Haematopoietic stem cell transplantation as primary therapy of sporadic adult Burkitt lymphoma.

High dose chemoradiotherapy and haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (SCT) is used as primary therapy for patients diagnosed with Burkitt lymphoma (BL). Forty-three adults presented with sporadic BL in British Columbia between 1987 and 2003. Twenty patients had bone marrow involvement.

Variations in cardiac interventions: doctors' practices and views.

Objectives: To investigate referral rates for cardiac interventions by clinical specialty, to document doctors' reasons for referrals and to explore doctors' perceptions of the factors that influenced their clinical decisions.

Study Design: Doctors completed a clinical decision-making exercise involving, in total, 6093 electronic patients with cardiac disease, and subsequently took part in the semi-structured interviews about influences on their decisions. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed and coded using a thematic approach, with the coding categories derived from the data.

Making the gradient: thyroid hormone regulates cone opsin expression in the developing mouse retina.

Most mammals have two types of cone photoreceptors, which contain either medium wavelength (M) or short wavelength (S) opsin. The number and spatial organization of cone types varies dramatically among species, presumably to fine-tune the retina for different visual environments. In the mouse, S- and M-opsin are expressed in an opposing dorsal-ventral gradient.

Early pregnancy diagnosis by transrectal ultrasonography in dairy cattle.

The objective of the present study was to determine differences in time of detection of pregnancy between heifers and cows and the interval after insemination at which the maximum sensitivity and negative predictive value of transrectal ultrasonography were obtained. One-thousand-four-hundred transrectal ultrasonographies (TRUS-1; 1,079 in cows and 321 in heifers) were performed using a 5-MHz linear-array transducer. The cattle were randomly assigned to have TRUS performed once between days 24 and 30 (estrus=day 0) in cows or between days 21 and 27 in heifers.

Activation of the blue opsin gene in cone photoreceptor development by retinoid-related orphan receptor beta.

Color vision requires the expression of opsin photopigments with different wavelength sensitivities in retinal cone photoreceptors. The basic color visual system of mammals is dichromatic, involving differential expression in the cone population of two opsins with sensitivity to short (S, blue) or medium (M, green) wavelengths. However, little is known of the factors that directly activate these opsin genes and thereby contribute to the S or M opsin identity of the cone.

Early stem cell transplantation for refractory acute leukemia after salvage therapy with high-dose etoposide and cyclophosphamide.

Primary refractory acute leukemia (AL) has a poor prognosis, although some patients can be salvaged with allogeneic stem cell transplantation (SCT). Induction of complete remission (CR) with conventional chemotherapy before SCT may improve outcome in this patient population. Between March 1991 and October 2003, 59 adults with primary refractory AL were treated with continuous-infusion etoposide (VP) 2.

Shifting to outpatient management of acute myeloid leukemia: a prospective experience.

Background: We assessed the feasibility of outpatient chemotherapy and supportive care in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML).

Patients And Methods: All patients receiving curative intent chemotherapy between 09/01 and 10/02 and meeting our criteria received supportive care post induction chemotherapy as well as their entire consolidation chemotherapy cycles as outpatients. Patients received antimicrobial prophylaxis; those developing episodes of fever and not meeting the criteria for admission were treated with outpatient intravenous antibiotics.

Parkinson's disease as a model for psychosocial issues in chronic neurodegenerative disease.

Throughout the course of PD, opportunities abound for psychosocial interventions that can improve a patient's quality of life. The psychosocial challenges accompanying PD vary by stage of illness, though some challenges persist throughout the course of illness. As illustrated in the tables in this chapter, many of these interventions involve empathic listening and inquiry, education, challenging distorted or overly helpless thoughts and self-conceptions, and facilitating social contact and functioning.

Improving fertility in beef cow recipients.

In the 1970s, bovine embryo transfer (ET) shifted from research in a laboratory environment to commercialization of this technology for beef producers. With the quarantine requirements and expense of importing Continental breeds of cattle from Europe, embryo transfer became the logical means to reproduce greater numbers of these animals at a lower cost. The ET industry grew very rapidly and soon would become what it is today, a common practice utilized by select ranchers and breeders.

Elements of dynamics VI: the dynamic unconscious and unconscious dynamics.

The dynamic unconscious remains in contention in cognitive psychology. Academic settings may not provide the compelling evidence of unconscious dynamics regularly experienced by dynamic psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, and other physicians, including neurologists treating psychogenic motor disorders in the movement disorder clinic. An origin of unconscious motor expression is postulated in the intermodal connectivity of neuromental agencies, extending an idea that originated in Freud's (1950/1966) "Project for a Scientific Psychology.

High-dose therapy and autologous hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation does not increase the risk of second neoplasms for patients with Hodgkin's lymphoma: a comparison of conventional therapy alone versus conventional therapy followed by autologous hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation.

Purpose: To determine the incidence of second malignancies among patients with Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL) treated with autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (AHSCT) compared with patients receiving conventional therapy alone and to identify potential risk factors for their occurrence.

Patients And Methods: We analyzed data on 1,732 consecutive patients with HL treated at the British Columbia Cancer Agency from 1976 to 2001, including 202 patients undergoing AHSCT. The median follow-up duration was 9.

Allogeneic haematopoietic stem-cell transplantation for relapsed and refractory aggressive histology non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Forty-four patients with relapsed or refractory aggressive histology non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) (diffuse large B cell, n = 23; peripheral T cell, n = 5; transformed B cell, n = 16) proceeded to allogeneic stem cell transplant (allo-SCT) between 1987 and 2003. Median age at transplant was 40 years (range 19-56 years). At the time of transplant, 35 were chemosensitive and nine were chemorefractory.

Myeloablative allografting for chronic lymphocytic leukemia: evidence for a potent graft-versus-leukemia effect associated with graft-versus-host disease.

In all, 30 patients with CLL proceeded to myeloablative allogeneic BMT using related (n=20, 67%) or unrelated (n=10) donors, at the Princess Margaret Hospital (Toronto) (n=20) or the Leukemia/BMT Program of BC (Vancouver) (n=10), from 1989 to 2001. Median (range) interval from diagnosis to BMT was 4.8 (0.

Whole-genome shotgun optical mapping of Rhodospirillum rubrum.

Rhodospirillum rubrum is a phototrophic purple nonsulfur bacterium known for its unique and well-studied nitrogen fixation and carbon monoxide oxidation systems and as a source of hydrogen and biodegradable plastic production. To better understand this organism and to facilitate assembly of its sequence, three whole-genome restriction endonuclease maps (XbaI, NheI, and HindIII) of R. rubrum strain ATCC 11170 were created by optical mapping.

Home advantage and the debate about competitive balance in professional sports leagues.

A recurrent theme in sports economics is the extent to which overall league attendances will be raised by measures, such as revenue sharing, which aim to improve competitive balance. This debate has ignored the phenomenon of home advantage, which may, however, be important to the extent that, if all teams had equal talent, all matches may then be weighted heavily in favour of the home team. We present an analysis of the relationship between attendance and match-level uncertainty in the English Football League.

Predictive value of karyotype on outcome of autotransplants for acute myeloid leukemia in second remission.

The impact of karyotype on the outcome of patients who undergo autotransplant for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in second remission (CR2) has not been explored. We evaluated the outcomes of 40 patients who proceeded to autotransplant for AML in CR2 at 2 centers. The median age at autotransplant was 50 years (18-64 years) and the median duration of first remission was 15 months (0.

Consulting to Star Trek: to boldly go into dynamic neuropsychiatry.

Technical consultation to a screenwriter of episodes for The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager series of Star Trek drew upon the new discipline of dynamic neuropsychiatry to originate ideas for the alien experiences in the science fiction scripts. In particular, the neurologic misidentification syndromes, which elicit complex neuropsychic defenses and illustrate the psychodynamics of object relations, provided a sense of strangeness. The wide, creepy popular appeal of the syndromes, described here, reveals a latent mental defensive structure that is activated by psychopathology and neuropathology, but that is also somehow sensed by those who are more or less neurologically intact.

High-dose chemotherapy and autologous stem cell transplantation for primary refractory or relapsed Hodgkin lymphoma: long-term outcome in the first 100 patients treated in Vancouver.

Beginning in 1985, patients in British Columbia with Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) that was not controlled by conventional chemotherapy routinely underwent high-dose chemotherapy and autologous stem cell transplantation (HD-ASCT). Long-term complications of HD-ASCT have become apparent as more patients survive without recurrence of HL. Data were obtained retrospectively on the first 100 patients that underwent HD-ASCT for HL in Vancouver, focusing on relapse, treatment-related complications, and the occurrence of late events.

Everything's up-to-date in ultrasound.

There is a sense that ultrasound (US) is falling behind other technologies, and has taken a diminished role in modern radiology. Fortunately, there are newer innovations in ultrasound that seem very promising. 3-D ultrasound has aided in better imaging of multiple regions, including the uterus, breast, carotids, and even superficial musculoskeletal structures.

Retinoid-related receptor (ROR) alpha mRNA expression is altered in the brain of male mice lacking all ligand-binding thyroid hormone receptor (TR) isoforms.

In the vertebrate brain, the thalamus serves as a relay and integration station for diverse neuronal information en route from the periphery to the cortex. Deficiency of TH during development results in severe cerebral abnormalities similar to those seen in the mouse when the retinoic acid receptor (ROR)alpha gene is disrupted. To investigate the effect of the thyroid hormone receptors (TRs) on RORalpha gene expression, we used intact male mice, in which the genes encoding the alpha and beta TRs have been deleted.

Management following resuscitation from cardiac arrest: recommendations from the 2003 Rocky Mountain Critical Care Conference.

Purpose: To propose a strategy for the management of patients admitted to critical care units after resuscitation from cardiac arrest.

Source: Prior to the conference relevant studies were identified via literature searches and brief reviews circulated on the following topics: glucose and blood pressure management; therapeutic hypothermia; prearrest outcome prediction; post-arrest outcome prediction; and management of myocardial ischemia. Two days were devoted to assessing evidence and developing a management strategy at the conference.

Single-molecule approach to bacterial genomic comparisons via optical mapping.

Modern comparative genomics has been established, in part, by the sequencing and annotation of a broad range of microbial species. To gain further insights, new sequencing efforts are now dealing with the variety of strains or isolates that gives a species definition and range; however, this number vastly outstrips our ability to sequence them. Given the availability of a large number of microbial species, new whole genome approaches must be developed to fully leverage this information at the level of strain diversity that maximize discovery.

Shotgun optical mapping of the entire Leishmania major Friedlin genome.

Leishmania is a group of protozoan parasites which causes a broad spectrum of diseases resulting in widespread human suffering and death, as well as economic loss from the infection of some domestic animals and wildlife. To further understand the fundamental genomic architecture of this parasite, and to accelerate the on-going sequencing project, a whole-genome XbaI restriction map was constructed using the optical mapping system. This map supplemented traditional physical maps that were generated by fingerprinting and hybridization of cosmid and P1 clone libraries.