Westspears5172

Purpose To identify common optical coherence tomography (OCT) characteristics of taxane-related CME (T-CME) to differentiate it from CME associated with other causes (O-CME) and to present multimodal imaging findings of T-CME. Methods To differentiate T-CME from O-CME, pooled SD-OCT images from 14 previous publications and images obtained from our multicenter case series of 3 patients with multimodal imaging of T-CME were compared with 16 consecutive cases of O-CME. Images were graded by 2 masked retinal specialists based on the presence of pre-specified OCT characteristics such as CME centered around fovea, outer retinal cysts more prominent compared with inner retinal cysts, continuous outer plexiform layer (OPL) and inner plexiform layer (IPL), intact outer retina layer, attenuation of outer retina layers by overlying retinal layers, and the presence of subretinal fluid. Results Comparing 19 and 16 SD-OCT images of T-CME and O-CME, respectively, T-CME showed a significantly higher rate of the continuous OPL and IPL layer and a higher composite score of the various pre-specified OCT features. All other individual features showed no significant difference between T-CME and O-CME. All our patients had T-CME that had vague petalloid patterns on the late-stage FFA, with late leakage on ICGA. OCT angiography in one case showed an intact foveal avascular zone. Conclusions T-CME is a rare but important complication of taxane chemotherapy. Specific OCT features such as an intact continuous OPL and IPL layer combined with other OCT features can help distinguish T-CME from O-CME, and early diagnosis is clinically important as cessation of taxanes before the retinal layers are disrupted may prevent permanent vision loss.Purpose The aim of this study was to investigate HIF-1α, HIF-2α, and ProExC expression in conjunctival intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN), to differentiate between metaplasia and dysplasia, and to access their value as diagnostic and prognostic immunohistochemical markers. Recurrence and progression into SCC (squamous cell carcinoma) were defined as endpoints. Methods Forty-three specimens including CIN I (2), CIN II (9), CIN III (29), with and without metaplasia, and metaplasia alone (3), as well as 21 conjunctival control specimens, were stained with antibodies against HIF-1α, HIF-2α, and ProExC. The percentage of positively stained cells were calculated and used for further analysis. Results The mean percentages of HIF-1α and HIF-2α were not increased in CIN. In comparison, the expressions of these markers were even significantly elevated in control specimens (p less then 0.001). Upper epithelial cells in CIN were more often ProExC-positive compared with normal conjunctiva or metaplasia (p = 0.06 and p = 0.07). Cox proportional-hazards analysis was performed for characterization of factors influencing the combined endpoint and showed a significant elevated hazard ratio for staining with ProExC (p = 0.04) compared with HIF-1α (p = 0.26) and HIF-2α (p = 0.49). Conclusion Our study shows that HIF-1α and HIF-2α do not serve as diagnostic or prognostic markers in CIN. ProExC seems to be a potential indicator for CIN, but not a reliable diagnostic marker. However, control specimens occasionally also display a high percentage of ProExC-positive cells and staining over the entire epithelial layer.Clinicians and patients want to know if therapy is working early in their course of treatment. We found that early changes in bone turnover markers at 6 months were associated with long-term changes in bone mineral density but not trabecular bone score at 12 and 24 months. Purpose We sought to examine the association between shorter-term changes in markers of bone turnover and longer-term changes in bone mineral density (BMD) and microstructure in a cohort of frail elderly women with multiple comorbid conditions including osteoporosis. Methods We performed a secondary analysis of a 2-year zoledronic acid trial for osteoporosis in 155 women residents of long-term care communities (mean age 86.9 years). We examined the association of the 6-month change in serum C-terminal crosslinking telopeptide of type I collagen (CTX) and serum intact procollagen type I N propeptide (PINP) with the 12- and 24-month changes in BMD at the spine and hip and the trabecular bone score (TBS), an indirect measure of bone microstructure. Results For every 0.2-ng/ml 6-month CTX decrease, the corresponding increase in spine BMD at 12 and 24 months was 0.2% (p = 0.7210) and 1.1% (p = 0.0396), respectively; total hip BMD 1.1% (p = 0.0279) and 0.9% (p = 0.0716); and femoral neck BMD 1.7% (p = 0.0079) and 0.9% (p = 0.1698). Similarly, for every 20-ng/ml 6-month PINP decrease, the corresponding increase in spine BMD at 12 and 24 months was 0.9% (p = 0.0286) and 1.4% (p = 0.0012), respectively; total hip BMD 1.4% (p = 0.0005) and 1.4% (p = 0.0006); and femoral neck BMD 2.3% (p less then 0.0001) and 2.0% (p less then 0.0001). Bone marker changes were not consistently associated with TBS changes. Conclusion Shorter-term 6-month changes in bone turnover markers are associated with the long-term changes in BMD over 1-2 years in the spine and hip but not with TBS.Background To establish a robust, individualized DNA repair-related gene signature to estimate prognosis for patients with localized clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC). Erastin2 in vivo Materials and methods We retrospectively analyzed gene expression profiles of 541 localized ccRCC patients from two public ccRCC cohorts. The DNA repair-related gene pair index (DRPI) was constructed with the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression model. The associations between DRPI, overall survival (OS), and disease-specific survival (DSS) were evaluated by Kaplan-Meier analysis, univariate analysis, and multivariate Cox regression survival analysis. We compared the predictive accuracy of different risk models with Harrel's C-index. Results In the primary univariate analysis, patients in DRPI-high-risk group had significantly shorter OS [P less then 0.001, HR (95% CI) 2.093 (1.431-3.061)] and DSS [P less then 0.001, HR (95% CI) 3.567 (2.017-6.339)]. After adjusted for stage and grade, DRPI-high-risk group remained an independent adverse risk factor for both OS [P = 0.