 h per day on household duties, while for women, it was 55%. The high number of survey responses can be considered excellent. It is interesting to note that men participate in childcare and household duties in a relatively high percentage; although this corresponds to less hours daily than for women. It is far more than can be found 2 and 3 decades ago. This may reflect the situation in the developed countries only-as majority of responses (75%) was received from these countries. It is evident that the burden of childcare and household duties will have a negative impact on the careers of women if the burden is not more similar for both sexes. It is important to recognize that a change in policies of organizations that hire them may be required to provide accommodation and compensation to minimize the negative impact on the professional status and career of men and women who work in STEM fields., Competing Interests: The authors declare that there are no conflict of interests.Data available on request due to privacy/ethical restrictions: The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions., (© 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Leprosy is a chronic neglected infectious disease that affects over 200,000 people each year and causes disabilities in more than four million people in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The disease can appear with a wide spectrum of clinical forms, and therefore the clinical suspicion is often difficult. Refugees and migrants from endemic countries affected by leprosy can remain undiagnosed in Europe due to the unpreparedness of clinicians. We retrospectively describe the characteristics of 55 refugees/migrants with a diagnosis of leprosy established in Italy from 2009 to 2018. Continents of origin were Africa (42%), Asia (40%), and South and Central America (18%). The symptoms reported were skin lesions (91%), neuropathy (71%), edema (7%), eye involvement (6%), fever (6%), arthritis (4%), and lymphadenopathy (4%). Seven patients (13%) had irreversible complications. Overall, 35% were relapses and 66% multibacillary leprosy. Furthermore, we conducted a review of 17 case reports or case series and five nationwide reports, published in the same decade, describing 280 migrant patients with leprosy in Europe. In Europe, leprosy is a rare chronic infectious disease, but it has not completely disappeared. Diagnosis and treatment of leprosy in refugees and migrants from endemic countries are a challenge. European guidelines for this neglected disease in this high-risk population would be beneficial.

During the Middle Ages, leprosy sufferers could not live in the city and were forced outside the walls. In the centuries, the Genoese area dedicated several hospitals to lepers, such as S. Lazzaro and Pammatone Hospital, a small leprosarium in the Tigullio area and San Martino Hospital from 1935. The first doctor who recognized to cure leprosy in Genoa was Goffredo, who later was also nominated rector of the community. In the early 1900's, Radaeli promoted the construction of a leprosarium behind the San Martino hospital. In 1936 Giuseppe Mariani was known for using the leprosarium to hide Italian Jews during deportation to the extermination camps. Later, Professor Aldo Baccaredda-Boy instituted the graduate school in "Leprosy and Tropical Dermatology", continued by professor Enrico Nunzi until 1990. The leprosarium was then transformed into the Department of Tropical Dermatology and finally into the Operative Unit of Social Dermatology, a national reference center.

Patients with leprosy rarely present ulcerated lesions that can appear during reactional states like Lucio's phenomenon (LP), as in our case. LP is a rare complication of multibacillary leprosy due to massive bacilli invasion of endothelial cells causing a thrombotic syndrome. The initial macular lesion is purpuric followed by multiple infiltrated papules and nodules, some of them ulcerated, associated to loss of sensation on lower limbs. The importance of recognizing ulcers as a specific cutaneous manifestation of leprosy allows early diagnosis and treatment, and therefore avoiding the development of disabilities and persistence of illness. Infection by Mycobacterium lepromatosis is associated with LP and it should be especially sought in patients from endemic areas., Competing Interests: None

The aim of this article is to offer a view of the current status of women in medical physics and biomedical engineering, while focusing on solutions towards gender balance and providing examples of current activities carried out at national and international levels. The International Union of Physical and Engineering Scientists in Medicine is committed to advancing women in science and health and has several initiatives overseen by the Women in Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering Task Group. Some of the main strategies proposed by the Task Group to attain gender balance are: (a) identify and promote female role models that achieve successful work-life balance, (b) establish programs to develop female leaders, (c) create opportunities for females to increase the international visibility within the scientific community, and (d) establish archives and databases of women in STEM.

Humans rely on their sense of touch to interact with the environment. Thus, restoring lost tactile sensory capabilities in amputees would advance their quality of life. In particular, texture discrimination is an important component for the interaction with the environment, but its restoration in amputees has been so far limited to simplified gratings. Here we show that naturalistic textures can be discriminated by trans-radial amputees using intraneural peripheral stimulation and tactile sensors located close to the outer layer of the artificial skin. These sensors exploit the morphological neural computation (MNC) approach, i.e., the embodiment of neural computational functions into the physical structure of the device, encoding normal and shear stress to guarantee a faithful neural temporal representation of stimulus spatial structure. Two trans-radial amputees successfully discriminated naturalistic textures via the MNC-based tactile feedback. The results also allowed to shed light on the relevance of spike temporal encoding in the mechanisms used to discriminate naturalistic textures. Our findings pave the way to the development of more natural bionic limbs.

The objective of this article is to present our experience with the 3-mm instruments using the Senhance surgical robotic system in gynecological and abdominal surgery from July to December 2017 by a retrospective observational study. All patients who underwent a robot-assisted 3-mm laparoscopic procedure with the Senhance surgical robotic system were enrolled. Two separate populations were involved: nine female gynecological patients and five digestive surgery patients. Five cholecystectomies, three annexectomies, four ovarian cystectomies, one myomectomy and one endometriotic nodule resection were performed. For the gynecological cases, the median time spent at the console was 37 min (12-77), while the total duration of the intervention was 81.33 min. All the interventions were performed on an outpatient basis. There were no postoperative complications. The average visual analog scale for pain (VAS) was 2.11 (± 1.91) on D0. For the abdominal surgery cases, the median time was 39 min (21-64). The average total duration of the intervention was 87.4 min (± 36.82). One of the five interventions was performed on an outpatient basis. There was one laparoscopy conversion. No postoperative complications in the 2 weeks following the operation. There are few 3-mm instruments available with the Senhance surgical robotic system, which limits the number of interventions. However, it is possible to perform gynecological interventions with 3-mm instruments on an outpatient basis in complete safety. It is possible to perform cholecystectomies by pairing the use of 3-mm and 5-mm instruments. The recent arrival of new 3-mm instruments will enable a wider range of surgical indications.

Retrorectal tumors (RRT), whether benign or malignant in nature, are rare in adults and often asymptomatic. While diagnosis is based on clinical findings, differential diagnosis depends mainly on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). MRI provides guidance for surgical management, the first-line treatment of choice. Four surgical approaches are described: abdominal, perineal, posterior and abdomino-sacral.. This review of major reported series has made it possible to specify the indications for each surgical approach, as well as the advantages, disadvantages and complications of each one. The choice of surgical approach is determined by the nature of the RRT, its anatomical position relative to the middle of the third sacral vertebra (S3) and the presence or absence of invasion of the neighboring organs, the pelvis or sacral vertebrae. The abdominal route is chosen for tumors situated above the middle of S3, whether benign or malignant, but without invasion of neighboring organs. The perineal route is indicated for benign RRT situated below the middle of S3. The posterior route is chosen for tumors located below the middle of S3, and allows an associated resection of sacral segments in case of tumor invasion. The combined abdomino-sacral route is indicated for RRT above the middle of S3, when there is an invasion of a pelvic organ or a sacral vertebra. Intra- and post-operative complications are mainly hemorrhagic, neurological and infectious. The long-term prognosis is usually favorable, but varies according to the nature of the RRT and its management., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: Hiatal hernias (HH) after oesophagectomy are rare, and their surgical management is not well standardized. Our goal was to report on the management of HH after oesophagectomy in high-volume tertiary European French-speaking centres., Methods: We conducted a retrospective multicentre study among 19 European French-speaking departments of upper gastrointestinal and/or thoracic surgery. All patients scheduled or operated on for the repair of an HH after oesophagectomy were collected between 2000 and 2016. Demographics, details of the initial procedure, surgical management and long-term outcome were analysed., Results: Seventy-nine of 6608 (1.2%) patients who had oesophagectomies were included in the study. The postoesophagectomy diagnostic interval of an HH after oesophagectomy was ≤90 days (n = 17; 21%), 13 were emergency cases; between 91 days and 1 year, n = 21 (27%), 13 in emergency; ≥1 year, n = 41 (52%), 17 in emergency. The time to occurrence of HH after oesophagectomy was shorter after laparoscopy (median 308 days; interquartile range 150-693) compared to that after laparotomy (median 562 days, interquartile range 138-1768; P = 0.01). The incidence of HH after oesophagectomy was 0.73% (22/3010) after open surgery and 1.4% (26/1761) after laparoscopy (P = 0.03). Among the 79 patients, 78 were operated on: 35 had laparotomies (45%), 19 had laparoscopies (24%) and 24 (31%) had transthoracic approaches. Among the 43 urgent surgeries, 35 were open (25 laparotomies and 10 transthoracic approaches) and 8 were laparoscopies (conversion rate, 25%). Nine patients required bowel resections. Morbidity occurred in 36 (46%) patients with 1 postoperative death (1.2%). During the follow-up period, recurrent HH after oesophagectomy requiring revisional surgery developed in 8 (6 days-26 months) patients., Conclusions: Surgical management of HH after oesophagectomy could be done by laparoscopy in patients with scheduled surgery but laparotomy or thoracotomy was preferred in urgent situations. The incidence of HH after oesophagectomy is higher and its onset earlier when laparoscopy is used at the initial oesophagectomy., (© The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery. All rights reserved.)

Neural signal decoding is the basis for the development of neuroprosthetic devices and systems. Depending on the part of the nervous system these signals are picked up from, different signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) can be experienced. Wavelet denoising is often adopted due to its capability of reducing, to some extent, the noise falling within the signal spectrum. Several variables influence the denoising quality, but usually the focus in on the selection of the best performing mother wavelet. However, the threshold definition and the way it is applied to the signal have a significant impact on the denoising quality, determining the amount of noise removed and the distortion introduced on the signal. This work presents a comparative analysis of different threshold definition and thresholding mechanisms on neural signals, either largely adopted for neural signal processing or not. In order to evaluate the quality of the denoising in terms of the introduced distortion, which is important when decoding is implemented through spike-sorting algorithms, a synthetic dataset built on real action potentials was used, creating signals with different SNR and characterized by an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN). The obtained results reveal the superiority of an approach, originally conceived for noisy non-linear time series, over the more typical ones. When compared to the original signal, a correlation above 0.9 was obtained, while in terms of root mean square error (RMSE) an improvement of 13% and 33% was reported with respect to the Minimax and Universal thresholds respectively.

A biomedical interface that combines into a single and compact device the recording of biopotentials and the electrical stimulation of neural fibres is presented. It is intended for enabling the control over a robotic hand and for restoring the sensory feedback in amputees by directly interfacing the peripheral nervous system (PNS) in closed-loop. A modular system consisting in one or more independent 16-channels bidirectional units was conceived. Each module is based on three 0.35μm bulk-CMOS integrated circuits (ICs): a recording unit, a High-Voltage (HV) stimulator and a HV booster. A tunable bandwidth (10Hz-8kHz) allows the recording IC to acquire both electroneurographyc (ENG) and electromiographyc (EMG) signals with a programmable gain up to 43.5dB. The signals are then converted into a digital domain by means of a ΣΔ converter. Due to the typical high impedance at the electrode-tissue interface, a programmable HV booster that increases the stimulation voltage up to 19V was designed. It is directly controlled by the stimulation module that generates current-based pulses with a programmable amplitude and pulse-width. The whole system was validated by means of in-vivo experiments in rats.

Management of intrathoracic anastomotic leaks remains an important clinical challenge. We describe a case about a patient with intrathoracic esophageal anastomotic leaks after oesogastrectomy. Ndoscopic Vacuum-assisted closure technique today is an effective alternative in the treatment of anastomotic leaks after upper gastrointestinal tract surgery.

Indocyanine green (ICG) is increasingly being used in digestive oncology. In colorectal cancer, ICG can be used to detect lymph node metastasis and hepatic metastasis on the surface of the liver. In peritoneal carcinomatosis, it was previously suspected that the diffusion of ICG in the tumor mass was due to the enhanced permeability and retention effect; however, this phenomenon has not been clearly demonstrated. Using bevacizumab, an antibody directed against vascular endothelial growth factor that consequently inhibits neoangiogenesis, we sought to confirm the mode of ICG diffusion. We compared the fluorescence of peritoneal carcinomatosis nodules from patients who had previously received bevacizumab during their oncologic treatment with those who did not receive this therapy. The sensitivity of the carcinomatosis nodule fluorescence was higher in the patients who did not receive bevacizumab compared with those who received the drug (76.3% and 65.0%, respectively). The rate of false-negative results was higher in the bevacizumab group than in the group that did not receive the drug (53.8% and 42.9%, respectively). Using bevacizumab, we demonstrate that the enhanced permeability and retention effect causes ICG accumulation in peritoneal carcinomatosis resulting from colorectal cancer.

Introduction In this paper, we evaluated patients' perspectives on the use of a system for home tele-rehabilitation, designed for subjects with low computer literacy suffering hand impairment due to rheumatic diseases. Methods After a clinical trial assessing device effectiveness, the Psychosocial Impact of Assistive Devices Scale (PIADS), Quebec User Evaluation of Satisfaction with Assistive Technology (QUEST) and Individually Prioritised Problem Assessment (IPPA) questionnaires were administered to evaluate the system's impact on each patient's life, and the results were correlated with clinical indices. Patients were asked to continue self-administered rehabilitation with common objects. One year later, a semi-structured telephone interview gathered data on their experience. Results The system received a positive QUEST score (4.5 ± 0.3) and a modest PIADS score (0.84 ± 0.8) due to the small impact on adaptability and self-esteem. The IPPA (3.7 ± 3.4) revealed improvement in the ability to perform tasks considered important, which was significantly correlated ( r = 0.60; p < 0.02) with the clinical Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ) index improvement. The interviews revealed a positive engagement effect, enhanced by the need to develop skills to be able to use the device (technological challenge) and by the perception of more attention by the medical staff. This may explain the significant dropout rate (80%) from the post-trial rehabilitation of the patients who used the device. Discussion The system was largely accepted by the patients. The results suggest that the need for information on their rehabilitation progress and the technological challenge deserves further study to make patients more autonomous in cases of continuous rehabilitation.

Background: The efficacy and safety of treating elderly patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) is of concern. This study aimed to compare the short- and long-term outcomes of elective laparoscopic vs. open surgery to treat CRC in very elderly patients., Methods: All patients aged >80 years and who had undergone a colectomy for CRC without metastasis between July 2005 and April 2012 were considered for inclusion. Demographic, clinical, operative, and postoperative data, plus overall and disease-free survival rates, were retrospectively collected and compared between two groups of patients that underwent an open procedure (OP group) or laparoscopy (LG)., Results: 123 patients were enrolled (55 OPG, 68 LG). Median age was similar between the groups (84 vs. 83 years, respectively; NS). Duration of surgery was significantly lower in OPG (170 vs. 200min; p=0.030). Overall mortality at 3 months was 8.3%: it tended to be greater in the OPG (16.5% vs. 1.5%, NS). Morbidity was significantly greater in the OPG compared to the LG (52.7% vs. 27.5%; p=0.021), resulting in significantly longer hospital stay (12 vs. 8 days, respectively; p<0.001). Pathological findings were similar between the two groups. Cumulative overall survival rates at 3 and 5 years were significantly greater after laparoscopy (85% and 72%) compared to open surgery (58.2% and 48%, respectively; p<0.001)., Conclusions: Our study suggests that laparoscopy is safe and could increase overall survival compared to open surgery in elderly patients suffering from CRC., Summary: This retrospective study compared the short- and longer-term outcomes of patients aged >80 years and undergoing elective laparoscopic or open surgery for CRC between 2005 and 2012., (Copyright © 2016 Editrice Gastroenterologica Italiana S.r.l. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Purposes: This study assesses the value of using Intraoperative Near Infrared Fluorescence Imaging and Indocyanine green to detect colorectal carcinomatosis during oncological surgery. In colorectal carcinomatosis cancer, two of the most important prognostic factors are completeness of staging and completeness of cytoreductive surgery. Presently, intraoperative assessment of tumoral margins relies on palpation and visual inspection. The recent introduction of Near Infrared fluorescence image guidance provides new opportunities for surgical roles, particularly in cancer surgery., Methods: The study was a non-randomized, monocentric, pilot "ex vivo" blinded clinical trial validated by the ethical committee of University Hospital of Saint Etienne. Ten patients with colorectal carcinomatosis cancer scheduled for cytoreductive surgery were included. Patients received 0.25 mg/kg of Indocyanine green intravenously 24 h before surgery. A Near Infrared camera was used to detect "ex-vivo" fluorescent lesions., Results: There was no surgical mortality. Each analysis was done blindly. In a total of 88 lesions analyzed, 58 were classified by a pathologist as cancerous and 30 as non-cancerous. Among the 58 cancerous lesions, 42 were correctly classified by the Intraoperative Near-Infrared camera (sensitivity of 72.4%). Among the 30 non-cancerous lesions, 18 were correctly classified by the Intraoperative Near-Infrared camera (specificity of 60.0%)., Conclusions: Near Infrared fluorescence imaging is a promising technique for intraoperative tumor identification. It could help the surgeon to determine resection margins and reduce the risk of locoregional recurrence., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd, BASO ~ the Association for Cancer Surgery, and the European Society of Surgical Oncology. All rights reserved.)

The control of upper limb neuroprostheses through the peripheral nervous system (PNS) can allow restoring motor functions in amputees. At present, the important aspect of the real-time implementation of neural decoding algorithms on embedded systems has been often overlooked, notwithstanding the impact that limited hardware resources have on the efficiency/effectiveness of any given algorithm. Present study is addressing the optimization of a template matching based algorithm for PNS signals decoding that is a milestone for its real-time, full implementation onto a floating-point digital signal processor (DSP). The proposed optimized real-time algorithm achieves up to 96% of correct classification on real PNS signals acquired through LIFE electrodes on animals, and can correctly sort spikes of a synthetic cortical dataset with sufficiently uncorrelated spike morphologies (93% average correct classification) comparably to the results obtained with top spike sorter (94% on average on the same dataset). The power consumption enables more than 24 h processing at the maximum load, and latency model has been derived to enable a fair performance assessment. The final embodiment demonstrates the real-time performance onto a low-power off-the-shelf DSP, opening to experiments exploiting the efferent signals to control a motor neuroprosthesis.

Objective The aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility and future clinical applications of near-infrared (NIR) fluorescence imaging to guide liver resection surgery for metastatic cancer to improve resection margins. Summary Background Data A subset of patients with metastatic hepatic tumors can be cured by surgery. The degree of long-term and disease-free survival is related to the quality of surgery, with the best resection defined as "R0" (complete removal of all tumor cells, as evidenced by microscopic examination of the margins). Although intraoperative ultrasonography can evaluate the surgical margins, surgeons need a new tool to perfect the surgical outcome. Methods A preliminary study was performed on 3 patients. We used NIR imaging postoperatively "ex vivo" on the resected liver tissue. The liver tumors were preoperatively labelled by intravenously injecting the patient with indocyanine green (ICG), a NIR fluorescent agent (24 hours before surgery, 0.25 mg/kg). Fluorescent images were obtained using a miniaturized fluorescence imaging system (FluoStic, Fluoptics, Grenoble, France). Results After liver resection, the surgical specimens from each patient were sliced into 10-mm sections in the operating room and analyzed with the FluoStic. All metastatic tumors presented rim-type fluorescence. Two specimens had incomplete rim fluorescence. The pathologist confirmed the presence of R1 margins (microscopic residual resection), even though the ultrasonographic analysis indicated that the result was R0. Conclusions Surgical liver resection guided by NIR fluorescence can help detect potentially uncertain anatomical areas that may be missed by preoperative imaging and by ultrasonography during surgery. These preliminary results will need to be confirmed in a larger prospective patient series., (© The Author(s) 2015.)

Goal: To evaluate a novel kind of textile electrodes based on woven fabrics treated with, Pedot: PSS, through an easy fabrication process, testing these electrodes for biopotential recordings., Methods: Fabrication is based on raw fabric soaking in, Pedot: PSS using a second dopant, squeezing and annealing. The electrodes have been tested on human volunteers, in terms of both skin contact impedance and quality of the ECG signals recorded at rest and during physical activity (power spectral density, baseline wandering, QRS detectability, and broadband noise)., Results: The electrodes are able to operate in both wet and dry conditions. Dry electrodes are more prone to noise artifacts, especially during physical exercise and mainly due to the unstable contact between the electrode and the skin. Wet (saline) electrodes present a stable and reproducible behavior, which is comparable or better than that of traditional disposable gelled Ag/AgCl electrodes., Conclusion: The achieved results reveal the capability of this kind of electrodes to work without the electrolyte, providing a valuable interface with the skin, due to mixed electronic and ionic conductivity of, Pedot: PSS. These electrodes can be effectively used for acquiring ECG signals., Significance: Textile electrodes based on, Pedot: PSS represent an important milestone in wearable monitoring, as they present an easy and reproducible fabrication process, very good performance in wet and dry (at rest) conditions and a superior level of comfort with respect to textile electrodes proposed so far. This paves the way to their integration into smart garments.