1,720,969 research outputs found
Report (2017) of the International Registry on Hand and Composite Tissue Allotransplantation (IRHCTT)
No full textPurpose of Review: Analysis of all upper extremity (UET) and face allotransplantations (FT) reported to the International Registry on Hand and Composite Tissue Transplantation (IRHCTT) by May 2017. Recent Findings: The IRHCTT includes 66 cases of UET (18 unilateral and 38 bilateral) and 30 of FT. Acute and chronic rejections were reported in the presence of immunosuppression. Complications similar to those reported in solid organ transplantation occurred. UET patient survival was 96.7% at 1, 5, and 10 years after transplantation; graft survival was 90.4% at 1 year and 86.6% at 5 and 10 years. FT patient survival was 96.6% at 1 year and 96.2% at 5 years; graft survival was 96.6% at 1 and 5 years. The majority of UET and FT recipients were satisfied of their graft. Summary: UET and FT are complex procedures requiring long-life immunosuppression; their success requires the patients’ careful selection, through evaluation, follow-up and compliance to the immunosuppression
Serological markers of recurrent beta cell destruction in diabetic patients undergoing pancreatic transplantation
No full textBackground. Besides alloimmunity to transplanted pancreatic tissue, recurrent autoimmune beta cell destruction is an additional limitation to successful clinical pancreatic allografts in type 1 diabetic patients. Methods. We studied the prevalence of autoantibodies to glutamate decarboxylase (GAD) 65 and tyrosine phosphatase (IA-2) in 68 C-peptide- negative diabetic patients receiving pancreatic allografts. Sera from patients were obtained immediately before grafting. A second blood sample was analyzed at the time of graft failure in patients who returned to hyperglycemia and during the same follow-up period in those who experienced a functional pancreatic allograft. Patients were classified according to clinical outcome into chronic graft failure (group A, n=20), acute graft failure and/or arterial thrombosis (n=7), or functional pancreatic graft (group C, n=41). Sera from patients were screened for the presence of specific autoantibodies using an islet cell autoantibody assay, a combiGAD and IA-2 test, and individual GAD and IA-2 assays. Results. Patients from group A has significantly higher combi-test values than patients from group C (13±16 vs. 4.5±12 units, P<0.02) and higher anti-GAD65 antibody (Ab) levels (0.19±0.3 vs. 0.04±0.13 units, P<0.01) immediately before grafting. After graft failure in group A, both anti-GAD65 and anti-IA-2 Ab levels increased from baseline, but only the increase in anti-IA-2 Ab levels reached statistical significance (0.28±0.12 vs. 15±34, P=0.03). When compared with group C, patients from group A had higher anti-GAD65 Abs (0.29±0.35 vs. 0.05±0.16, P<0.001) after graft failure. Interestingly, the number of double-Ab-positive patients rose from 5% to 35% in group A, whereas it remained at 5% in group C. In pancreatic transplants with bladder drainage, the presence of anti-GAD65 and/or anti-IA2 Abs was not associated with a reduction in urinary amylase levels. This suggests that a loss of endocrine function was not associated with exocrine failure in patients from group A. Conclusions. We can conclude from the present study that peripheral autoimmune markers are useful in diabetic patients receiving pancreatic allografts
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
Evidence of recurrent type I diabetes following HLA-mismatched pancreas transplantation
No full textSUMMARY - Type 1 diabetes mellitus is considered as an autoimmune disease against beta cells. Diabetes recurrence after pancreas transplantation is well known in HLA-identical twins while it is rarely reported in recipients of cadaveric pancreatic grafts. In the present case report, diabetes recurrence occurred in a recipient who underwent cadaveric combined pancreas kidney transplantation. Seven years after transplantation the patient exhibited progressive hyperglycemia needing insulin therapy while the renal graft was well functioning. The diagnosis of recurrent disease was obtained on the histological features such as selective loss of beta cells without clear signs of insulitis and on the presence of markers (GAD 65 and IA-2) for humoral autoimmunity. It is intriguing that, at the time of recurrence of type 1 diabetes, the patient had stopped steroids and azathioprine, while only cyclosporine was maintained as immunosuppressive treatment. Our case report underlines the relevance of studying the humoral autoimmune response directed to islet autoantigens in cadaveric pancreas allograft recipients. Furthermore, it suggests that an efficient immunosuppressive treatment after transplantation may be able to reduce the autoimmune response against the pancreatic allograft
Impact of pancreas function on long-term renal function in simultaneous pancreas-kidney transplantation
No full textVariations 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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