Dideriksenfarmer2153

Despite advances in multimodal approach for rectal cancer, treatment-related side effects remain an important issue. From this perspective, a prospective trial was performed to investigate the feasibility of modulated electro-hyperthermia (mEHT) as a concomitant boost to preoperative chemoradiation in locally advanced rectal cancer. Seventy-six patients with cT3-4 or cT2N+ rectal cancer were enrolled consecutively. Whole pelvis radiotherapy of 40 Gy was delivered with 2-Gy daily fraction. mEHT with 13.56 MHz frequency was boosted on a twice-weekly schedule concurrently with intravenous 5-fluorouracil or oral capecitabine. Surgical resection was planned 6-8 weeks after radiotherapy. The primary endpoint was non-inferior treatment response rate assessed by pathologic downstaging and tumor regression. The secondary endpoint was acceptable toxicity during the preoperative treatment period. Sixty patients completed the planned treatment schedule. T- and N-downstaging was demonstrated in 40 patients (66.7%) and 53 patients (88.3%), respectively. Pathologic complete response was noted in 15.0% (9 patients) and 76.7% (46 patients) for T-stage and N-stage, respectively. Total or near total tumor regression was observed in 20 patients (33.3%). Grade ≥ 3 toxicity occurred only in hematologic assessment; one case (1.7%) of leukopenia and one case (1.7%) of anemia. Sixteen patients (26.7%) developed thermal toxicity, which was mostly Grade 1 (15 patients, 93.8%). Relatively low dose of 40 Gy radiation showed comparable pathologic treatment outcomes and tolerable toxicity profiles with the addition of mEHT, which may potentially replace part of the radiation dose in neoadjuvant treatment for rectal cancer.Interleukin-18 (IL-18) is a multifunctional cytokine that augments interferon-γ production, promotion of the Th1 immune response and acts as an important immunomediator in the development of some cancers. The current study aimed to analyze the association of five most common polymorphisms in IL-18 gene with prostate cancer in Iranian population. We examined a possible association of IL-18 -137G>C, -607C>A, -656G>T, +105A>C and +127C>T polymorphisms with prostate cancer occurrence by PCR-RFLP assay. Odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were used to assess the strength of the association between IL-18 polymorphisms and prostate cancer. Statistical analysis revealed that individuals carrying the mutant homozygote genotype of IL-18 -607C>A (OR  =  2.251, 95% CI  =  1.062-4.768, P = 0.034) and -137G>C (OR  =  2.364, 95% CI  =  1.121-4.984, P = 0.024) polymorphisms had an increased risk of prostate cancer. However, for IL-18 -656G>T, +105A>C and +127C>T polymorphisms, there were no differential distributions of their genotypes between patients with prostate cancer and healthy subjects. Our results indicated that the IL-18 -137G>C and -607C>A polymorphisms were significantly associated with an increased risk of prostate cancer in Iranian population. Thus, these polymorphisms might be used as a molecular biomarker in the early diagnosis of prostate cancer.Multidrug resistance (MDR) in breast cancer treatment is the major cause leading to the failure of chemotherapy. P-glycoprotein (P-gp), the product of the human MDR1 gene, plays a key role in resistance to chemotherapy and confers a cross-resistance to many structurally unrelated anticancer drugs. We previously have reported that integrin αvβ6 plays a critical role in breast cancer invasion and metastasis. https://www.selleckchem.com/products/ik-930.html However, whether and how αvβ6 is associated with P-gp and regulated by potential genetic mechanisms in breast cancer still remains unclear. In the present study, we further investigated the reversal effect and underlying mechanisms of MDR in breast cancer. Two small interfering RNA constructs (pSUPER-β6shRNAs) targeting two different regions of the β6 gene have been designed to inhibit αvβ6 expression by transfecting them into adriamycin-resistant MCF-7/ADR cell lines. Suppression of αvβ6 dramatically downregulated the levels of MDR1 gene mRNA and P-gp. In particular, β6shRNA-mediated silencing of αvβ6 gene increased significantly the cellular accumulation of Rhodamine 123 and markedly decreased drug efflux ability, suggesting that β6shRNAs indeed inhibit P-gp mediated drug efflux and effectively overcome drug resistance. In addition, inhibition of integrin αvβ6 supressed the expression of ERK1/2. Interestingly, our data demonstrate that suppression of integrin αvβ6 caused significant downregulation of Bcl-2, Bcl-xL and upregulation of caspase 3, Bad, especially which were accompanied by increasing activity of cytochrome C. A possible connection between αvβ6 and P-gp in drug resistance biology is suggested. Taken together, β6shRNA could efficiently inhibit αvβ6 and MDR1 expression in vitro and these findings may offer a specifically useful means to reverse MDR in breast cancer therapy.Structural chromosome aberrations are predictive biomarker of cancer risk. Conventional chromosome analysis widely used for these purposes detects unstable chromosome aberrations that are eliminated during cell division. Stable aberrations that may persist in the body and tend to accumulate during a lifetime can be detected by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH). The aim of the study was to investigate the level of chromosome damage in newly diagnosed cancer patients and control subjects by FISH. Both groups of untreated cancer patients had increased frequency of aberrant cells. link2 However, chromosome damage affected different cytogenetic endpoints. Stable translocations and cells with complex rearrangements were elevated in breast cancer patients whereas unstable chromosome aberrations (dicentric chromosomes and acentric fragments) were elevated in gastrointestinal cancer patients. These associations observed in nonsmokers were typically not pronounced in smokers (with the exception of dicentric chromosomes in gastrointestinal patients). Exposure to tobacco smoke increased aberrations in healthy controls but not in the cancer patients. Our study suggests association between cancer and stable chromosomal rearrangements in breast cancer patients. Unstable aberrations elevated in gastrointestinal cancer patients may be at least partly ascribed to the exposure to diagnostic X-rays.Primarily based on laboratory studies, theories of affect propose that emotions are driven by the valence of outcomes as well as the difference between the outcome itself and the expected outcome (i.e., the prediction error [PE]). Yet no work has assessed the drivers of emotion using real-world, personally meaningful events on timescales over which human emotion unfolds. We developed an event-triggered, ecological momentary assessment procedure measuring positive and negative affect (PA and NA, respectively) in university students as they received exam grades for which they had made predictions. We split data into exploratory and confirmatory samples, and built computational models predicting the time course of PA and NA and demonstrate that a model incorporating both exam grade and grade PE accounted for the time course of PA and NA better than a model solely using exam grades. Further, grade PEs were stronger predictors of the time course of PA and NA than the grades themselves. Similarly, the effects of PEs also persisted longer for NA than PA. These data indicate that deviations from expectations are critical determinants of the temporal dynamics of real-world emotion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).Apathy is a debilitating syndrome that is associated with reduced goal-directed behavior. Although apathy is common and detrimental to prognosis in many neuropsychiatric diseases, its underlying mechanisms remain controversial. We propose a new model of apathy, in the context of Bayesian theories of brain function, whereby actions require predictions of their outcomes to be held with sufficient precision for "explaining away" differences in sensory inputs. In the active inference model, apathy results from reduced precision of prior beliefs about action outcomes. We tested this hypothesis using a visuomotor task in healthy adults (N = 47), with experimental manipulation of physical effort and financial reward. Bayesian modeling of performance and participants' perception of their performance was used to infer the precision of their priors. We confirmed that the perception of performance was biased toward the target, which was accounted for by relatively precise prior beliefs about action outcomes. link3 These priors were consistently more precise than the corresponding performance distribution, and were scaled to effort and reward. Crucially, prior precision was negatively associated with trait apathy, suggesting that apathetic individuals had less precise prior beliefs about action outcomes. The results support a Bayesian account of apathy that could inform future studies of clinical populations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).There is a growing interest in the effects of social engagement on cognition, yet, research on the effects of social engagement with the experimenter in empirical contexts has been sparse. During an experiment, the experimenter and participant form a dyad, establishing a certain level of rapport-a sense of a positive and congruent relationship. This rapport is thought to promote performance by providing a comfortable testing environment, thereby reducing resource demand, and enhancing participant engagement and willingness to exert effort to perform. The current study sought to better understand the role of rapport by examining the effects of perceived rapport on effortful control, that is, inhibition and shifting, in an experimental setting among children with and without attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Forty-nine children (9 to 12 years old) were divided into two groups based on ADHD classification (i.e., typically developing children, n = 27; children with ADHD, n = 22). Participants completed the day/night Stroop task and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task following a short rapport-building conversation with the experimenter. Later, both participant and experimenter filled the CHARM questionnaire reporting the rapport constructed during the experiment. Results show moderating effects of ADHD on the relationship between perceived rapport quality and congruency, and participant's executive functions performance. Specifically, children with ADHD showed higher susceptibility to rapport quality and were impervious to the effects of rapport congruency. Results highlight the importance of rapport with the experimenter in experimental research and suggest incorporating considerations concerning rapport, both in designing the experimental paradigm as well as an independent factor affecting task performance and outcome. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).It is well established that emotional events are better remembered than neutral events. However, little is known about emotional enhancement of memory (EEM) in children. This is particularly the case when the main components of episodic memory are considered core information (item memory) and its associated contextual details (associative memory). In 2 experiments, the present study tested whether the negative or positive emotional valence of words and pictures can influence item and associative memory. The contextual information to be associated with items was the gender of the voice pronouncing words and the type of frame in which pictures were displayed in Experiment 1, and the spatial location of stimuli in Experiment 2. Two groups of 8- to 11-year-old children (Experiment 1 n = 32 and Experiment 2 n = 36) performed the experiments and were compared to two groups of equivalent numbers of young adults. Participants completed an intentional-encoding task followed by immediate item recognition, associative recall and item recall tasks.