Vacuum-assisted excision: a safe minimally invasive option for benign phyllodes tumor diagnosis and treatment-a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Synopsis: This is a systematic review and meta-analysis comparing surgical excision with percutaneous ultrasound-guided vacuum-assisted excision (US-VAE) for the treatment of benign phyllodes tumor (PT) using local recurrence (LR) as the endpoint.

Objective: To determine the frequency of local recurrence (LR) of benign phyllodes tumor (PT) after ultrasound-guided vacuum-assisted excision (US-VAE) compared to the frequency of LR after surgical excision.

Method: A systematic review and meta-analysis [following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) standard] was conducted by comparing LR in women older than 18 years treated for benign PT by US-VAE compared with local surgical excision with at least 12 months of follow-up.

A Vision for the Future of Multiscale Modeling.

The rise of modern computer science enabled physical chemistry to make enormous progresses in understanding and harnessing natural and artificial phenomena. Nevertheless, despite the advances achieved over past decades, computational resources are still insufficient to thoroughly simulate extended systems from first principles. Indeed, countless biological, catalytic and photophysical processes require ab initio treatments to be properly described, but the breadth of length and time scales involved makes it practically unfeasible.

A phase II randomized clinical trial to assess toxicity and quality of life of breast cancer patients with hypofractionated versus conventional fractionation radiotherapy with regional nodal irradiation in the context of COVID-19 crisis.

Purpose: This study, conducted during the COVID-19 crisis, primarily aimed to compare the acute toxicity between conventional fractionated radiation therapy (CF-RT) with hypofractionated radiation therapy (HF-RT) among patients who underwent breast-conserving surgery or mastectomy in whom breast or chest wall and regional nodal irradiation (RNI) were indicated. The secondary endpoints were both acute and subacute toxicity, cosmesis, quality of life, and lymphedema features.

Methods: In this open and non-inferiority randomized trial, patients (n = 86) were randomly allocated 2:1 in the CF-RT arm (n = 33; 50 Gy/25 fractions ± sequential boost [10 Gy/5 fractions]) versus the HF-RT arm (n = 53; 40 Gy/15 fractions ± concomitant boost [8 Gy/15 fractions]).

Energy Transfer to Molecular Adsorbates by Transient Hot Electron Spillover.

Hot electron (HE) photocatalysis is one of the most intriguing fields of nanoscience, with a clear potential for technological impact. Despite much effort, the mechanisms of HE photocatalysis are not fully understood. Here we investigate a mechanism based on transient electron spillover on a molecule and subsequent energy release into vibrational modes.

Glioblastoma - treatment and obstacles.

Background: Glioblastoma is the most common and aggressive primary tumor in adults. A narrative review of all the relevant papers known was conducted.

Materials And Methods: Reviews, clinical trials, and randomized controlled trials published from 1981 through September 2021 and written, or at least abstracted, in English were analyzed.

Practical Prediction Model for Ovarian Insufficiency after Radiation.

Objective:  The present study aimed to develop a useful mathematical model that predicts the age at which premature ovarian insufficiency might occur after teletherapy radiation. A diagnosis of premature or early menopause has physical and psychological consequences, so women may need support and long-term medical follow-up.

Methods:  To correlate ovarian radiation dose with ovarian function, we used the formula described by Wallace et al.

LayerPCM: An implicit scheme for dielectric screening from layered substrates.

We present LayerPCM, an extension of the polarizable-continuum model coupled to real-time time-dependent density-functional theory, for an efficient and accurate description of the electrostatic interactions between molecules and multilayered dielectric substrates on which they are physisorbed. The former are modeled quantum-mechanically, while the latter are treated as polarizable continua characterized by their dielectric constants. The proposed approach is purposely designed to simulate complex hybrid heterostructures with nano-engineered substrates including a stack of anisotropic layers.

Selective switching of multiple plexcitons in colloidal materials: directing the energy flow at the nanoscale.

Coupling of molecular emitters to plasmon resonances in metal nanostructures has long been investigated to control the light-matter interaction at the nanoscale. The emergence of different coupling behaviors can be governed by the various combinations of emitters and plasmonic substrates, as well as the spatial arrangement of the individual components. Here colloidal assembly methods are exploited to prepare a responsive nanosystem where two sets of plexcitonic resonances in different coupling regimes can be selectively switched on and off, acting on external conditions such as concentration and presence of anions.

Real-time dynamics of plasmonic resonances in nanoparticles described by a boundary element method with generic dielectric function.

Investigating nanoplasmonics in an explicit time-dependent perspective is a natural choice when light pulses are used and may also reveal aspects that are hidden in a frequency-based picture. In the past, we proposed a method time domain-boundary element method (TD-BEM) to simulate the time dependent polarization of nanoparticles based on a boundary element method that is particularly suitable to interface with a quantum atomistic description of nearby molecules. So far, however, metal dielectric functions in TD-BEM have been modeled through analytic expressions, such as those of Debye and Drude-Lorentz, which cannot account for multiple electronic resonances.

Plasmonic Resonances of Metal Nanoparticles: Atomistic vs. Continuum Approaches.

The fully atomistic model, ωFQ, based on textbook concepts (Drude theory, electrostatics, quantum tunneling) and recently developed by some of the present authors in , , 6004-6015 is applied to the calculation of the optical properties of complex Na, Ag, and Au nanostructures. In ωFQ, each atom of the nanostructures is endowed with an electric charge that can vary according to the external electric field. The electric conductivity between nearest atoms is modeled by adopting the Drude model, which is reformulated in terms of electric charges.

Octopus, a computational framework for exploring light-driven phenomena and quantum dynamics in extended and finite systems.

Over the last few years, extraordinary advances in experimental and theoretical tools have allowed us to monitor and control matter at short time and atomic scales with a high degree of precision. An appealing and challenging route toward engineering materials with tailored properties is to find ways to design or selectively manipulate materials, especially at the quantum level. To this end, having a state-of-the-art ab initio computer simulation tool that enables a reliable and accurate simulation of light-induced changes in the physical and chemical properties of complex systems is of utmost importance.

Quantum optimal control theory for solvated systems.

In this work, we generalize the quantum optimal control theory (QOCT) of molecules subject to ultrashort laser pulses to the case of solvated systems, explicitly including the solvent dielectric properties in the system's quantum Hamiltonian. A reliable description of the solvent polarization is accounted for within the polarizable continuum model (PCM). The electron dynamics for the molecules in solution is coupled with the dynamics of the surrounding polarizable environment, which affects the features of the optimized laser pulse.

Nonequilibrium Solvent Polarization Effects in Real-Time Electronic Dynamics of Solute Molecules Subject to Time-Dependent Electric Fields: A New Feature of the Polarizable Continuum Model.

We develop an extension of the time-dependent equation-of-motion formulation of the polarizable continuum model (EOM-TDPCM) to introduce nonequilibrium cavity field effects in quantum mechanical calculations of solvated molecules subject to time-dependent electric fields. This method has been implemented in Octopus, a state-of-the-art code for real-space, real-time time-dependent density functional theory (RT-TDDFT) calculations. To show the potential of our methodology, we perform EOM-TDPCM/RT-TDDFT calculations of trans-azobenzene in water and in other model solvents with shorter relaxation times.

Progressively Enlarging Cerebellar Hematoma Concurrent with T-DM1 Treatment.

Background: Trastuzumab emtansine, an antibody-drug conjugate commonly abbreviated as T-DM1, is accepted as effective therapy for trastuzumab-resistant metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer. T-DM1 significantly increases progression-free and overall survival when compared with lapatinib plus capecitabine in patients with HER2-positive breast cancer previously treated with trastuzumab and a taxane. Among the common side effects related to T-DM1, thrombocytopenia and mucosal hemorrhage are seen, although they are infrequently judged to be clinically significant.

Predicting signatures of anisotropic resonance energy transfer in dye-functionalized nanoparticles.

Resonance energy transfer (RET) is an inherently anisotropic process. Even the simplest, well-known Förster theory, based on the transition dipole-dipole coupling, implicitly incorporates the anisotropic character of RET. In this theoretical work, we study possible signatures of the fundamental anisotropic character of RET in hybrid nanomaterials composed of a semiconductor nanoparticle (NP) decorated with molecular dyes.

Polyethylene particles in joint fluid and osteolysis in revision total knee arthroplasty.

Background: One of the most frequent reasons for total knee arthroplasty late failure is osteolysis. It has been related to foreign body reaction to polyethylene particles. The aim of this study is to analyse the number, size and morphology of polyethylene particles in synovial fluid in total knee arthroplasty revision and correlate them to the pathology and the degree of osteolysis.

[Access to primary health care in a sanitary district of Salvador].

The demand for and use of health services results from a set of determinants that include socioeconomic, demographic and health characteristics and organization of the supply of services. The scope of this paper is to define access to and use of the health services in two Family Health Units (FHUs) of the sanitary district of Liberdade, establishing the pattern of use and identifying factors related to socio-organizational and geographical access. A cross-sectional population-based survey was conducted on individuals aged between 20 and 75 resident in the area covered by the two FHUs.