The relationship of spiritual concerns to the quality of life of advanced cancer patients: preliminary findings.

Purpose: Religion and/or spirituality (R/S) have increasingly been recognized as key elements in patients' experience of advanced illness. This study examines the relationship of spiritual concerns (SCs) to quality of life (QOL) in patients with advanced cancer.

Patients And Methods: Patients were recruited between March 3, 2006 and April 14, 2008 as part of a survey-based study of 69 cancer patients receiving palliative radiotherapy.

Extracellular matrix and heart development.

The extracellular matrix (ECM) of the developing heart contains numerous molecules that form a dynamic environment that plays an active and crucial role in the regulation of cellular events. ECM molecules found in the heart include hyaluronan, fibronectin, fibrillin, proteoglycans, and collagens. Tight regulation of the spatiotemporal expression, and the proteolytic processing of ECM components by proteases including members of the ADAMTS family, is essential for normal cardiac development.

Support of cancer patients' spiritual needs and associations with medical care costs at the end of life.

Background: Although spiritual care is associated with less aggressive medical care at the end of life (EOL), it remains infrequent. It is unclear if the omission of spiritual care impacts EOL costs.

Methods: A prospective, multisite study of 339 advanced cancer patients accrued subjects from September 2002 to August 2007 from an outpatient setting and followed them until death.

Religious coping and behavioral disengagement: opposing influences on advance care planning and receipt of intensive care near death.

Objective: This study examines the relationships between methods of coping with advanced cancer, completion of advance care directives, and receipt of intensive, life-prolonging care near death.

Methods: The analysis is based on a sample of 345 patients interviewed between January 1, 2003, and August 31, 2007, and followed until death as part of the Coping with Cancer Study, an NCI/NIMH-funded, multi-site, prospective, longitudinal, cohort study of patients with advanced cancer. The Brief COPE was used to assess active coping, use of emotional-support, and behavioral disengagement.

Clinician-educator pathway for radiology residents.

Faculty clinician-educator tracks have become increasingly common at US academic medical centers. Although many radiology faculty members belong to such tracks, there is little training in radiology residencies to prepare residents to take on these roles. The authors present a summary of a novel radiology residency clinician-educator pathway developed and piloted at their institution.

"It depends": viewpoints of patients, physicians, and nurses on patient-practitioner prayer in the setting of advanced cancer.

Context: Although prayer potentially serves as an important practice in offering religious/spiritual support, its role in the clinical setting remains disputed. Few data exist to guide the role of patient-practitioner prayer in the setting of advanced illness.

Objectives: To inform the role of prayer in the setting of life-threatening illness, this study used mixed quantitative-qualitative methods to describe the viewpoints expressed by patients with advanced cancer, oncology nurses, and oncology physicians concerning the appropriateness of clinician prayer.

Ultrasound decreases the failed labor epidural rate in resident trainees.

Background: Epidural analgesia is widely used for pain relief during labor. The purpose of this study was to determine if ultrasound measurement of the depth from skin to epidural space before the epidural technique decreases the failure rate of labor analgesia. A secondary objective was to correlate ultrasound depth to the epidural space with actual depth of the needle at placement.

A recombinant humanized monoclonal antibody completely protects mice against lethal challenge with Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus.

A recombinant humanized antibody to Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEEV) was constructed in a monocistronic adenoviral expression vector with a foot-and-mouth-disease virus-derived 2A self-cleavage oligopeptide inserted between the antibody heavy and light chains. After expression in mammalian cells, the heavy and light chains of the humanized antibody (hu1A4A1IgG1-2A) were completely cleaved and properly dimerized. The purified hu1A4A1IgG1-2A retained VEEV binding affinity and neutralizing activity similar to its parental murine antibody.

"If God wanted me yesterday, I wouldn't be here today": religious and spiritual themes in patients' experiences of advanced cancer.

Background: This study sought to inductively derive core themes of religion and/or spirituality (R/S) active in patients' experiences of advanced cancer to inform the development of spiritual care interventions in the terminally ill cancer setting.

Methods: This is a multisite, cross-sectional, mixed-methods study of randomly-selected patients with advanced cancer (n = 68). Scripted interviews assessed the role of R/S and R/S concerns encountered in the advanced cancer experience.

Energetic ion, atom, and molecule reactions and excitation in low-current H2 discharges: H(alpha) Doppler profiles.

Absolute spectral emissivities for Doppler broadened H(alpha) profiles are measured and compared with predictions of energetic hydrogen ion, atom, and molecule behavior in low-current electrical discharges in H2 at very high electric field E to gas density N ratios E/N and low values of Nd , where d is the parallel-plate electrode separation. These observations reflect the energy and angular distributions for the excited atoms and quantitatively test features of multiple-scattering kinetic models in weakly ionized hydrogen in the presence of an electric field that are not tested by the spatial distributions of H(alpha) emission. Absolute spectral intensities agree well with predictions.

Provision of spiritual care to patients with advanced cancer: associations with medical care and quality of life near death.

Purpose: To determine whether spiritual care from the medical team impacts medical care received and quality of life (QoL) at the end of life (EoL) and to examine these relationships according to patient religious coping.

Patients And Methods: Prospective, multisite study of patients with advanced cancer from September 2002 through August 2008. We interviewed 343 patients at baseline and observed them (median, 116 days) until death.

Development of a novel monoclonal antibody with reactivity to a wide range of Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus strains.

Background: There is currently a requirement for antiviral therapies capable of protecting against infection with Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEEV), as a licensed vaccine is not available for general human use. Monoclonal antibodies are increasingly being developed as therapeutics and are potential treatments for VEEV as they have been shown to be protective in the mouse model of disease. However, to be truly effective, the antibody should recognise multiple strains of VEEV and broadly reactive monoclonal antibodies are rarely and only coincidentally isolated using classical hybridoma technology.

Energetic ion, atom, and molecule reactions and excitation in low-current H2 discharges: spatial distributions of emissions.

Spatial distributions of H alpha , H beta , and the near-uv continuum emission from the H2 a ;{3}Sigma g;+ state are measured and compared with a model for low-current electrical discharges in H2 at high E/N and low Nd , where E is the spatially uniform electric field, N is the gas density, and d is the electrode separation. Data are analyzed for 300 Td View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Energetic ion, atom, and molecule reactions and excitation in low-current H2 discharges: model.

Models of the elastic, inelastic, and reactive collisions of energetic hydrogen ions, atoms, and molecules are developed for predicting H_{alpha} and H2 near-uv emission, H_{alpha} Doppler profiles, and ion energy distributions for low-pressure, low-current discharges in H2 . The model is applied to spatially uniform electric field E to gas density N ratios of 350 Td< or =E/N< or =45 kTd and 8 x10;{19}< or =Nd< or =10 x10;{21} m;{-2} , where d is the electrode separation and 1 Td=10;{-21} V m;{2} . Mean ion energies at the cathode are 5-1500 eV.

A 5-year audit of accidental dural punctures, postdural puncture headaches, and failed regional anesthetics at a tertiary-care medical center.

Obstetric anesthesia-related complications occur as a result of labor epidural or spinal placement. The purpose of this continuous quality-improvement audit was to review the occurrence of accidental dural punctures (ADPs), postdural puncture headaches (PDPHs), and failed regional anesthetics at an academic tertiary-care medical center over a 5-year period. Obstetric anesthesia complications contained in three databases consisting of ADPs, PDPHs, and failed regional anesthetics were matched to a perinatal database, with no complications serving as controls.

Religious coping and use of intensive life-prolonging care near death in patients with advanced cancer.

Context: Patients frequently rely on religious faith to cope with cancer, but little is known about the associations between religious coping and the use of intensive life-prolonging care at the end of life.

Objective: To determine the way religious coping relates to the use of intensive life-prolonging end-of-life care among patients with advanced cancer.

Design, Setting, And Participants: A US multisite, prospective, longitudinal cohort of 345 patients with advanced cancer, who were enrolled between January 1, 2003, and August 31, 2007.

Alpha interferon as an adenovirus-vectored vaccine adjuvant and antiviral in Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus infection.

There are no widely available vaccines or antiviral drugs capable of protecting against infection with Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEEV), although an adenovirus vector expressing VEEV structural proteins protects mice from challenge with VEEV and is potentially a vaccine suitable for human use. This work examines whether alpha interferon (IFN-alpha) could act as an adjuvant for the adenovirus-based vaccine. IFN-alpha was either expressed by a plasmid linked to the adenovirus vaccine or encoded by a separate adenovirus vector administered as a mixture with the vaccine.

The incidence of maternal fever during labor is less with intermittent than with continuous epidural analgesia: a randomized controlled trial.

Background: This prospective, randomized study was performed to see if intermittent labor epidural analgesia was protective against maternal intrapartum fever, compared to continuous epidural infusion.

Methods: Ninety-two healthy, term, nulliparous women in spontaneous labor were assigned to either intermittent (ILEA) or continuous labor epidural analgesia (CLEA), 46 in each group. In both groups, epidural analgesia was established with fentanyl 100 microg, and 8 mL of either 0.

Experimental and theoretical studies of a coaxial free-electron maser based on two-dimensional distributed feedback.

The first operation of a coaxial free-electron maser (FEM) based on two-dimensional (2D) distributed feedback has been recently observed. Analytical and numerical modeling, as well as measurements, of microwave radiation generated by a FEM with a cavity defined by coaxial structures with a 2D periodic perturbation on the inner surfaces of the outer conductor were carried out. The two-mirror cavity was formed with two 2D periodic structures separated by a central smooth section of coaxial waveguide.

Isl1 expression at the venous pole identifies a novel role for the second heart field in cardiac development.

The right ventricle and outflow tract of the developing heart are derived from mesodermal progenitor cells from the second heart field (SHF). SHF cells have been characterized by expression of the transcription factor Islet-1 (Isl1). Although Isl1 expression has also been reported in the venous pole, the specific contribution of the SHF to this part of the heart is unknown.

Cartilage link protein 1 (Crtl1), an extracellular matrix component playing an important role in heart development.

To expand our insight into cardiac development, a comparative DNA microarray analysis was performed using tissues from the atrioventricular junction (AVJ) and ventricular chambers of mouse hearts at embryonic day (ED) 10.5-11.0.

Epidural labor analgesia: continuous infusion versus patient-controlled epidural analgesia with background infusion versus without a background infusion.

Unlabelled: The purpose of this study was to compare the total epidural dose of 3 commonly used labor epidural modalities. After local institutional review board approval, 195 laboring parturients received an epidural catheter for labor analgesia. All patients received an initial bolus of 0.