Probiotics drive gut microbiome triggering emotional brain signatures.

Experimental manipulation of the gut microbiome was found to modify emotional and cognitive behavior, neurotransmitter expression and brain function in rodents, but corresponding human data remain scarce. The present double-blind, placebo-controlled randomised study aimed at investigating the effects of 4 weeks' probiotic administration on behavior, brain function and gut microbial composition in healthy volunteers. Forty-five healthy participants divided equally into three groups (probiotic, placebo and no intervention) underwent functional MRI (emotional decision-making and emotional recognition memory tasks).

Aortobronchial fistula caused by an endobronchial lobar Y stent: a word of caution.

A 17-year-old female patient with a history of pulmonary tuberculosis was admitted with progressive dyspnoea and haemoptysis. Five months prior to admission, a left bronchial carina Y stent was implanted. Because of the already destroyed parenchyma, a pneumonectomy was planned.

Independent Predictors for Higher Postoperative Pain Intensity During Recovery After Open Thoracic Surgery: A Retrospective Analysis in 621 Patients.

Objective: To evaluate two standard procedure-specific pain regimens and to assess independent predictors for higher pain intensity after thoracic surgery.

Methods: Patients received either oral opioid analgesia (Opioid Group) or epidural analgesia and were then bridged to systemic opioid analgesia (EDA + O Group) in this retrospective observational study. Medical history, discharge letters, anesthetic protocols, and pain protocols were evaluated in 621 patients after open thoracotomy and assessed with a stepward back elimination in a multivariate logistic regression model.

MET Expression in Advanced Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer: Effect on Clinical Outcomes of Chemotherapy, Targeted Therapy, and Immunotherapy.

Background: The receptor tyrosine kinase MET is implicated in malignant transformation, tumor progression, metastasis, and acquired treatment resistance. We conducted an analysis of the effect of MET expression and MET genomic aberrations on the outcome of patients with advanced or metastatic pulmonary adenocarcinomas prospectively enrolled in an institutional precision oncology program.

Patients And Methods: Standardized immunohistochemistry (IHC) analyses of MET and markers of pathway activation were available in 384 patients, and next-generation sequencing-based MET hotspot mutation analyses were available from 892 patients.

Effectiveness of Robotic Lobectomy-Outcome and Learning Curve in a High Volume Center.

Background:  Robotic surgery has been developed as a sophisticated tool to expand possibilities in minimal invasive surgery. The learning curve for this method is short in various surgical fields; however, limited data exist on the learning curve in robotic thoracic surgery.

Methods:  This study analyzes a single center experience of robotic lobectomies using a prospectively kept database.

Inhibition of Radiation-Induced Ccl2 Signaling Protects Lungs from Vascular Dysfunction and Endothelial Cell Loss.

Radiation-induced normal tissue toxicity often precludes the application of curative radiation doses. Here we investigated the therapeutic potential of chemokine C-C motif ligand 2 (Ccl2) signaling inhibition to protect normal lung tissue from radiotherapy (RT)-induced injury. RT-induced vascular dysfunction and associated adverse effects can be efficiently antagonized by inhibition of Ccl2 signaling using either the selective Ccl2 inhibitor bindarit (BIN) or mice deficient for the main Ccl2 receptor CCR2 (KO).

Simultaneous multislice refocusing via time optimal control.

Purpose: Joint design of minimum duration RF pulses and slice-selective gradient shapes for MRI via time optimal control with strict physical constraints, and its application to simultaneous multislice imaging.

Theory And Methods: The minimization of the pulse duration is cast as a time optimal control problem with inequality constraints describing the refocusing quality and physical constraints. It is solved with a bilevel method, where the pulse length is minimized in the upper level, and the constraints are satisfied in the lower level.

Synchronization of intrinsic 0.1-Hz blood-oxygen-level-dependent oscillations in amygdala and prefrontal cortex in subjects with increased state anxiety.

Low-frequency oscillations with a dominant frequency at 0.1 Hz are one of the most influential intrinsic blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signals. This raises the question if vascular BOLD oscillations (originating from blood flow in the brain) and intrinsic slow neural activity fluctuations (neural BOLD oscillations) can be differentiated.

Maternal and Fetal Outcomes of Pregnancies in Women with Atypical Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome.

Atypical HUS (aHUS) is a disorder most commonly caused by inherited defects of the alternative pathway of complement, or the proteins that regulate this pathway, and life-threatening episodes of aHUS can be provoked by pregnancy. We retrospectively and prospectively investigated 27 maternal and fetal pregnancy outcomes in 14 women with aHUS from the Vienna Thrombotic Microangiopathy Cohort. Seven pregnancies (26%) were complicated by pregnancy-associated aHUS (p-aHUS), of which three appeared to be provoked by infection, bleeding, and curettage, and three individuals were considered to have preeclampsia/HELLP syndrome before the definitive diagnosis of p-aHUS was made.

Mediastinal staging by videomediastinoscopy in clinical N1 non-small cell lung cancer: a prospective multicentre study.

A quarter of patients with clinical N1 (cN1) non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) based on positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) imaging have occult mediastinal nodal involvement (N2 disease). In a prospective study, endosonography alone had an unsatisfactory sensitivity (38%) in detecting N2 disease. The current prospective multicentre trial investigated the sensitivity of preoperative mediastinal staging by video-assisted mediastinoscopy (VAM) or VAM-lymphadenectomy (VAMLA).

The role of surgery in high grade neuroendocrine tumours of the lung.

High grade lung neuroendocrine tumours are a heterogeneous subtype of pulmonary cancers including small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and large-cell neuroendocrine carcinoma (LCNEC). LCNEC represents approximately 2-3% of lung cancers, whereas SCLC represents 15-20% of lung cancers. Patients with SCLC and LCNEC have a poor prognosis compared with patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

[Resection concepts for early stage neuroendocrine tumors of the lungs and bronchi].

Background: Neuroendocrine tumors of the lungs are a very inhomogeneous group of malignancies. The surgical treatment should be adapted to the anatomical localization and histological subtype and individualized according to the functional reserve.

Material And Methods: We performed a selective review of current literature, which was supplemented by personal experiences.

Circulating complement component 4d (C4d) correlates with tumor volume, chemotherapeutic response and survival in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma.

Only limited information is available on the role of complement activation in malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM). Thus, we investigated the circulating and tissue levels of the complement component 4d (C4d) in MPM. Plasma samples from 55 MPM patients, 21 healthy volunteers (HV) and 14 patients with non-malignant pleural diseases (NMPD) were measured by ELISA for C4d levels.

Pulmonary metastasectomy for sarcoma-Essen experience.

Background: Pulmonary metastasectomy is an established treatment modality for patients with soft as well as bone tissue sarcomas. Aim of this study is to describe the Essen experience in the surgical management of patients with pulmonary sarcoma metastases.

Methods: This is a retrospective single center analysis of perioperative outcome of patients undergoing pulmonary metastasectomy for sarcoma metastases from 1997-2017 and a summary of published papers on this topic.

Treatment of primary graft dysfunction after lung transplantation with orally inhaled AP301: A prospective, randomized pilot study.

Background: Primary graft dysfunction (PGD) after lung transplantation (LTx) carries significant morbidity and mortality in the early post-operative period and is associated with the development of chronic lung allograft dysfunction. AP301, an activator of epithelial sodium channel-mediated Na uptake represents a new concept for prevention and treatment of pulmonary edema and has shown promising results in the pre-clinical setting. This pilot study investigated the clinical effect of inhaled AP301 on patients with development of PGD > 1 according to International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation criteria after primary LTx in a high-volume center and was conducted as a randomized, placebo-controlled, single-center pilot-study including 20 patients.

Multicentric evaluation of the impact of central tumour location when comparing rates of N1 upstaging in patients undergoing video-assisted and open surgery for clinical Stage I non-small-cell lung cancer†.

Objectives: Large retrospective series have indicated lower rates of cN0 to pN1 nodal upstaging after video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) compared with open resections for Stage I non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The objective of our multicentre study was to investigate whether the presumed lower rate of N1 upstaging after VATS disappears after correction for central tumour location in a multivariable analysis.

Methods: Consecutive patients operated for PET-CT based clinical Stage I NSCLC were selected from prospectively managed surgical databases in 11 European centres.

Magnetic Resonance RF Pulse Design by Optimal Control With Physical Constraints.

Optimal control approaches have proved useful in designing RF pulses for large tip-angle applications. A typical challenge for optimal control design is the inclusion of constraints resulting from physiological or technical limitations that assure the realizability of the optimized pulses. In this paper, we show how to treat such inequality constraints, in particular, amplitude constraints on the B1 field, the slice-selective gradient, and its slew rate, as well as constraints on the slice profile accuracy.

Intrathoracic solitary fibrous tumor - an international multicenter study on clinical outcome and novel circulating biomarkers.

Intrathoracic solitary fibrous tumor (SFT) is a rare disease. Radical resection is the standard of care. However, estimating prognosis and planning follow-up and treatment strategies remains challenging.

Lung transplantation for idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension on intraoperative and postoperatively prolonged extracorporeal membrane oxygenation provides optimally controlled reperfusion and excellent outcome.

Objectives: Lung transplantation for idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension has the highest reported postoperative mortality of all indications. Reasons lie in the complexity of treatment of these patients and the frequent occurrence of postoperative left ventricular failure. Transplantation on intraoperative extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support instead of cardiopulmonary bypass and even more the prolongation of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation into the postoperative period helps to overcome these problems.

Same-day Routine Chest-X Ray After Thoracic Surgery is Not Necessary!

Introduction: Performing a routine postoperative chest X-ray (CXR) after general thoracic surgery is daily practice in many thoracic surgery departments. The quality, frequency of pathological findings and the clinical consequences have not been well evaluated. Furthermore, exposure to ionising radiation should be restricted to a minimum and therefore routine practice can be questioned.

Histone Deacetylase Inhibitor Treatment Increases the Expression of the Plasma Membrane Ca Pump PMCA4b and Inhibits the Migration of Melanoma Cells Independent of ERK.

Several new therapeutic options emerged recently to treat metastatic melanoma; however, the high frequency of intrinsic and acquired resistance among patients shows a need for new therapeutic options. Previously, we identified the plasma membrane Ca ATPase 4b (PMCA4b) as a metastasis suppressor in BRAF-mutant melanomas and found that mutant BRAF inhibition increased the expression of the pump, which then inhibited the migratory and metastatic capability of the cells. Earlier it was also demonstrated that histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACis) upregulated PMCA4b expression in gastric, colon, and breast cancer cells.

Spatio-temporal TGV denoising for ASL perfusion imaging.

In arterial spin labeling (ASL) a perfusion weighted image is achieved by subtracting a label image from a control image. This perfusion weighted image has an intrinsically low signal to noise ratio and numerous measurements are required to achieve reliable image quality, especially at higher spatial resolutions. To overcome this limitation various denoising approaches have been published using the perfusion weighted image as input for denoising.