Treatment of retroperitoneal fibrosis with rituximab, cyclophosphamide and dexamethasone, followed by rituximab and dexamethasone maintenance, achieved disappearance of pathological PET accumulation of FDG and regression of fibrotic masses after 4 months….

Background: Idiopathic retroperitoneal fibrosis is characterized by the development of inflammatory infiltrates with marked fibrosis along the large retroperitoneal vessels. Rituximab in combination with glucocorticoids constitute an effective therapy, but the responses are not long-lasting. In other similar situations, addition of cyclophosphamide to the combination achieved longer and deeper responses.

BreathFinder: A Method for Non-Invasive Isolation of Respiratory Cycles Utilizing the Thoracic Respiratory Inductance Plethysmography Signal.

Introduction: The field of automatic respiratory analysis focuses mainly on breath detection on signals such as audio recordings, or nasal flow measurement, which suffer from issues with background noise and other disturbances. Here we introduce a novel algorithm designed to isolate individual respiratory cycles on a thoracic respiratory inductance plethysmography signal using the non-invasive signal of the respiratory inductance plethysmography belts.

Purpose: The algorithm locates breaths using signal processing and statistical methods on the thoracic respiratory inductance plethysmography belt and enables the analysis of sleep data on an individual breath level.

Isoelectric focusing followed by affinity immunoblotting to detect monoclonal free light chains in monoclonal gammopathies: Comparison with immunofixation electrophoresis and free light chain ratio.

Background: Isoelectric focusing (IEF) is a method with an exquisite resolution, and coupled with affinity immunoblotting (AIB), it can provide superior sensitivity to detect monoclonal free light chains (FLC).

Methods: We tested the hypothesis that IEF/AIB is more sensitive and specific for monoclonal FLC detection in serum and urine samples than conventional methods, that is, electrophoresis (ELP), immunofixation (IF) and serum FLC ratio assessment. Investigation included 107 samples of 68 patients, among which 21 multiple myeloma patients were recently tested for minimal residual disease and 18 patients with AL amyloidosis.

Sequence variants affecting voice pitch in humans.

The genetic basis of the human vocal system is largely unknown, as are the sequence variants that give rise to individual differences in voice and speech. Here, we couple data on diversity in the sequence of the genome with voice and vowel acoustics in speech recordings from 12,901 Icelanders. We show how voice pitch and vowel acoustics vary across the life span and correlate with anthropometric, physiological, and cognitive traits.