1,720,962 research outputs found
Flow cytometry analysis of circulating endothelial cells in women with breast cancer. Preliminary results
No full textUsefulness of bone resorption markers CTX, TRAP5b, and PINP in patients with non-small cell lung cancer and bone metestases. Preliminary report study
No full textBackground: Non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) is the most common lung cancer, which represents the major cause of cancer death worldwide. The early diagnosis of NSCLC is difficult, and the sensitivity of common serum tumor markers, such as carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and fragments of cytokeratin 19 (CYFRA 21-1), is low. Unfortunately, bone metastases (BMs) are common in patients with NSCLC, and their early detection and treatment may improve both disease-free interval and survival. Several serum biomarkers have been proposed for the detection of BMs, such as carboxy-terminal telopeptide of type I collagen (CTX), tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase isoform type 5b (TRAP5b), and amino-terminal propeptide of type I collagen (PINP), which are markers of bone resorption. The aim of this preliminary study was to evaluate the usefulness of a panel of serum biomarkers in patients with NSCLC and BMs.
Patients and methods: Sixteen patients (11 males, 5 females, median age 64 years, range 54-68) with NSCLC and BMs (cases), and 18 age- and gender-matched patients without BMs (controls) underwent serum CTX, TRAP5b, PINP, CEA, and CYFRA 21-1 measurements. CTX was measured by automated immunometric assay, TRAP5b and CEA by two-site enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), PINP by radioimmuno assay (RIA), and CYFRA 21-1 by immunochemiluminescent assay. The cut-off values were 400 pg/mL (CTX), 5 U/L (TRAP5b), 3.5 ng/mL (CEA), 65 μg/L (PINP), and 45 pg/mL (CYFRA 21-1), respectively.
Results: CTX (443.7±945.1 vs. 402.7±28.4 pg/mL, p=0.003), and PINP (75.9±11.4 vs. 64.1±7.5 μg/L, p=0.001), were significantly higher in patients with BMs, while the other markers did not differ (p=NS) between cases and controls. The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy were 73.7%, 86.7%, and 79.4% (OR=18.2, 95% CI 2.99-110.7, p<0.0001) for CTX; 30.4%, 76.2%, and 67.6% (OR=6.22, 95% CI 1.06-36.5, p=0.038) for TRAP5b; 72.2%, 81.2%, and 76.5% (OR=11.26, 95% CI 2.21-57.20, p=0.002) for PINP; 55.5%, 62.5%, and 58.8% (OR=2.08, 95% CI 0.53-8.23, p=0.29) for CEA; 65.0%, 78.61%, and 70.6% (OR=6.81, 95% CI 1.41-32.8, p=0.012) for CYFRA 21-1, respectively.
Conclusions: In patients with NSCLC, both CTX and PINP measurements can be useful in the detection of BMs
Circulating PTH, vitamin D and IGF-I levels in relation to bone mineral density in elderly women.
No full textAge and reduced bone mineral density (BMD) represent major risk factors for vertebral fracture risk, especially in postmenopausal women, and measurement of BMD is currently considered of value in estimating bone mineralization. BMD correlates with demographics and anthropometric parameters, as well as with several markers of bone metabolism and calcium-regulating hormones, such as leptin, osteoprotegerin, parathyroid hormone (PTH), vitamin D, insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) and sex steroid hormones. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between PTH, 25(OH) vitamin D [25(OH)D], IGF-I and BMD in a selected group of elderly women. Thirty-one postmenopausal women over age 65, who were not estrogen, vitamin D or bisphosphonate users and did not have a history of fracture, bone disease or malignancy, were prospectively enrolled in the study. All the patients underwent lumbar spine dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) and serum calcium, creatinine, PTH, 25(OH)D and IGF-I measurements. As expected, a weakly inverse correlation between age and 25(OH)D (R= –0.50, p=0.020), and between BMD and PTH (R= –0.48, p=0.027) was found. There was a strong relationship between IGF-I and BMD (R=0.64, p=0.0016), and between age and IGF-I (R= –0.70, p<0.001), while IGF-I did not correlate with 25(OH)D (R= –0.16, p=0.48) or BMI (R= –0.089, p=0.70). In conclusion, in this selected group of elderly women, we found a strong relationship of increased bone resorption, expressed as BMD, to calcium-regulating hormones PTH and IGF-I, while 25(OH)D and BMI seem to be independent of bone mineralization status
Sea-blue histiocytosis secondary to Niemann-Pick disease type B: a case report.
No full textSea-blue histiocytosis is a morphological finding that can be associated both with acquired conditions of increased cellular turnover and inborn errors of lipid metabolism. We report a rare case of sea-blue histiocytosis associated with a mild phenotype of Niemann-Pick disease (NPD) type B in a 44-year-old man who presented with splenomegaly and mild thrombocytopenia. Diagnosis was guided by the morphological finding in bone marrow smears of foamy and sea-blue histiocytes and confirmed by the measurement of acid lysosomal sphingomyelinase activity below normal values. NPD type B is a rare inborn error of metabolism, with a benign course and prognosis, while types A and C are always associated with severe neurological involvement. In our patient diagnosis was confirmed by the specific enzyme assay of leukocytes (deficiency in sphingomyelinase activity). This is a simple and noninvasive method that is useful whenever clinical and morphological finding are relevant, and a primary hematological disorder has been ruled out
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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