Effects of rIL2/anti-IL2 antibody complex on chikungunya virus-induced chronic arthritis in a mouse model.

Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is characterized by disabling joint pain that can cause persistent arthritis in approximately one-fourth of patients. Currently, no standard treatments are available for chronic CHIKV arthritis. Our preliminary data suggest that decreases in interleukin-2 (IL2) levels and regulatory T cell (Treg) function may play a role in CHIKV arthritis pathogenesis.

Effects of IL2/anti-IL2 antibody complex on chikungunya virus-induced arthritis in a mouse model.

Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is characterized by disabling joint pain that can cause persistent arthritis in approximately one-fourth of patients. Currently, no standard treatments are available for chronic CHIKV arthritis. Our preliminary data suggest that decreases in interleukin-2 (IL2) levels and regulatory T cell (Treg) function may play a role in CHIKV arthritis pathogenesis.

A Mouse Model for Studying Post-Acute Arthritis of Chikungunya.

Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) was introduced to the Americas in 2013, causing two million infections across over thirty countries. CHIKV causes a chronic debilitating arthritis in one fourth of infected individuals and currently evidence-based targeted therapies for the treatment of CHIKV arthritis are lacking. Multiple mouse models of chikungunya have been developed to study acute CHIKV infection.

The Association Between Race, Obesity, and Sperm Quality Among Men Attending a University Physician Practice in Washington, DC.

A decades-long decline in sperm counts in Western countries has coincided with an increase in obesity rates, prompting study into their association. Few of these studies have incorporated men of color, the sperm health of whom is relatively unknown. The present exploratory study evaluated the association between body mass index (BMI), race, ethnicity, and sperm parameters among a diverse sample of U.

Creating prognostic systems for cancer patients: A demonstration using breast cancer.

Integrating additional prognostic factors into the tumor, lymph node, metastasis staging system improves the relative stratification of cancer patients and enhances the accuracy in planning their treatment options and predicting clinical outcomes. We describe a novel approach to build prognostic systems for cancer patients that can admit any number of prognostic factors. In the approach, an unsupervised learning algorithm was used to create dendrograms and the C-index was used to cut dendrograms to generate prognostic groups.

The anatomy of the TNM for colon cancer.

Background: To visualize the anatomy as revealed by dendrograms of the tumor, lymph node, and metastasis (TNM) staging system for colon cancer and compare it with the Dukes' system.

Methods: A hierarchical clustering algorithm generated tree-structured dendrograms that stratified patients according to survival only. The dendrograms were constructed with the same prognostic variables used for the TNM.

Gouty Tenosynovitis of the Distal Biceps Tendon Insertion Complicated by Partial Rupture: First Case and Review of the Literature.

Given the appreciable prevalence of gout, gout-induced tendon ruptures in the upper extremity are extremely rare. Although these events have been reported only 5 times in the literature, all in patients with a risk factor for or history of gout, they have conspicuously never been diagnosed in the shoulder or elbow. A 45-year-old, right-hand-dominant man with a history of gout presented with pain in his right anterior elbow and weakness in his forearm after a trivial injury.

An Algorithm for Creating Prognostic Systems for Cancer.

The TNM staging system is universally used for classification of cancer. This system is limited since it uses only three factors (tumor size, extent of spread to lymph nodes, and status of distant metastasis) to generate stage groups. To provide a more accurate description of cancer and thus better patient care, additional factors or variables should be used to classify cancer.

An algorithm for expanding the TNM staging system.

Aim: We describe a new method to expand the tumor, lymph node, metastasis (TNM) staging system using a clustering algorithm. Cases of breast cancer were used for demonstration.

Materials & Methods: An unsupervised ensemble-learning algorithm was used to create dendrograms.

Histologic grade remains a prognostic factor for breast cancer regardless of the number of positive lymph nodes and tumor size: a study of 161 708 cases of breast cancer from the SEER Program.

Context: The appropriate staging of breast cancers includes an evaluation of tumor size and nodal status. Histologic grade in breast cancer, though important and assessed for all tumors, is not integrated within tumor staging.

Objective: To determine whether the histologic grade remains a prognostic factor for breast cancer regardless of tumor size and the number of involved axillary lymph nodes.

The clinical implications of integrating additional prognostic factors into the TNM.

Background And Objectives: The management of solid tumors is governed by host and tumor factors that traditionally have incorporated TNM staging with additional pathologic, biologic, and clinical host factors. Beyond the anatomic-based TNM, increasingly new prognostic and predictive factors are being discovered that have important survival and treatment implications. However, because the TNM is based on a "bin" model, additional prognostic factors would rapidly overwhelm the current system.

Surgical pathology of lung cancer.

The diagnosis, treatment, and management of lung tumors represent a complex set of decision algorithms and require the cooperation and interaction of a team of experts and support systems. The surgical pathologist, an early, important member of the diagnostic team, uses clinical and radiological evidence to differentiate benign from malignant tumors and renders a unique diagnosis that provides both prognostic and treatment information. Using routine histopathologic criteria, histochemical and immunohistochemical stains, and molecular and genetic testing, surgical pathologists and cytopathologists may distinguish between small cell and other bronchogenic carcinomas, separate adenocarcinomas from squamous cell carcinomas, differentiate between pleural carcinomas and diffuse malignant mesotheliomas, and discriminate among the varieties of neuroendocrine carcinomas.

Diagnostic surgical pathology in lung cancer: Diagnosis and management of lung cancer, 3rd ed: American College of Chest Physicians evidence-based clinical practice guidelines.

Background: This article provides evidence-based background and recommendations for the development of American College of Chest Physicians guidelines for the diagnosis and management of lung cancer. Specific population, intervention, comparison, and outcome questions were addressed to arrive at consensus recommendations.

Methods: A systematic search of the medical and scientific literature using MEDLINE and PubMed was performed for the years 1990 to 2011 and limited to literature on humans and articles written in English.

Assessment of K-Ras mutant frequency and micronucleus incidence in the mouse duodenum following 90-days of exposure to Cr(VI) in drinking water.

Chronic exposure to high concentrations of hexavalent chromium [Cr(VI)] as sodium dichromate dihydrate (SDD) in drinking water induces duodenal tumors in mice, but the mode of action (MOA) for these tumors has been a subject of scientific debate. To evaluate the tumor-site-specific genotoxicity and cytotoxicity of SDD in the mouse small intestine, tissue pathology and cytogenetic damage were evaluated in duodenal crypt and villus enterocytes from B6C3F1 mice exposed to 0.3-520mg/L SDD in drinking water for 7 and 90 days.

Thrombin stimulation of inflammatory breast cancer cells leads to aggressiveness via the EGFR-PAR1-Pak1 pathway.

Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) accounts for a small fraction but aggressive form of epithelial breast cancer. Although the role of thrombin in cancer is beginning to be unfolded, its impact on the biology of IBC remains unknown. The purpose of this study was to establish the role of thrombin on the invasiveness of IBC cells.

Alternate estrogen receptors promote invasion of inflammatory breast cancer cells via non-genomic signaling.

Although Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC) is a rare and an aggressive type of locally advanced breast cancer with a generally worst prognosis, little work has been done in identifying the status of non-genomic signaling in the invasiveness of IBC. The present study was performed to explore the status of non-genomic signaling as affected by various estrogenic and anti-estrogenic agents in IBC cell lines SUM149 and SUM190. We have identified the presence of estrogen receptor α (ERα) variant, ERα36 in SUM149 and SUM190 cells.

Intra-articular knee mass in a 51-year-old woman.

A 51-year-old woman presented with moderate knee pain refractory to conservative measures. Radiographs revealed a well-defined, but irregularly-shaped ovoid soft tissue density at the posterior superior aspect of the infrapatellar fat pad of Hoffa. On magnetic resonance imaging, the mass was mildly heterogeneous and had intermediate signal in the proton density series and mixed signal intensity on the T2-weighted images.

Cutaneous angiosarcoma. Analysis of 434 cases from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program, 1973-2007.

Cutaneous angiosarcoma is an aggressive malignant mesenchymal vasoformative neoplasm that accounts for 1% of all soft tissue sarcomas. Using data from the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program, we analyzed the demographics and survival of cutaneous angiosarcoma. The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program recorded 434 cases of cutaneous angiosarcoma from 1973 to 2007.