1,721,234 research outputs found
Ruolo delle metodiche di Medicina Nucleare nella diagnosi e monitoraggio della osteoporosi primitiva.
No full textIn vitro multiparametric cellular analysis by micro organic charge-modulated field-effect transistor arrays
No full textModern electrophysiology has been constantly fueled by the parallel development of increasingly sophisticated tools and materials. In turn, discoveries in this field have driven technological progress in a back-and-forth process that ultimately determined the impressive achievements of the past 50 years. However, the most employed devices used for cellular interfacing (namely, the microelectrode arrays and microelectronic devices based on transistors) still present several limitations such as high cost, the rigidity of the materials, and the presence of an external reference electrode. To partially overcome these issues, there have been developments in a new scientific field called organic bioelectronics, resulting in advantages such as lower cost, more convenient materials, and innovative fabrication techniques. Several interesting new organic devices have been proposed during the past decade to conveniently interface with cell cultures. This paper presents the protocol for the fabrication of devices for cellular interfacing based on the organic charge-modulated field-effect transistor (OCMFET). These devices, called micro OCMFET arrays (MOAs), combine the advantages of organic electronics and the peculiar features of the OCMFET to prepare transparent, flexible, and reference-less tools with which it is possible to monitor both the electrical and the metabolic activities of cardiomyocytes and neurons in vitro, thus allowing a multiparametric evaluation of electrogenic cell models
Use of tomographic nuclear medicine procedures, SPECT and pinhole SPECT, with cationic lipophilic radiotracers for the evaluation of axillary lymph node status in breast cancer patients
No full textAbstract
Scintimammography with the cationic lipophilic (99m)Tc-tetrofosmin and (99m)Tc-methoxyisobutylisonitrile (MIBI) is one of the most widely available non-invasive imaging methods employed in the preoperative evaluation of breast cancer axillary lymph node status, for which, at present, axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) is still considered the method of choice. Comparative studies have demonstrated that single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) acquisition significantly improves the sensitivity and accuracy achieved with planar scintimammography, particularly when lymph nodes are non-palpable, small in size and limited in number. Thus, SPECT should be preferred to planar imaging, particularly in those patients without clinical suspicion of axillary metastatic involvement, given its high negative predictive value; however, false negative results have been reported due to the small size of lymph nodes and/or to partial or micrometastatic involvement. SPECT could also find clinical application in combination with radioguided sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy, providing additional useful information in selected cases. The performance of SPECT can be improved by using a pinhole collimator (pinhole SPECT), as recently demonstrated in comparative studies, and this method also determines the number of lymph nodes, thus delivering important prognostic information. Moreover, pinhole SPECT, the principal limitation of which (as with imaging methods) lies in its inability to detect micrometastases, has also proved capable of increasing the accuracy of radioguided SLN biopsy. However, only limited data relating to pinhole SPECT are available as yet, and clinical trials are necessary to validate its potential value
SPRINKLER IRRIGATION: AN “HERETICAL” METHOD AIMED TO MINIMIZE THE BIOACCUMULATION OF TOXIC ELEMENTS IN RICE GRAIN
No full textStretchable screen-printed PEDOT:PSS electrodes for upper-arm surface electromyography
No full textIn the past ten years, wearable electronics underwent tremendous growth. Undoubtedly, one of the fields that led this trend is represented by biomedical applications. In this field, wearable technologies can provide unique features such as the unobtrusive monitoring of biopotentials. Polymerbased electrodes developed for this purpose can take advantage of their seamless integration in the garments. However, the available solutions exhibit fragility in relation with the stretchability of the fabric, causing significant performance degradation.In this work, this problem is tackled by a novel deposition approach based on screen-printing technology. The electrodes are deposited onto the pre-stretched fabric to ensure the full functionality during common operating conditions. To this aim, a novel PEDOT:PSS conductive ink formulation and printing procedure were conceived. In order to prove the electrode performance for surface electromyography, we printed the electrodes directly onto a commercial stretchable polyester sleeve for sport applications. The electrodes allowed to reliably record the muscular activity of the forearm with performance comparable to that of commercial gelled Ag/AgCl electrodes. The obtained results suggest that the proposed approach can be valuably used in health and fitness applications
Detection of axillary lymph node metastases in breast cancer with Tc-99m tetrofosmin scintigraphy.
No full textInt J Oncol. 2002 Mar;20(3):483-7.
Detection of axillary lymph node metastases in breast cancer with Tc-99m tetrofosmin scintigraphy.
Schillaci O, Scopinaro F, Spanu A, Donnetti M, Danieli R, Di Luzio E, Madeddu G, David V.
SourceUniversity of Rome, Rome, Italy. [email protected]
Abstract
The most important prognostic factor in breast (B) cancer (C) is axillary (A) lymph (L) node (N) status, and virtually all patients with BC undergo ALN dissection to assess N involvement. The aim of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of planar and tomographic Tc-99m tetrofosmin scintigraphy in the detection of ALN involvement in BC. A group of 85 female patients (age range: 31-82 years) with 87 BCs were studied before surgery. Three planar images, right and left prone lateral and supine anterior thoracic views, and 360 degrees supine thoracic single photon emission tomography (SPET) were acquired after Tc-99m tetrofosmin injection (740 MBq i.v.). ALN status was evaluated by histological exam after A dissection: metastatic ALN involvement was proved in 31 out of 87 cases. Sensitivity was 87.1% (27/31) for SPET and 61.3% (19/31) for planar images (p3 metastatic Ns and in 10/13 (76.9%) with < or = 3 involved Ns, whereas planar images were positive in 14/18 (77.8%) and in 5/13 (38.5%) cases, respectively. In conclusion, our findings indicate that Tc-99m tetrofosmin scintigraphy is useful in the presurgical detection of ALN metastases in BC, with SPET more accurate than conventional planar images, thus suggesting its more frequent use in scintimammography; moreover, the total number of histologically involved Ns can affect the scintigraphic results.
PMID:11836558[PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE
Interfacing cells with organic transistors: a review of in vitro and in vivo applications
Full text linkRecently, organic bioelectronics has attracted considerable interest in the scientific community. The impressive growth that it has undergone in the last 10 years has allowed the rise of the completely new field of cellular organic bioelectronics, which has now the chance to compete with consolidated approaches based on devices such as micro-electrode arrays and ISFET-based transducers both inin vitroandin vivoexperimental practice. This review focuses on cellular interfaces based on organic active devices and has the intent of highlighting the recent advances and the most innovative approaches to the ongoing and everlasting challenge of interfacing living matter to the “external world” in order to unveil the hidden mechanisms governing its behavior. Device-wise, three different organic structures will be considered in this work, namely the organic electrochemical transistor (OECT), the solution-gated organic transistor (SGOFET - which is presented here in two possible different versions according to the employed active material, namely: the electrolyte-gated organic transistor - EGOFET, and the solution gated graphene transistor - gSGFET), and the organic charge modulated field effect transistor (OCMFET). Application-wise, this work will mainly focus on cellular-based biosensors employed inin vitroandin vivocellular interfaces, with the aim of offering the reader a comprehensive retrospective of the recent past, an overview of the latest innovations, and a glance at the future prospects of this challenging, yet exciting and still mostly unexplored scientific field
Imaging Findings of 18F-Choline and 18F-DOPA PET/MRI in a Case of Glioblastoma Multiforme Pseudoprogression: Correlation with Clinical Outcome
No full textwe describe the case of 74-year-old-male, previously treated with fronto-parietal craniotomy due to primary glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), followed by concurrent radiation therapy (RT) and temozolomide (TMZ) chemotherapy. magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain, at 1 month after completing RT + TMZ, depicted partial response. three months later, the patient was submitted to a further brain MRI, that resulted doubtful for therapy induced changes (i.e., pseudoprogression). the patient, who had been previously treated with prostatectomy for prostate cancer (PC), underwent a positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) scan with 18F-choline for PC biochemical recurrence. 18F-choline whole body PET/CT resulted negative for PC relapse, while segmental brain PET, co-registered with MRI, demonstrated increased tracer uptake corresponding to tumor boundaries. In order to solve differential diagnosis between pseudoprogression and GBM recurrence, brain PET/CT with 18F-L-dihydroxy-phenil-alanine (18F-DOPA) was subsequently performed: fused axial PET/MRI images showed increased 18F-DOPA incorporation in the peri-tumoral edema, but not in tumor boundaries, consistent with the suspicion of GBM pseudoprogression, as then confirmed by clinical and radiological follow-up
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
- …
