Prostate-specific membrane antigen protein expression in tumor tissue and risk of lethal prostate cancer.

Background: Overexpression of prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) in tumor tissue and serum has been linked to increased risk of biochemical recurrence in surgically treated prostate cancer patients, but none of the studies have assessed its association with disease-specific mortality.

Methods: We examined whether high PSMA protein expression in prostate tumor tissue was associated with lethal disease, and with tumor biomarkers of progression, among participants of two U.S.

Getting psychosocial interventions into mental health nursing practice: a survey of skill use and perceived benefits to service users.

Aim: To investigate the use of psychosocial interventions by mental health nurses following training and perceived benefits to service users.

Background: Psychosocial interventions are recommended to support the recovery of persons with enduring mental illness. Despite two decades of postgraduate training in psychosocial interventions internationally, implementation challenges still remain.

Phenotypic characterization of Salmonella isolated from food production environments associated with low-water activity foods.

Salmonella can survive for extended periods of time in low-moisture environments posing a challenge for modern food production. This dangerous pathogen must be controlled throughout the production chain with a minimal risk of dissemination. Limited information is currently available describing the behavior and characteristics of this important zoonotic foodborne bacterium in low-moisture food production environments and in food.

Protein expression of PTEN, insulin-like growth factor I receptor (IGF-IR), and lethal prostate cancer: a prospective study.

Background: Loss of PTEN has been shown to be associated with aggressive behavior of prostate cancer. It is less clear that loss of PTEN also increases the risk of cancer mortality. We investigated the association between PTEN expression and prostate cancer mortality and the potential effect modification by IGF-IR, a direct activator of the phosphoinositide-3-kinase (PI3K) pathway.

Gleason grade progression is uncommon.

Gleason grade is universally used for pathologic scoring of the differentiation of prostate cancer. However, it is unknown whether prostate tumors arise well differentiated and then progress to less differentiated forms or if Gleason grade is an early and largely unchanging feature. Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening has reduced the proportion of tumors diagnosed at advanced stage, which allows assessment of this question on a population level.

ProP is required for the survival of desiccated Salmonella enterica serovar typhimurium cells on a stainless steel surface.

Consumers trust commercial food production to be safe, and it is important to strive to improve food safety at every level. Several outbreaks of food-borne disease have been caused by Salmonella strains associated with dried food. Currently we do not know the mechanisms used by Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium to survive in desiccated environments.

Development and progress of Ireland's biobank network: Ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI), standardized documentation, sample and data release, and international perspective.

Biobank Ireland Trust (BIT) was established in 2004 to promote and develop an Irish biobank network to benefit patients, researchers, industry, and the economy. The network commenced in 2008 with two hospital biobanks and currently consists of biobanks in the four main cancer hospitals in Ireland. The St.

Pre-Treatment of platinum resistant ovarian cancer cells with an MMP-9/MMP-2 inhibitor prior to cisplatin enhances cytotoxicity as determined by high content screening.

Platinum resistance is a major cause of treatment failure in ovarian cancer. We previously identified matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP-9) as a potential therapeutic target of chemoresistant disease. A2780cis (cisplatin-resistant) and A2780 (cisplatin-sensitive) ovarian carcinoma cell lines were used.

Elucidating the regulon of multidrug resistance regulator RarA in Klebsiella pneumoniae.

RarA is an AraC-type regulator in Klebsiella pneumoniae, which, when overexpressed, confers a low-level multidrug-resistant (MDR) phenotype linked to the upregulation of both the acrAB and oqxAB efflux genes. Increased rarA expression has also been shown to be integral in the development of tigecycline resistance in the absence of ramA in K. pneumoniae.

Implications of recent research in neurobiology for psychological assessment.

In this article, I highlight 3 major findings from current research in attachment, neurobiology, psychopathology, and psychotherapy: (a) attachment failures and early trauma are related to many forms of psychopathology, (b) one of the major sequelae of developmental trauma is disorganization of the right hemisphere, and (c) psychological interventions that promote emotional experience, awareness, and expression are more effective than those that rely solely on cognitive restructuring. I then suggest implications of these findings for the practice of psychological assessment: (a) the relationship between client and assessor is more important than has been acknowledged generally, (b) performance-based personality tests are very useful in part because they tap right-hemisphere and subcortical brain functioning and provide information that clients cannot directly report, and (c) when psychological assessments provide clients with powerful emotional experiences, therapeutic change is often the result. I illustrate these points with excerpts from the Therapeutic Assessment of a 27-year-old man with compulsive sexual behavior.

Utility of multispectral imaging in automated quantitative scoring of immunohistochemistry.

Background: Automated scanning devices and image analysis software provide a means to overcome the limitations of manual semiquantitative scoring of immunohistochemistry. Common drawbacks to automated imaging systems include an inability to classify tissue type and an inability to segregate cytoplasmic and nuclear staining.

Methods: Immunohistochemistry for the membranous marker α-catenin, the cytoplasmic marker stathmin and the nuclear marker Ki-67 was performed on tissue microarrays (TMA) of archival formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue comprising 471 (α-catenin and stathmin) and 511 (Ki-67) cases of prostate adenocarcinoma.

Therapeutic assessment with children: intervening with parents "behind the mirror".

All the steps in the model of therapeutic assessment used with children (TA-C) are designed to involve and impact the child's parents. However, a distinctive process that parallels and accompanies the testing sessions with the child might be the most significant in helping parents shift their story of their child and family. In this process, parents are invited to observe their child's testing sessions (in an adjacent room through a live video feed, through a 1-way mirror, or in the corner of the testing room) and process the experience with the assessor (either simultaneously in the case of the 2-assessor model or after the fact in the 1-assessor model).

IGF-1 and its receptor in esophageal cancer: association with adenocarcinoma and visceral obesity.

Objectives: The insulin-like growth factor (IGF) pathway and visceral obesity have been independently linked with esophageal cancer. This study aimed to delineate the differential and interlinked role of visceral obesity and the IGF-1 system in esophageal adenocarcinoma and esophageal squamous-cell carcinoma (SCC).

Methods: IGF-1 receptor (IGF-1R) mRNA and protein were examined in esophageal SCC (KYSE 410, OE21) and esophageal adenocarcinoma (OE19, OE33) cell lines by western blotting.

Insights into the regulation of eukaryotic elongation factor 2 kinase and the interplay between its domains.

eEF2K (eukaryotic elongation factor 2 kinase) is a Ca2+/CaM (calmodulin)-dependent protein kinase which regulates the translation elongation machinery. eEF2K belongs to the small group of so-called 'α-kinases' which are distinct from the main eukaryotic protein kinase superfamily. In addition to the α-kinase catalytic domain, other domains have been identified in eEF2K: a CaM-binding region, N-terminal to the kinase domain; a C-terminal region containing several predicted α-helices (resembling SEL1 domains); and a probably rather unstructured 'linker' region connecting them.

Platelet adhesion and degranulation induce pro-survival and pro-angiogenic signalling in ovarian cancer cells.

Thrombosis is common in ovarian cancer. However, the interaction of platelets with ovarian cancer cells has not been critically examined. To address this, we investigated platelet interactions in a range of ovarian cancer cell lines with different metastatic potentials [HIO-80, 59M, SK-OV-3, A2780, A2780cis].

Common polymorphisms in the adiponectin and its receptor genes, adiponectin levels and the risk of prostate cancer.

Background: Adiponectin, an insulin-sensitizing adipokine, is inversely associated with adiposity and prostate cancer risk and progression. However, the role of genetic variation in the adiponectin (ADIPOQ) and receptor genes (ADIPOR1/R2) in prostate cancer is largely unknown.

Methods: In a nested case-control study of 1,286 cases and 1,267 controls within the Physicians' Health Study, we evaluated 29 common single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in ADIPOQ (n = 13), ADIPOR1 (n = 5), and ADIPOR2 (n = 11) in relation to the risk of prostate cancer.

Use of the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System (AAP) in the middle of a long-term psychotherapy.

This article relates how the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System (AAP) was used as a midtherapy intervention with a middle-aged man being treated for relationship difficulties. The man, who was identified via the AAP as having a dismissing attachment status, had difficulties committing to psychotherapy, presumably because he was terrified of experiencing the underlying depression and grief revealed on his Rorschach and AAP. Reading an AAP-based description of his attachment status helped the man become aware of his characteristic defenses against painful affect, and gave him the motivation to stay in therapy while experiencing and getting support for his unresolved mourning.

A screening technique useful for testing the effectiveness of novel "self-cleaning" photocatalytic surfaces.

We describe a screening methodology that can be used to quickly determine the effectiveness of newly synthesized photocatalysts. We were particularly interested in measuring the destruction of organic molecules painted onto a photocatalytic surface by spraying, with destruction proceeding in ambient air (as a model for airborne toxin destruction). Our method can utilize photocatalysts that are synthesized as powders (such as doped and undoped titanium oxide) and which are then calcined onto a glass substrate disk at 600°C.

mRNA expression signature of Gleason grade predicts lethal prostate cancer.

Purpose: Prostate-specific antigen screening has led to enormous overtreatment of prostate cancer because of the inability to distinguish potentially lethal disease at diagnosis. We reasoned that by identifying an mRNA signature of Gleason grade, the best predictor of prognosis, we could improve prediction of lethal disease among men with moderate Gleason 7 tumors, the most common grade, and the most indeterminate in terms of prognosis.

Patients And Methods: Using the complementary DNA-mediated annealing, selection, extension, and ligation assay, we measured the mRNA expression of 6,100 genes in prostate tumor tissue in the Swedish Watchful Waiting cohort (n = 358) and Physicians' Health Study (PHS; n = 109).

RET protein expression in papillary renal cell carcinoma.

Objective: To examine the role of RET in renal malignancy, in particular papillary renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

Materials And Methods: A cohort of 111 archival renal samples was used consisting of 94 renal cancers (66 papillary RCC, 18 conventional clear cell carcinoma, 10 chromophobe RCC), 4 benign oncocytomas, and 13 normal kidney tissues. RET protein expression was examined by immunohistochemistry and expression levels were correlated with clinicopathologic and patient survival data.

Journeys through the valley of death: multimethod psychological assessment and personality transformation in long-term psychotherapy.

The Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM Task Force, 2006) is based on the assumption that an in-depth understanding of clients' underlying emotional, personality, and interpersonal patterns will facilitate their treatment. In this article I show how such an understanding can be achieved through multimethod psychological assessment, and how useful such information can be in long-term psychotherapy with high-achieving, successful clients who struggle with forming and maintaining intimate relationships. Such treatments are extremely difficult, because when these clients attach to their psychotherapists, many of them temporarily become more symptomatic.

Therapeutic assessment of families in healthcare settings: a case presentation of the model's application.

In this article, we present a case study of a Therapeutic Assessment (TA) with an 11-year-old boy who had two unexplained behavioral episodes suggesting neurological impairment, which led to two emergency department visits at a children's hospital. TA is a semistructured approach that blends the extensive conceptualizing benefits of psychological assessment with the principles and techniques of evidence-based child and family interventions. We use this case to illustrate how TA is an adaptive and flexible approach to child-centered family assessment that can meet the goals of psychologists working in pediatric and general medical hospitals, primary care clinics, family medicine practices, and other health care settings.

Myocardial infarction & sudden death in recreational master marathon runners.

This review of the current literature on myocardial infarction and sudden death in recreational master marathon runners aims to help raise awareness of the scope of the problem to primary care providers, and to provide guidelines for educating and screening in recreational master marathon runners.

Echocardiographic speckle reduction comparison.

In this paper, a detailed description and comparison of speckle reduction of medical ultrasound, and in particular echocardiography, is presented. Fifteen speckle reduction filters are described in a detailed fashion to facilitate implementation for research and evaluation. The filtering techniques considered include anisotropic diffusion, wavelet denoising, and local statistics.