Espinozarosales5694
At the meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO 2020), held this year virtually on May 29-31, investigators presented important practice changing findings in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In the early-stage resectable NSCLC, the key presentation was ADAURA study. This phase III clinical trial showed that the use of adjuvant osimertinib in stage IB-IIIA NSCLC patients harboring EGFR mutations had a clinically meaningful benefit. In locally advanced NSCLC, the recent studies investigated the role of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) administred early with or before concurrent chemoradiotherapy. In advanced-stage NSCLC with driver mutations, new targets and drugs were explored. The major step forward was the approval of personalized treatment in very uncommon genomic alterations, as RET fusions or MET mutations. In advanced NSCLC without targetable mutations, some new immunotherapy combination strategies have been presented. see more One of such combination was tiragolumab, an immune checkpoint inhibitor binding to TIGIT, evaluated with atezolizumab. There were also data from the Checkmate 227 and Checkmate 9LA trials that led to recent approvals.Salmon lice (Lepeophtheirus salmonis) are marine parasitic copepods living on salmonids and are challenging for salmon aquaculture. One of several treatment methods is the application of freshwater to the fish which can lead to lice loss. However, lab experiments have shown that salmon lice, acclimated to seawater, are capable of surviving for several weeks in freshwater, when attached to a host. If not attached to a host, they die within a few hours in freshwater but can survive a longer time in brackish water. The molecular mechanisms involved in the adaptation to low salinity of the louse have not been identified yet. In this study we incubated salmon lice, being attached to a host, or detached, in seawater, brackish water and freshwater for 4 h and 1 d, sampled the animals and used RNA-Seq to identify genes involved in these mechanisms. Freshwater incubation led to a much stronger regulatory response than brackish water and a longer incubation time gave a stronger effect than a short incubation. Among the most interesting genes, upregulated in low salinity water are in addition to several transporters, several enzymes involved in amino acid metabolism and especially in the proline biosynthesis. A strong upregulation of these enzymes might lead to an accumulation of proline which is known to be used as an osmolyte in other species. While the RNA-Seq experiment was performed with female samples, qPCR showed that at least 10 genes regulated in females, were also regulated in males.Hand-eye coordination skills, such as reaching and grasping, are fundamentally important for the performance of most daily activities. Upper limb kinematics recorded by motion tracking systems provide detailed insight into the central nervous system control of movement planning and execution. For example, kinematic metrics can reveal deficits in control, and compensatory neuromotor strategies in individuals with neuropathologies. However, the clinical utility of kinematic metrics is currently limited because their psychometric properties, such as test-retest repeatability, have not been well characterized. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the degree of repeatability of spatiotemporal kinematic metrics and determine which, if any, measures form a kinematic signature for a precision grasping task. Healthy adults (n = 40) were tested on two occasions separated by 5-10 days on a bead threading task consisting of reaching and precision grasping. Results showed good test-retest repeatability for reach peak velocity, reach and grasp durations, whereas poor to moderate reliability was observed for measures of spatial precision and maximum grip aperture. In addition, analysis showed that reliable estimates of kinematic metrics can be obtained using 10 trials. Overall, our results indicate that reach peak velocity and temporal metrics form a stable characteristic, or a kinematic signature, of individual performance on a standardized bead threading task. These findings suggest potential utility in applying kinematic metrics for clinical assessment of upper limb reaching tasks.We assessed psychotropic prescribing patterns in the clinical treatment of agitation and aggressive behavior in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) treated at specialist outpatient clinics in the Federal District of Brazil. This was a naturalistic, observational, multicenter study of a convenience sample of patients with AD (according to DSM-5) who had behavioral symptoms of aggression and/or agitation at outpatient visits, as assessed by the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI), and required pharmacologic intervention. Participants were recruited in 2018-2019 from 11 AD treatment centers. Sociodemographic and clinical data were collected during routine visits. The sample consisted of 369 older adults with a mean age of 82.3 (SD, 7.7) years. The medications most commonly used in patients with behavioral disorders were antidepressants (79.1%), antipsychotics (70.2%), benzodiazepines (10.6%), and mood stabilizers (9.5%). Quetiapine was the most frequently prescribed antipsychotic medication (48.5%), at a mean dose of 57.4 (SD, 40.7) mg. Citalopram was the most widely used antidepressant medication (32.0%), at a mean daily dose of 24.1 (SD, 8.1) mg. In this sample, two or more pharmacologic agents were frequently used together to control aggression and agitation. Benzodiazepine was not frequently used.Marek's Disease Virus (MDV) infects chickens via respiratory route and causes lymphomas in internal organs including gastrointestinal tract. MDV infection causes a shift in the gut microbiota composition. However, interactions between the gut microbiota and immune responses against MDV infection are not well understood. Therefore, the current study was performed to understand the effect of the gut microbiota on Marek's disease (MD) pathogenesis. The findings showed that depletion of gut microbiota increased the severity of MD in infected chickens. In addition, an increase in the transcription of interferon (IFN)-α, IFN-β and IFN-γ in the bursa of Fabricius at 4 days post-infection (dpi) was observed in the gut microbiota depleted chickens. The observations in this study shed more light on the association between the gut microbiota and MDV infection in chickens. More research is needed to explore the mechanisms of involvement of the gut microbiota in immunity against MD in chickens.