Publications by authors named "Peeters S"

Purpose: Proton therapy of moving targets is considered a challenge. At Maastro, we started treating lung cancer patients with proton therapy in October 2019. In this work, we summarise the developed treatment strategies and gained clinical experience from a physics point of view.

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Commutability is where the measurement response for a reference material (RM) is the same as for an individual patient sample with the same concentration of analyte measured using two or more measurement systems. Assessment of commutability is essential when the RM is used in a calibration hierarchy or to ensure that clinical measurements are comparable across different measurement procedures and at different times. The commutability of three new Standard Reference Materials (SRMs) for determining serum total 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D], defined as the sum of 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] and 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D], was assessed through an interlaboratory study.

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Background: Unhealthy visual food cues in outdoor public spaces are external drivers of unhealthy diets. Food cues are visible situations associated with food-related memories. This study aimed to gain insight into the (un)healthy food cues residents notice in outdoor public spaces in Dutch municipalities.

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Genetic engineering of regulatory T cells (Tregs) presents a promising avenue for advancing immunotherapeutic strategies, particularly in autoimmune diseases and transplantation. This study explores the modification of Tregs via mRNA electroporation, investigating the influence of T-cell activation status on transfection efficiency, phenotype, and functionality. For this CD45RA Tregs were isolated, expanded, and modified to overexpress brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF).

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Bones are now recognised as endocrine organs with diverse functions. Osteocalcin, a protein primarily produced by osteoblasts, has garnered significant attention. Research into osteocalcin has revealed its impact on glucose metabolism and its unexpected endocrine role, particularly in its undercarboxylated form (ucOC).

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The use of the mutual information (MI) as a measure of the entanglement in quantum systems has gained a consensus in recent years, even if there is an ongoing effort to distinguish the classical and quantum contributions contained therein. This quantity has been first introduced in condensed matter physics, in particular, in studies based on the density matrix renormalization group method. This method has been successfully adapted to quantum chemistry problems, opening the way to compute MI also in molecular systems.

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Article Synopsis
  • The aging population has sparked increased interest in monitoring skeletal diseases like osteoporosis, leading to advancements in bone turnover biomarkers since the 2000s.
  • Various markers from type I collagen, such as CTX, NTX, PINP, and ICTP, have been developed, but their complex structures make them difficult to analyze.
  • This study aims to characterize plasma and serum CTX by directly extracting type I collagen peptides from human samples using advanced proteomics techniques, resulting in the identification of multiple CTX species for better understanding of these biomarkers.
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Background: Vibrio cholerae O1 El Tor, the etiological agent responsible for the last cholera pandemic, has become a well-established model organism for which some genetic tools are available. While CRISPRi technology has been applied to V. cholerae, improvements were necessary to upscale it and enable pooled screening by high-throughput sequencing in this bacterium.

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  • The study investigates the vitamin D metabolite ratio (VMR) as a potential better indicator of vitamin D deficiency compared to 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) and 24,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (24,25(OH)D), aiming to show its stronger correlation with parathyroid hormone (PTH) levels and mortality.
  • It analyzed serum samples from 204 older adults, demonstrating that VMR had the strongest negative correlation with PTH levels and was associated with higher mortality rates in patients with low levels.
  • The results suggest that VMR could be a more reliable biomarker for assessing functional vitamin D deficiency, supporting its potential use in clinical practice.
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We present our efforts in computational drug design against dipeptidyl peptidase 4 (DPP4), DPP8 and DPP9. We applied cosolvent molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to these three protein targets of interest. Our primary motivation is the growing interest in DPP8 and DPP9 as emerging drug targets.

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Cachexia is a devastating condition, characterized by involuntary loss of muscle mass with or without loss of adipose tissue mass. It affects more than half of patients with lung cancer, diminishing treatment effects and increasing mortality. Cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) images, routinely acquired during radiotherapy treatment, might contain valuable anatomical information for monitoring body composition changes associated with cachexia.

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This paper highlights developments in diagnostic and nonsurgical local treatment modalities that have changed the management of early-stage lung cancer. These innovations aim to enhance diagnostic accuracy, minimize invasiveness, and improve patient outcomes. Liquid biopsies are emerging as promising tools for non-invasive diagnosis and monitoring, enabling earlier intervention without being standardized yet as well as not yet anchored in the guidelines.

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Background: Work-related mental health problems impose significant economic and personal burdens. eHealth interventions may offer low-cost, practical solutions, but guidance on their cost-effectiveness in workplace mental health is limited.

Objective: The objective of this study was to systematically review economic evaluations of workplace eHealth interventions for mental health, offering insights into methodologies and cost-effectiveness outcomes.

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Metastatic tumours in the brain now represent one of the leading causes of death from cancer. Current treatments are largely ineffective owing to the combination of late diagnosis and poor delivery of therapies across the blood-brain barrier (BBB). Conjugating magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents with a monoclonal antibody for VCAM-1 (anti-VCAM1) has been shown to enable detection of micrometastases, two to three orders of magnitude smaller in volume than those currently detectable clinically.

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Marfan syndrome is a rare connective tissue disorder that causes aortic dissection-related sudden death. Current conventional treatments, beta-blockers, and type 1 angiotensin II receptor blockers are prescribed to slow down aortic aneurysm progression and delay (prophylactic) aortic surgery. However, neither of these treatments ceases aortic growth completely.

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Cardiovascular outcome in Marfan syndrome (MFS) patients most prominently depends on aortic aneurysm progression with subsequent aortic dissection. Angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) prevent aneurysm formation in MFS mouse models. In patients, ARBs only slow down aortic dilation.

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Boron doping of diamond-like carbon coatings has multiple effects on their tribological properties. While boron typically reduces wear in cutting applications, some B-doped coatings show poor tribological performance compared with undoped films. This is the case of the tribological tests presented in this work in which an alumina ball is placed in frictional contact with different undoped and B-doped amorphous carbon coatings in humid air.

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Article Synopsis
  • Taurolidine lock solutions (TL) may prevent bloodstream infections but can interfere with blood culture results if not fully aspirated before testing.
  • Various lock solutions were tested for their impact on microbial detection in blood culture vials, with taurolidine showing a significant delay in detecting microbial growth.
  • The findings emphasize the necessity of removing TLs from central venous catheters prior to collecting blood cultures to avoid misleading results.
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Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is a primary cause of cervical and head-and-neck cancers. The HPV genome enters the nucleus during mitosis when the nuclear envelope disassembles. Given that lamins maintain nuclear integrity during interphase, we asked to what extent their loss would affect early HPV infection.

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Terrestrial geothermal ecosystems are hostile habitats, characterized by large emissions of environmentally relevant gases such as CO , CH , H S and H . These conditions provide a niche for chemolithoautotrophic microorganisms. Methanotrophs of the phylum Verrucomicrobia, which inhabit these ecosystems, can utilize these gases and grow at pH levels below 1 and temperatures up to 65°C.

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Background: Chiari (type I) malformations are typically congenital. Occasionally, however, tonsillar herniation can arise secondary to cerebrospinal fluid leakage, posterior fossa or intraventricular mass lesions, or other etiologies. We present the first-ever case of an intramedullary subependymoma at the cervicomedullary junction associated with vertebral bone abnormalities and an acquired secondary Chiari malformation.

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Objective: The 2021 WHO classification of CNS tumors has refined the definition of adult-type diffuse gliomas without 1p19q codeletion. Nevertheless, the aggressiveness of gliomas is based exclusively on histomolecular criteria performed on a limited sample of the tumor. The authors aimed to assess whether the spontaneous radiographic tumor growth rate is associated with tumor aggressiveness and allows preoperative identification of malignancy grade of adult-type diffuse gliomas without 1p19q codeletion.

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 While postoperative cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leak rates of pituitary tumors have been frequently studied, there are fewer studies examining postoperative CSF leak rates for extrasellar tumors. The purpose of this study was to identify risk factors for the development of postoperative CSF leak in patients undergoing endoscopic surgery for extrasellar tumors.  A retrospective chart review was done for patients who underwent endoscopic resection for extrasellar tumors between 2008 and 2020.

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The silencing of all but one X chromosome in mammalian cells is a remarkable epigenetic process leading to near dosage equivalence in X-linked gene products between the sexes. However, equally remarkable is the ability of a subset of genes to continue to be expressed from the otherwise inactive X chromosome-in some cases constitutively, while other genes are variable between individuals, tissues or cells. In this review we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the approaches that have been used to identify escapees.

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