Second-line treatment options are limited for patients with small-cell lung cancer (SCLC). We conducted a PRISMA-standard systematic literature review to evaluate the treatment landscape for patients with relapsed SCLC (PROSPERO number: CRD42022299759). Systematic searches of MEDLINE, Embase, and Cochrane Library were performed (October 2022) to identify publications (prior 5 years) from prospective studies of therapies for relapsed SCLC.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStable isotopes are valuable tools in physiological and ecological research, as they can be used to estimate diet, habitat use, and resource allocation. However, in most cases a priori knowledge of two key properties of stable isotopes is required, namely their rate of incorporation into the body (incorporation rate) and the change of isotope values between consumers and resources that arises during incorporation of the isotopes into the consumer's tissues (trophic discrimination). Previous studies have quantified these properties across species and tissue types, but little is known about how they vary with temperature, a key driver of many biological rates and times.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntra-population niche differences in generalist foragers have captured the interest of ecologists, because such individuality can have important ecological and evolutionary implications. Few researchers have investigated how these differences affect the relationships among ecologically similar, sympatric species. Using stable isotopes, stomach contents, morphology and habitat preference, we examined niche partitioning within a group of five anurans and determined whether variation within species could facilitate resource partitioning.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStable isotope analysis is an increasingly useful ecological tool, but its accuracy depends on quantifying the tissue-specific trophic discrimination factors (TDFs) and isotopic incorporation rates for focal taxa. Despite the technique's ubiquity, most laboratory experiments determining TDFs and incorporation rates have focused on birds, mammals, and fish; we know little about terrestrial ectotherms, and amphibians in particular are understudied. In this study we used two controlled feeding experiments to determine carbon (δ(13)C) and nitrogen (δ(15)N) isotope TDFs for skin, whole blood, and bone collagen and incorporation rates for skin and whole blood in adult green frogs, Lithobates clamitans.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDespite advances in the study of capuchin monkeys (Cebus and Sapajus), there is fairly limited information on their vocal communication systems. The present study focused on investigating the structure and use of vocalizations by wild blonde capuchin monkeys, Sapajus flavius. The study subjects produced 29 different call types, which we grouped into 10 categories according to their behavioral context.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFew studies have examined how landmarks affect territories' fundamental characteristics. In this field study, we investigated effects of landmarks on territory size, shape and location in a cichlid fish (Amatitlania siquia). We provided cans as breeding sites and used plastic plants as landmarks.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To raise immunization coverage among children at risk for underimmunization, we evaluated the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of immunization activities in the Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC).
Method: A controlled intervention trial was conducted in seven WIC sites in Chicago between October 1990 and March 1994. At intervention sites, staff screened children for vaccination status at every visit, referred vaccine-eligible children to either an on-site WIC nurse, on-site clinic, or off-site community provider, and issued either a 3-month supply of food vouchers to up-to-date children or a 1-month supply to children not up-to-date--a usual practice for high-risk WIC children.
Numerous anecdotal reports suggest that members of many territorial species use naturally occurring landmarks to define the boundaries of their territories. In the work reported here, we first tested whether artificial landmarks would be adopted as boundaries by territorial male cicada killer wasps, Sphecius speciosus. To perform this test, we set out wooden dowels on a flat, grassy lawn on which male wasps were defending mating territories.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecent work has resulted in the development of potent inhibitors of oligosaccharyl transferase (OT), the enzyme that catalyzes the cotranslational glycosylation of asparagine [Hendrickson, T. L., Spencer, J.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFClin Perform Qual Health Care
March 1998
Objective: Severity adjustment is an oft-cited requirement when comparing physicians or medical delivery systems. Each application of severity adjustment, however, has to be tested to validate the need, the method, and its value. We examined the value of severity adjustment for identifying physician outliers when studying length of stay in the hospital.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArchival PAP stained cervical smears were destained and treated with a fluorescent probe for a cell surface enzyme (GB). Cells which exhibited cell surface fluorescence were demonstrated to be cells of cytological interest in the analysis of cervical smears. These cells could be directly related to PAP and reclassified by subsequent restaining with PAP.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe report a test of an experimental system for machine-aided screening in cervical cytology, comprising the 'CYTOPRESS' semi-automatic slide preparation system (Nijmegen) and the 'CERVIFIP' interactive scanner (Edinburgh). Material from women attending clinics in Edinburgh and Nijmegen was stratified according to the severity of the conventional laboratory diagnosis and selected randomly within strata for inclusion in the test. Monolayered slides were prepared by CYTOPRESS from cervical scrape material remaining after preparation of conventional smears and scanned by CERVIFIP to determine the positions of the most 'suspicious' objects.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMonolayer spreads of cervical cells were prepared and reacted in sequence with two fluorescent probes. The nuclei were reacted with 4,6-Diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI), resulting in white fluorescence of all cell nuclei. Those cells possessing active guanidinobenzoatase (GB) bound the second probe, rhodamine-alpha-N-agmatine (Rh-Agm), resulting in orange cell surface fluorescence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHela cells originate from a clone of cervical carcinoma cells. The cytoplasm of Hela cells contains a protein which recognises and inhibits a proteolytic enzyme (guanidino-benzoatase) on the surface of Hela cells. This same protease is present on the surface of abnormal epithelial cells obtained from cervical smears, enabling a rhodamine labelled inhibitor extracted from Hela cells to locate abnormal cervical cells in monolayer spreads.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnal Cell Pathol
January 1993
This paper reports a test of a system for provision of machine assistance in cervical cytology screening. The hypothesis tested was that if the results of examination by a screener of a small number of high-ploidy cells on specially prepared monolayers, automatically selected and presented by the system, were combined with machine measurement of cell and cell population characteristics, it would be possible to distinguish conditions requiring further action on the part of a cytology service from those in which the patient could safely be signed out. The system appeared broadly capable of this discrimination, with a false-negative error not significantly different (for the numbers tested) on CIN1 and more severe cases to that obtaining for routine screening of the parallel PAP smears, and also to results obtained by a panel of three observers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFClin Perform Qual Health Care
September 1994
Objective: To compare inpatient length of stay among physicians by testing a new method for severity adjusting length of stay.
Design: A retrospective validation study with prospective follow-up after an intervention.
Setting: A 531-bed community teaching hospital.
Anticancer Res
April 1993
Monolayer spreads of cervical cells were prepared and stained with haematoxylin and rhodamine-alpha-N-agmatine, a fluorescent marker for a cell surface protease. Mature epithelial cells from normal cervices lacked this cell surface enzyme and did not fluoresce. The abnormal cells possessed the cell surface enzyme, bound the probe and were quickly detected by fluorescence microscopy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF1. In two experiments laying hens were treated with an agonist of gonadotrophin releasing hormone (GnRH) to induce a reduction in the secretion of luteinising hormone (LH) and a pause in egg production. 2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEarly theorists described physical diseases (e.g., asthma, ulcers) thought to be associated with the inhibition of weeping (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe rare high-DNA cell sub-populations in a series of serous effusion specimens were analysed to determine whether such measurements could provide a basis for the improved diagnosis of malignancy. Monolayer specimens stained with gallocyanin chrome-alum were scanned with the CERVIFIP continuous-motion image analyser to locate and measure the highest-DNA cells in the sample. Two types of features were obtained for the detected sub-populations; firstly, 'percentile ploidy' values which characterise the ploidy levels above which specified proportions of the total cells are found; and secondly 'percentage abnormal' values which characterise the proportion of the cells diagnosed as malignant during examination by a cytopathologist.
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