Implications of compressive loading of the stomach wall: Interplay between mechanical deformation and microstructure.

During gastric surgery, the stomach wall is compressed with clamps and sutures or staple lines. These short- and long-term deformations can severely compromise the integrity of the tissue and make it difficult for the stomach wall to respond and remodel to the new loading conditions. Consequently, serious intra- and postoperative complications such as the formation of leaks during bariatric surgeries, can be associated with these immense tissue deformations.

Inter-patient heterogeneity in the hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury transcriptome: Implications for research and diagnostics.

Cellular responses induced by surgical procedure or ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) may severely alter transcriptome profiles and complicate molecular diagnostics. To investigate this effect, we characterized such pre-analytical effects in 143 non-malignant liver samples obtained from 30 patients at different time points of ischemia during surgery from two individual cohorts treated either with the Pringle manoeuvre or total vascular exclusion. Transcriptomics profiles were analyzed by Affymetrix microarrays and expression of selected mRNAs was validated by RT-PCR.

Biomechanical characterization of the passive porcine stomach.

The complex mechanics of the gastric wall facilitates the main digestive tasks of the stomach. However, the interplay between the mechanical properties of the stomach, its microstructure, and its vital functions is not yet fully understood. Importantly, the pig animal model is widely used in biomedical research for preliminary or ethically prohibited studies of the human digestion system.

Changes in the microstructure of the human aortic adventitia under biaxial loading investigated by multi-photon microscopy.

Among the three layers of the aortic wall, the media is primarily responsible for its mechanical properties, but the adventitia prevents the aorta from overstretching and rupturing. The role of the adventitia is therefore crucial with regard to aortic wall failure, and understanding the load-induced changes in tissue microstructure is of high importance. Specifically, the focus of this study is on the changes in collagen and elastin microstructure in response to macroscopic equibiaxial loading applied to the aortic adventitia.

The Cyst of the Canal of Nuck: Anatomy, Diagnostic and Treatment of a Very Rare Diagnosis-A Case Report of an Adult Woman and Narrative Review of the Literature.

The cyst of the canal of Nuck is an extremely rare female hydrocele, usually occurring in children, but also in adult women. It is caused by pathology of the canal of Nuck, which is the female equivalent to the male processus vaginalis. Due to its rarity and the lack of awareness among physicians, the cyst of the canal of Nuck is a seldom-encountered entity in clinical practice and is commonly misdiagnosed.

Changes in the microstructure of the human aortic medial layer under biaxial loading investigated by multi-photon microscopy.

Understanding the correlation between tissue architecture, health status, and mechanical properties is essential for improving material models and developing tissue engineering scaffolds. Since structural-based material models are state of the art, there is an urgent need for experimentally obtained structural parameters. For this purpose, the medial layer of nine human abdominal aortas was simultaneously subjected to equibiaxial loading and multi-photon microscopy.

Differences in intraosseous and extraosseous post-chemotherapy regression of Ewing sarcomas and their influence on prognosis.

Background: In Ewing sarcomas (ES), histological response to polychemotherapy is the main prognostic factor. We aimed at evaluating the histological response separately for the extraosseous and intraosseous tumor compartment as well as its prognostic influence.

Methods: Thirty-one patients with ES and marked soft tissue expansion, treated at our department between January 2006 and December 2015, were retrospectively included.

Failure properties and microstructure of healthy and aneurysmatic human thoracic aortas subjected to uniaxial extension with a focus on the media.

Current clinical practice for aneurysmatic interventions is often based on the maximum diameter of the vessel and/or on the growth rate, although rupture can occur at any diameter and growth rate, leading to fatality. For 27 medial samples obtained from 12 non-aneurysmatic (control) and 9 aneurysmatic human descending thoracic aortas we examined: the mechanical responses up to rupture using uniaxial extension tests of circumferential and longitudinal specimens; the structure of these tissues using second-harmonic imaging and histology, in particular, the content proportions of collagen, elastic fibers and smooth muscle cells in the media. It was found that the mean failure stresses were higher in the circumferential directions (Control-C 1474kPa; Aneurysmatic-C 1446kPa), than in the longitudinal directions (Aneurysmatic-L 735kPa; Control-L 579kPa).

The impact of crosslinking and non-crosslinking fixatives on antigen retrieval and immunohistochemistry.

Pre-analytical factors can greatly influence the outcome of molecular analyses in medical diagnostics and research. This also applies to in situ staining techniques such as immunohistochemistry (IHC), where different types of tissue fixation methods lead to different modifications of proteins and thus can affect differently the detection by antibodies. For formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue, antigen retrieval is applied in order to reverse the negative effects of formalin and re-establish immunoreactivity.

Osteochondroma of the scapula associated with a subclavian artery pseudoaneurysm: Case report.

Osteochondromas rarely induce vascular complications by mechanical compression. We present the case of a subclavian artery pseudoaneursym caused by an osteochondroma of the scapula in a 67-year-old male. The diagnosis was based on a previous history of multiple exostoses, computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, as well as the local vascular clinical status of the lesion.

Impact of storage conditions on the quality of nucleic acids in paraffin embedded tissues.

RNA and DNA analyses from paraffin-embedded tissues (PET) are an important diagnostic tool for characterization of a disease, exploring biomarkers and treatment options. Since nucleic acids from formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue are of limited use for molecular analyses due to chemical modifications of biomolecules alternate, formalin-free fixation reagents such as the PAXgene Tissue system are of evolving interest. Furthermore, biomedical research and biomarker development critically relies on using long-term stored PET from medical archives or biobanks to correlate molecular features with long-term disease outcomes.

Mechanical response of human subclavian and iliac arteries to extension, inflation and torsion.

Unlabelled: Peripheral vascular trauma due to injuries of the upper and lower limbs are life-threatening, and their treatment require rapid diagnosis and highly-qualified surgical procedures. Experienced surgeons have recognized that subclavian arteries, affected by injuries of the upper limbs, require a more careful handling due to fragility than common iliac arteries, which are may be affected by injures of the lower limbs. We investigated these two artery types with comparable diameter to evaluate the differences in the biomechanical properties between subclavian and iliac arteries.

Protocol for HER2 FISH Using a Non-cross-linking, Formalin-free Tissue Fixative to Combine Advantages of Cryo-preservation and Formalin Fixation.

Morphologic assessment of formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue samples has been the gold standard for cancer diagnostics for decades due to its excellent preservation of morphology. Personalized medicine increasingly provides individually adapted and targeted therapies for characterized individual diseases enabled by combined morphological and molecular analytical technologies and diagnostics. Performance of morphologic and molecular assays from the same FFPE specimen is challenging because of the negative impact of formalin due to chemical modification and cross-linking of nucleic acids and proteins.

Visualization of tumor heterogeneity by in situ padlock probe technology in colorectal cancer.

Tumor heterogeneity is considered a major cause for therapy resistance in colorectal cancer. Sub-populations of cells with different genetic alterations may exist in spatially distinct areas. Upon therapy, resistant sub-clones may enrich and ultimately lead to disease progression.

Microstructure and mechanics of healthy and aneurysmatic abdominal aortas: experimental analysis and modelling.

Soft biological tissues such as aortic walls can be viewed as fibrous composites assembled by a ground matrix and embedded families of collagen fibres. Changes in the structural components of aortic walls such as the ground matrix and the embedded families of collagen fibres have been shown to play a significant role in the pathogenesis of aortic degeneration. Hence, there is a need to develop a deeper understanding of the microstructure and the related mechanics of aortic walls.

Protocol for HER2 FISH determination on PAXgene-fixed and paraffin-embedded tissue in breast cancer.

Molecular diagnostics in personalized medicine increasingly relies on the combination of a variety of analytical technologies to characterize individual diseases and to select patients for targeted therapies. The gold standard for tissue-based diagnostics is fixation in formalin and embedding in paraffin, which results in excellent preservation of morphology but negatively impacts on a variety of molecular assays. The formalin-free, non-cross-linking PAXgene tissue system preserves morphology in a similar way to formalin, but also preserves biomolecules essentially in a similar way to cryopreservation, which markedly widens the spectrum, sensitivity and accuracy of molecular analytics.

Pathogen Inactivating Properties and Increased Sensitivity in Molecular Diagnostics by PAXgene, a Novel Non-Crosslinking Tissue Fixative.

Background: Requirements on tissue fixatives are getting more demanding as molecular analysis becomes increasingly relevant for routine diagnostics. Buffered formaldehyde in pathology laboratories for tissue fixation is known to cause chemical modifications of biomolecules which affect molecular testing. A novel non-crosslinking tissue preservation technology, PAXgene Tissue (PAXgene), was developed to preserve the integrity of nucleic acids in a comparable way to cryopreservation and also to preserve morphological features comparable to those of formalin fixed samples.

Immunofluorescence and Immunohistochemical Detection of Keratins.

Reliable detection of keratins in tissues is important for investigating their physiological role and for using keratin expression as a biomarker in medical diagnostics. A particular challenge for the detection of keratins by immunofluorescence microscopy or immunohistochemistry relates to the fact that keratin intermediate filaments are obligatory heteropolymers, which may result in dissociation between RNA and protein expression levels in the event that the homeostasis of the expression of the proper keratin partners is disturbed. Furthermore, variable accessibility of epitopes on keratin polypeptides due to conformational changes may lead to false negative results.

Mutation Profiling of Usual Ductal Hyperplasia of the Breast Reveals Activating Mutations Predominantly at Different Levels of the PI3K/AKT/mTOR Pathway.

Usual ductal hyperplasia (UDH) of the breast is generally regarded as a nonneoplastic proliferation, albeit loss of heterozygosity has long been reported in a part of these lesions. To gain deeper insights into the molecular drivers of these lesions, an extended mutation profiling was performed. The coding regions of 409 cancer-related genes were investigated by next-generation sequencing in 16 cases of UDH, nine unassociated with neoplasia (classic) and seven arising within papillomas.

Biomechanical properties and microstructure of human ventricular myocardium.

Unlabelled: In the multidisciplinary field of heart research it is of utmost importance to identify accurate myocardium material properties for the description of phenomena such as mechano-electric feedback or heart wall thickening. A rationally-based material model is required to understand the highly nonlinear mechanics of complex structures such as the passive myocardium under different loading conditions. Unfortunately, to date there are no experimental data of human heart tissues available to estimate material parameters and to develop adequate material models.

Quantification of Shear Deformations and Corresponding Stresses in the Biaxially Tested Human Myocardium.

One goal of cardiac research is to perform numerical simulations to describe/reproduce the mechanoelectrical function of the human myocardium in health and disease. Such simulations are based on a complex combination of mathematical models describing the passive mechanical behavior of the myocardium and its electrophysiology, i.e.

Human thoracic and abdominal aortic aneurysmal tissues: Damage experiments, statistical analysis and constitutive modeling.

Development of aortic aneurysms includes significant morphological changes within the tissue: collagen content increases, elastin content reduces and smooth muscle cells degenerate. We seek to quantify the impact of these changes on the passive mechanical response of aneurysms in the supra-physiological loading range via mechanical testing and constitutive modeling. We perform uniaxial extension tests on circumferentially and axially oriented strips from five thoracic (65.