704 research outputs found
Utilizing biomarkers in colorectal cancer: an interview with Ajay Goel
No full text Ajay Goel speaks to Rachel Jenkins, Commissioning Editor. Ajay Goel, PhD, is a Professor and Director, Center for Gastrointestinal Research, and Director, Center for Translational Genomics and Oncology, at the Baylor Scott & White Research Institute, Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. Dr Goel has spent more than 20 years researching cancer and has been the lead author or contributor to over 240 scientific articles published in peer-reviewed international journals and several book chapters. He is also a primary inventor on more than 15 international patents aimed at developing various biomarkers for the diagnosis, prognosis and prediction of gastrointestinal cancers. He is currently using advanced genomic and transcriptomic approaches to develop novel DNA- and miRNA-based biomarkers for the early detection of colorectal cancers. In addition, he is researching the prevention of gastrointestinal cancers using integrative and alternative approaches, including botanical products such as curcumin (from turmeric) and boswellia. Dr Goel is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and the American Gastroenterology Association (AGA) and is on the international editorial boards of several journals including Gastroenterology, Clinical Cancer Research, Carcinogenesis, PLoS ONE, Scientific Reports, Epigenomics, Future Medicine, Alternative Therapies in Heath and Medicine and World Journal of Gastroenterology. He is also actively involved in peer-reviewing activities for more than 100 international scientific journals and various grant review panels of various national and international funding organizations. His research has been actively funded by various private and federal organizations, including funding from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) at the NIH, American Cancer Society (ACS) and other state organizations. He has won more than dozen awards and honors, including the Union of European Gastroenterology Federation's Distinguished Researcher Award, multiple Poster of Distinction Awards from the AGA, and Visiting Professorships from various national and international academic institutions and academic bodies. Some of his key research interests include: Understanding the basic genetics and epigenetic basis of gastrointestinal cancers; Use of epigenetic markers, both DNA and RNA, for the early detection of colorectal, pancreatic and other gastrointestinal cancers; Personalized medicine and treatment of gastrointestinal cancers; Chemoprevention, using complementary and alternative approaches using nutraceuticals such as curcumin, green tea, resveratrol and other botanicals. </jats:p
sj-docx-1-ine-10.1177_15910199221118148 - Supplemental material for Safety and efficacy of the surpass streamline for intracranial aneurysms (SESSIA): A multi-center US experience pooled analysis
No full textSupplemental material, sj-docx-1-ine-10.1177_15910199221118148 for Safety and efficacy of the surpass streamline for intracranial aneurysms (SESSIA): A multi-center US experience pooled analysis by Juan Vivanco-Suarez, Alan Mendez-Ruiz, Mudassir Farooqui, Kimon Bekelis, Justin A Singer, Kainaat Javed, David J Altschul, Johanna T Fifi, Stavros Matsoukas, Jared Cooper, Fawaz Al-Mufti, Bradley Gross, Brian Jankowitz, Peter T Kan, Muhammad Hafeez, Emanuele Orru, Andres Dajles, Milagros Galecio-Castillo, Cynthia B Zevallos, Ajay K Wakhloo and Santiago Ortega-Gutierrez in Interventional Neuroradiology</p
Experimental evaluation of long term evolution-based NC OFDM secondary-to-secondary interference
No full textScarcity of spectrum resources, inefficient spectrum usage and the inflexibility of the current spectrum assignment are few of the major roadblocks in the development of new wireless communication standards. Secondary spectrum sharing has become a viable solution to alleviate this problem. Secondary users are unlicensed devices that use opportunistic spectrum access to identify vacant frequency bins and thereby utilize the spectrum. For advanced wireless communication standards like the Long Term Evolution (LTE) which primarily calls for higher data rates, evaluation of design parameters for ensuring efficient coexistence of heterogeneous secondary users and guaranteeing acceptable minimum level of performance becomes essential. Additionally, the understanding of the interference between secondary users occupying adjacent frequency bands for their transmission is imperative. This thesis focuses on the coexistence of secondary users in the same band assuming that the primary spectrum is found available. By Implementing two Non Contiguous Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing ( NC-OFDM) based secondary transmitters on a real time platform, the design parameters that need to be considered to ensure efficient coexistence have been identified and investigated. The performance degradations observed at a particular secondary link due to presence of another interfering secondary link occupying adjacent frequency bands for its transmission have also been studied. This thesis also focuses on implementation of algorithms to modify the existing NC-OFDM transmission at the secondary transmitter end to reduce its Interference effects on the other secondary links operating within the same band. The focus is on an LTE-based Secondary Non Contiguous Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing Transceiver on a Real Time Platform developed by National Instruments. The various blocks needed to design a real time LTE based communications links are discussed. An experimental LTE-to-LTE interference analysis based on the Real Time Platform and the designed system is presented.M.S.Includes bibliographical referencesby Ajay Ramkumar Iye
Automated image-based detection and grading of lymphocytic infiltration in breast cancer histopathology:
No full textThe identification of phenotypic changes in breast cancer (BC) histopathology is of significant clinical importance in predicting disease outcome and prescribing appropriate therapy. One such example is the presence of lymphocytic infiltration (LI) in histopathology, which has been correlated with a variety of prognoses and theragnoses (i.e. response to treatment) in BC patients. In this thesis work a computer-aided diagnosis (CADx) system is detailed for quantitatively measuring the extent of LI from hematoxylin and eosin (H & E) stained histopathology. The CADx system is subsequently applied to BC patients expressing the HER2 gene (HER2+ BC), where LI extent has been found to correlate with nodal metastasis and distant recurrence. Although LI may be graded qualitatively by BC pathologists, there is currently no quantitative and reproducible method for measuring LI extent in HER2+ BC histopathology. Hence, a CADx system that performs this task will potentially help clinicians predict disease outcome and allow them to make better therapy recommendations for HER2+ BC patients. The CADx methodology comprises three key steps. First, a combination of region-growing and Markov Random Field algorithms is used to detect individual lymphocyte nuclei and isolate areas of LI in digitized H & E stained histopathology images. The centers of individual detected lymphocytes are used as vertices to construct a series of graphs (Voronoi Diagram, Delaunay Triangulation, and Minimum Spanning Tree) and a total of 50 architectural features describing the spatial arrangement of lymphocytes are extracted from each image. By using Graph Embedding, a non-linear dimensionality reduction method, to project the high-dimensional feature vectors into a reduced 3D embedding space, it is possible to visualize the underlying manifold that represents the continuous nature of the LI phenotype. Over a set of 100 randomized cross-validation trials, a Support Vector Machine classifier shows that the architectural feature set distinguishes HER2+ BC histopathology samples containing high and low levels of LI with a classification accuracy greater than 90%.M.S.Includes bibliographical references (p. 35-35)by Ajay Basavanhall
Tabish Khair in Conversation with Ajay K Chaubey
No full textBorn in Ranchi and educated up to his MA in Gaya, Tabish Khair, PhD (Copenhagen), DPhil (Aarhus), is a Professor of English in Denmark and the author of a number of acclaimed books. Winner of the All India Poetry Prize, Khair’s novels – The Bus Stopped (2004), Filming (2007) and The Thing About Thugs (2010) – have been shortlisted for awards including the Hindu Prize, Man Asian Prize, DSC Prize for South Asia. His last novel, How to Fight Islamist Terror from the Missionary Position, was dubbed the ‘best 9/11 novel’ by the New Republic and ‘unmissable’ by the Times. A study by Khair, The New Xenophobia, will be published by Oxford University Press in January 2016. Professor Khair, while being in Denmark, spoke to me through email promptly and positively on several aspects of diaspora, narratives of migration and rationale of ‘brain-drain’ and the theoretical contours of the Indian diaspora in the wake of multiple terrorist attacks in the West
Quantitative histomorphometry of digital pathology as a companion diagnostic: predicting outcome for ER+ breast cancers
No full textThis work involves the creation of an image-based companion diagnostic framework that employs quantitative features extracted from whole-slide, H & E stained digital pathology (DP) images to distinguish patients based on disease outcome, with a clinical application aimed at distinguishing estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer (BCa) patients with good and poor outcomes. Quantitative histomorphometry (QH) -- the conversion of a digitized histopathology slide into a series of quantitative measurements of tumor morphology -- is a rapidly growing field aimed at introducing advanced image analytics into the histopathological workflow. The thrust towards personalized medicine has led to the development of companion diagnostic tools that measure gene expression, yielding quantitative outcome predictions for improved disease stratification and customized therapies, e.g. Oncotype DX (Genomic Health, Inc.) for ER+ BCa. Yet, tumor morphology is often correlated with genomic assays, suggesting that genotypic variations in biologically distinct classes of tumors lead to distinct patterns of tumor cell morphology and tissue architecture in histopathology. The application of this work to ER+ BCa is highly relevant to current clinical needs. Current treatment guidelines recommend that the majority of women with ER+ BCa receive chemotherapy in addition to hormonal therapy; yet, approximately half will not benefit from chemotherapy while still enduring its harmful side effects. Hence, there is a clear need for the development of automated prognostic tools to identify women with poorer outcomes who will likely benefit from chemotherapy. The primary novel contributions of this work are (1) a color standardization system for improving the consistency in appearance of tissue structures across images, (2) the identification of tissue structures and corresponding QH signatures with prognostic value in ER+ BCa, (3) a multi-field-of-view framework for robust integration of prognostic information across whole-slide DP images, and (4) a method for predicting classifier performance for a large data cohort based on the availability of limited training data. This work will pave the way for the development of novel companion diagnostic systems capable of producing quantitative and reproducible image-based risk scores. These risk scores will play a vital role in decision support by helping clinicians predict patient outcome and prescribing appropriate therapies.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Ajay Nagesh Basavanhall
Incidence of complications in gynaecological laparoscopic surgeries: a prospective study from a single tertiary care centre
No full textBackground: Laparoscopy is a widely utilized procedure in gynecology due to its minimally invasive nature, offering numerous benefits such as reduced postoperative pain, quicker recovery, and shorter hospital stays. However, as with all surgical procedures, complications may arise, particularly in more complex surgeries. This study aimed to evaluate the incidence of complications associated with gynecological laparoscopic surgeries performed at a single centre.
Methods: A total 248 patients undergoing laparoscopic gynecological procedures at the centre during the study period were included. Informed consent was obtained from each patient, outlining the risks and the possibility of conversion to laparotomy if necessary. The study evaluated patient demographics, surgical history, body mass index (BMI), types of procedures performed, hospital stay durations, and the incidence of major and minor complications.
Results: Mean age of 31.51±8.79 years. Diagnostic laparoscopy was performed in 39.51% of cases, while advanced procedures accounted for 27.01%. Complications occurred in 21 patients (8.47%), with major complications seen in 2 patients (0.80%) and minor complications in 12 patients (4.84%). Laparoscopic hysterectomy had the highest complication rate at 18.33%, and 6 patients required conversion to laparotomy. No complications were observed in diagnostic or minor surgeries.
Conclusions: Laparoscopic surgery in gynecology is generally safe, with an overall complication rate of 8.47%, which aligns with reported literature. Complications were more frequent in complex procedures and in patients with previous abdominal surgeries. Continued improvements in surgical techniques and patient selection are essential for further reducing complication rates and enhancing surgical outcomes
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Angiographic Assessment of Flow Divertors as Treatment for Cerebral Aneurysms: Results in the Rabbit Elastase-Induced Aneurysm Model
No full textCerebral aneurysms are abnormal focal dilations of the cerebral vasculature that may rupture and cause a hemorrhagic stroke. More than a decade after seminal experimental studies showed the feasibility of successfully treating cerebral aneurysms by flow diversion, the potential of this modality is gradually being recognized in the clinical arena. A flow divertor is a metallic meshed tube that has its porosity (ratio of metal-free surface area to total surface area) and pore density (number of pores per unit surface area) optimized to facilitate occlusion of aneurysms. An appropriately designed flow divertor severely attenuates the flow exchange between the parent vessel and an aneurysm, resulting in the formation of intra-aneurysmal flow stasis zones which promote thrombosis. This study reports the results from implantation of three different configurations of a novel flow-diverting device in thirty elastase-induced aneurysm models in rabbits. Ten animals per device configuration were followed-up at 3 weeks (n=3), 3 months (n=3), and 6 months (n=4) and tissue explanted post-sacrifice was sent for histology. High-speed angiographic sequences were acquired before and immediately after device implantation, and at follow-up for each animal. Temporal variations in the angiographic contrast intensity within the aneurysms were recorded and subsequently corrected for respiratory motion. These aneurysmal contrast washout curves were fit to a mathematical model whose parameters served to quantify device performance. Angiographic quantification was supplemented by histomorphometric data to derive composite scores of the performance of each device configuration in effecting stable aneurysm occlusion. Performance scores showed that the device with a porosity of 70%, filament diameter of 38 microns, and pore density of 18 pores/mm^2 performed better than devices with 65% porosity, 51 micron filament diameter, 14 pores/mm^2 and 70% porosity, 51 micron filament diameter, 12 pores/mm^2 with relative efficacies of 100%, 86%, and 79%, respectively. Angiographic quantification further suggested a parameter, which could be employed to estimate long-term aneurysm occlusion probabilities immediately after treatment with any flow diversion device. A value of this parameter less than 30 predicts greater than 97% angiographic aneurysm occlusion over a period of six months with a sensitivity of 73% and specificity of 82%. Larger data sets are required to improve the validity of this test. The pore density of flow divertors, rather than porosity, was seen to be a critical modulating factor of device efficacy. Refinement of the best device configuration by further optimizing the pore density may yield yet better results.</p
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