Urological Tract Infection with Candida Bezoars in a Woman with Diabetes Type 2.

The aim of this report is to describe a case of fungal bezoar obstruction of the kidney and our experience in managing it endoscopically. A 61-year-old woman presented with flank pain. On CT scan, a proximal stone and secondary dilatation was seen.

Urology simulation boot camp: A perspective from non-UK delegates.

Background: Medical simulation has become an integral part of modern-day surgical training. Despite its benefits, it is still not widely incorporated in the curriculum of trainees. The Urology Boot Camp (USBC) is an innovative 5-day course aimed at trainees entering the UK training scheme.

Establishing the required components for training in ultrasoundguided peripheral intravenous cannulation: a systematic review of available evidence.

Ultrasound increases a first-attempt success rate for vascular access when considered by knowledgeable and experienced practitioners. Education and training of these practitioners in ultrasound-guided peripheral intravenous cannulation is becoming increasingly common, although no consensus has been reached regarding its curriculum. The current systematic literature review aims to explore different training modules and components in use, and its efficacy and efficiency in ultrasound-guided peripheral intravenous cannulation in hospitalized adults by different healthcare providers.

Different Bilingual Experiences Might Modulate Executive Tasks Advantages: Comparative Analysis between Monolinguals, Translators, and Interpreters.

Many studies have shown that being bilingual presents an advantage in executive control. However, it appears that knowing two (or more) languages is not enough to improve executive control. According to the adaptive control hypothesis (Green and Abutalebi, 2013), the interactional context in which bilinguals behave is a key factor that modulates cognitive advantage in executive control.

Cultural competence and simulated patients.

Background: Cultural competence education is central in addressing the socio-cultural factors that affect health care; however, there is little agreement over the best teaching approach. Although simulated patients are widely used in medical education, little is known about their application to cultural competence education.

Context: At the Department of Ambulatory Care and Community Medicine, University of Lausanne, the content of a cultural competence education module for resident doctors was recently restructured, with a final session emphasising previous principles through a simulated patient-doctor encounter.

Evaluation of the anti-angiogenic activity of saponins from Maesa lanceolata by different assays.

Angiogenesis, in which a vascular network is established from pre-existing vessels, is a complex multistep process. Mechanisms underlying angiogenesis can be investigated using a variety of in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo approaches. Evaluation of several promising plants and plant metabolites, including terpenoids, revealed promising anti-angiogenic activity.

Factors influencing standard pretravel health advice--a study in Belgium.

Background: Travelers with risk factors, medical conditions such as immunosuppression, medication intake, pregnancy, or elderly age, need adaptation or reinforcement of pretravel health advice. The literature provides little data on the frequency of these risk groups in the travel population. This study intended to investigate whether risk factors influencing standard travel advice are common in the population attending our travel clinic.

An ex-vivo angiogenesis assay as a screening method for natural compounds and herbal drug preparations.

Angiogenesis is a fundamental component of complex biological processes, including oncogenesis. The aim of this work was to optimise and validate an ex-vivo angiogenesis assay as a quantitative (PC image) biological method for testing promising natural compounds and herbal drug preparations for their pro-/anti-angiogenic activity. The bioassay is based on the principle of wound healing and quantifies the effect of angiogenic agents on neovessel outgrowth of human placental vessels embedded in a three-dimensional fibrin matrix.

Determination of tumour prognosis based on angiogenesis-related vascular patterns measured by fractal and syntactic structure analysis.

Aims: Intratumoural micro-vessel density (IMD) has recently been shown to be a valuable prognostic tool in many tumours. Yet, IMD does not take into account the spatial arrangement of the vessels, therefore only partly reflecting the angiogenic situation. In order to describe contextual vascular relationships more accurately, we have used fractal and syntactic structure analysis (SSA) based on computerised image processing to quantify micro-vascular hot spots.

Transcontinental communication and quantitative digital histopathology via the Internet; with special reference to prostate neoplasia.

Objective: To describe practical experiences in the sharing of very large digital data bases of histopathological imagery via the Internet, by investigators working in Europe, North America, and South America.

Materials: Experiences derived from medium power (sampling density 2.4 pixels/microm) and high power (6 pixels/microm) imagery of prostatic tissues, skin shave biopsies, breast lesions, endometrial sections, and colonic lesions.

Proliferation, DNA ploidy, p53 overexpression and nuclear DNA fragmentation in six equine melanocytic tumours.

Melanocytic tumours are a well-known clinical and pathological entity in horses, but further phenotypic characterization of these tumours is lacking. Six melanocytic tumours from five horses (two metastatic and four benign) were examined by Ki67, PCNA and p53 immunostaining, DNA nick end labelling (Tunel) and Feulgen staining. The stainings were evaluated using quantitative image analysis.

Validation of nuclear texture, density, morphometry and tissue syntactic structure analysis as prognosticators of cervical carcinoma.

Objective: To evaluate the performance of karyometry and histometry in the prediction of survival, recurrence and response of early-stage invasive cervical carcinoma.

Study Design: Nuclear morphometry, chromatin texture and tissue architecture (characterized by syntactic structure analysis) were measured using a semiautomated image analysis system on 46 cases of Feulgen-stained tissue sections. The performance of the features was compared to that of clinical features, reported to be the best prognosticators until now, such as age, lympho-vascular permeation, histologic type, stage and grade.

Data representation and reduction for chromatin texture in nuclei from premalignant prostatic, esophageal, and colonic lesions.

Background: To identify nuclei and lesions with great specificity, a large set of karyometric features is arranged in the form of a linear profile, called a nuclear signature. The karyometric feature values are normalized as z-values. Their ordering along the profile axis is arbitrary but consistent.

The association between vascular endothelial growth factor, microvessel density and clinicopathological features in invasive cervical cancer.

Objective: The aim of this study was to analyse the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression in a series of cervical carcinomas and to compare the results with the microvessel density (MVD) and clinicopathological features.

Study Design: The immunoreactivity for VEGF was studied in 130 invasive cervical carcinomas and in 22 patients with a carcinoma in situ of the cervix. The results were compared with the MVD.

DNA ploidy and nuclear morphometric variables for the evaluation of melanocytic tumors in dogs and cats.

Objective: To determine the prognostic importance of the DNA content and nuclear morphometric variables in melanocytic tumors of cats and dogs.

Sample Population: 27 melanocytic tumors of dogs and cats.

Procedures: Biopsy specimens were investigated by quantitative image analysis after the Feulgen staining method.

Fibrous intimal thickening at implantation as a risk factor for the outcome of cadaveric renal allografts.

Background: During the past decade, the donor age of cadaveric renal allografts steadily increased. Because cerebrovascular injury is the main cause of death in this donor population, an increased prevalence of atherosclerotic lesions in the retrieved grafts could be anticipated. In a prospective study, we investigated the predictive value of morphologic lesions at implantation for the functional and morphologic outcome of cadaveric renal allografts at 1 1/2 years.

Quantum groups with invariant integrals.

Quantum groups have been studied intensively for the last two decades from various points of view. The underlying mathematical structure is that of an algebra with a coproduct. Compact quantum groups admit Haar measures.

Value of morphometry, texture analysis, densitometry, and histometry in the differential diagnosis and prognosis of malignant mesothelioma.

Malignant mesothelioma is a tumour with increasing incidence due to widespread use of its causative agent, asbestos, in the past decades. The poor survival necessitates a correct differentiation from other lesions at the same site, such as hyperplastic mesothelium and carcinomas metastatic to pleura or peritoneum. Since genetic and immunohistochemical markers are not absolutely differentiating, the diagnosis is based on the histology complemented with (immuno)histochemistry.

Computer-assisted differential diagnosis of malignant mesothelioma based on syntactic structure analysis.

Background: Malignant mesothelioma, a mesoderm-derived tumor, is related to asbestos exposure and remains a diagnostic challenge because none of the genetic or immunohistochemical markers have yet been proven to be specific. To assist in the identification of mesothelioma and to differentiate it from other common lesions at the same location, we have tested the performance of syntactic structure analysis (SSA) in an automated classification procedure.

Materials And Methods: Light-microscopic images of tissue sections of malignant mesothelioma, hyperplastic mesothelium, and adenocarcinoma were analyzed using parameters selected from the Voronoi diagram, Gabriel's graph, and the minimum spanning tree which were classified with a K-nearest-neighbor algorithm.

Angiogenesis in cervical intraepithelial neoplasia and the risk of recurrence.

Objective: We sought to investigate whether angiogenesis can predict the risk of recurrence of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia after treatment.

Study Design: Microvessel density was studied in 75 patients with grade 3 cervical intraepithelial neoplasia and in 20 patients with microinvasive squamous carcinoma (International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics stage IA1) of the uterine cervix by staining representative tissue sections with the specific endothelial marker anti-CD31. The microvessel density was determined with a digital image analyzer.

Combined characterization of composite tabular silver halide microcrystals by cryo-EFTEM/EELS and cryo-STEM/EDX techniques.

The combination of cryo-energy filtering transmission electron microscopy (EFTEM)/electron spectroscopic diffraction (ESD)/electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) and cryo-energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis in the scanning transmission (STEM) and scanning (SEM) modes was applied for the characterization of composite tabular Ag(Br,I) microcrystals. A low-loss fine structure in EEL spectra between 4 and 26 eV was attributed to excitons and plasmons possibly superimposed with interband transitions and many-electron effects. The contrast tuning under the energy-filtering in the low-loss region was used to image the crystal morphology, defect structure (random dislocations and ¿111¿ stacking faults) and bend and edge contours as well as electron excitations in the microcrystals.

Automated breast tumor diagnosis and grading based on wavelet chromatin texture description.

In this paper, wavelets were employed for multi-scale image analysis to extract parameters for the description of chromatin texture in the cytological diagnosis and grading of invasive breast cancer. Their value was estimated by comparing the performance of co-occurrence, densitometric, and morphometric parameters in an automated K-nearest neighbor (Knn) classification scheme based on light microscopic images of isolated nuclei of paraffin-embedded tissue. This design allowed a multifaceted cytological retrospective study of which the practical value can be judged easily.

Quantification and prognostic relevance of angiogenic parameters in invasive cervical cancer.

Tumour stromal neovascularization was investigated in 114 invasive and 20 in situ carcinomas of the uterine cervix by staining representative sections with the specific endothelial marker anti CD31 (clone JC/70A, isotope IgG1). A digital image analyser was used to measure the immunoreactivity. The following parameters were determined in the 'hot spots': vessel counts, vessel perimeter and endothelial stained area (expressed per mm2).

Biochemical and histopathological changes in nephrectomized mice.

Renal failure is characterized by the retention of nitrogenous metabolites such as urea, creatinine (CTN) and other guanidino compounds (GCs), uric acid, and hippuric acid, which could be related to the clinical syndrome associated with renal insufficiency. A model of renal failure has been developed in male C57BL x Swiss-Webster mice using nephrectomy (NX) and/or arterial ligation. A sham group (group A) and two nephrectomized groups, group B (one kidney removed) and group C (one kidney removed and ligation of the contralateral anterior artery branch), were studied.