1,720,997 research outputs found
Intraoperative electrochemotherapy in locally advanced pancreatic cancer: indications, techniques and results - a single‐center experience
No full textBackground Locally advanced pancreatic cancer (LAPC) is usually treated with chemoradiotherapy with poor results. The aim of the study was to assess whether intraoperative electrochemotherapy could be proposed as additional therapy in treat- ing LAPC.
Methods Observational study of patients affected by LAPC who underwent intraoperative electrochemotherapy (ECT) after chemoradiotherapy. Data at diagnosis, at restaging and short and long-term outcomes, including assessment of quality of life, were collected for each patient.
Results Five patients underwent ECT: in four cases, the tumours were located in the head and, in one, in the body of the pancreas. Preoperative chemotherapy consisted mainly of six cycles of modified Folfirinox. At restaging, the serum value of carbohydrate antigen (Ca 19–9) and tumour size were reduced; however, the vascular involvement did not change. No down- staging was recorded. The ECT procedure was performed using at least four needles with a mean duration time of 27 min (range 15–40). No postoperative mortality or major complications were reported. The mean length of stay (LOS) was 8 days (range 5–14). Four patients were alive and well at the end of the study, while one patient died from disease progression. The mean follow-up was 20.8 months (range 9–34) from diagnosis and 9.4 months (range 2–19) from ECT. The quality of life was good and there was improvement in pain/discomfort.
Conclusions Electrochemotherapy could be proposed as a simple, feasible and safe palliative additional treatment in LAPC without progression after chemoradiotherapy. It seems to allow a good quality of life and pain improvement
Clinical impact of nonselective beta-blockers on survival in patients with pancreatic cancer- revival of well known drugs?
No full textBackground: Basic research has suggested that adrenergic activation can promote PDAC growth. Here we investigate the impact of Beta- blockers (BB) in resected PDAC patients.
Method: Patients from two European pancreatic centers after resection of PDAC between 2002 and 2012 (n1⁄4595) were studied. 159 patients received BB. Seventeen patients with non-selective-BB (NSBB) were compared to 85 patients receiving no-BB (NBB) using a matched-pair analysis (1:5 scenario). 142 patients with beta1-selective agents (SB1B) were also studied. Univariate and multivariate survival analysis (Cox) was performed. Microtumors from PDAC were generated and treated with SB1B, beta2-selective blockers (SB2B; ICI118,551) and NSBB (propranolol) in addition to GEM.
Results: The median age was 70 years (22-88 years). For patients receiving any beta-blocker, the median OS was 25 vs. 21 mo for NBB (p1⁄40.0084). The median OS of patients receiving UBB was 40 vs. 23 mo for NBB (p1⁄40.0007) and 21 mo for patients with SB1B (p1⁄40.0396). Hyper- tension (HPT) was associated with decreased OS across all groups. Even among patients with HPT, a longer median OS was observed among UBB compared with NBB (40 vs 19 mo; p1⁄40.041). Microtumors when treated using NSBB or SB2B in addition to GEM showed a significantly lower re- sidual metabolic activity (p1⁄40.032).
Conclusion: For the first time a matched pair analysis comparing administration of NSBB to SB1B and NBB in PDAC patients is presented. UBB almost doubled OS in PDAC in an adjuvant setting, while SB1B did not show a difference. This data implicates that targeted therapy of the adrenergic beta2-pathway might be a promising therapeutic strategy in the treatment PDAC
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
Organizing pneumonia after pancreatic cancer treatment with nab-paclitaxel and gemcitabine: a case report
Full text linkThe incidence of pancreatic cancer is increasing. Most patients have advanced disease at diagnosis, and therapeutics is limited in this setting. Gemcitabine and nab-paclitaxel combination is indicated as first-line treatment in patients with metastatic cancer of pancreas. The most common adverse events of Grade 3 or higher gemcitabine and nab-paclitaxel combination are neutropenia, fatigue and neuropathy. In this report, we describe a rare case of organizing pneu- monia associated with the use of nab-paclitaxel and gemcitabine in metastatic pancreatic cancer. A 68-year-old female underwent total splenopancreatectomy for ductal adenocarcinoma of the neck of the pancreas, followed by adjuvant chemoradiation therapy. Afterwards she relapsed and received first-line chemotherapy with gemcitabine plus nab-pa- clitaxel combination for 12 cycles. Following the administration of the 12th cycle of gemcitabine plus nab-paclitaxel, the patient experienced low-grade pyrexia, effort dyspnoea, persistent non-productive cough and malaise. High-resolution CT scan of chest revealed new-onset bilateral peripheral ground-glass opacities, smooth interlobular septal thickening and patchy subpleural consolidation areas, findings consistent with organizing pneumonia. A thorough microbiological workup was negative. Treatment with steroids resulted in prompt clinical and radiological improvement. Organizing pneumonia closely mimics infection or progressive disease and can be difficult to diagnose in the setting of malignancy. Correct diagnosis is of primary importance since delay in treatment can result in significantly adverse patient outcomes
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
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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