Advancements and Strategies in Robotic Planning for Knee Arthroplasty in Patients with Minor Deformities.

Knee arthroplasty, commonly performed to treat osteoarthritis, necessitates precise surgical techniques for optimal outcomes. The introduction of systems such as the Persona Knee System (Zimmer Biomet, Warsaw, IN, USA) has revolutionized knee arthroplasty, promising enhanced precision and better patient outcomes. This study investigates the application of robotic planning specifically in knee prosthetic surgeries, with a focus on Persona Knee System prostheses.

Evaluating Treatment Outcomes for Pelvic Insufficiency Fractures: A Systematic Review.

: Pelvic insufficiency fractures (PIF) are typical in geriatric populations with reduced bone quality, most commonly in elderly postmenopausal women. These fractures are usually caused by low-energy forces over the bones during ordinary life and cause disabling pain. Treatment options range from conservative to operative.

Heterotopic hip ossification resection: monocentric experiences of associated factors, outcomes, and complications.

Purpose: The exponential increase in total hip arthroplasty (THA) has led to acute and chronic surgery-related complications. Common chronic and local complications are represented by hip ossification (HO). The aim of our study was to assess the clinical and radiological correlates of patients undergoing surgical removal of heterotopic ossifications after THA and the possible association between HO and prosthetic joint infection.

Temperature Dependence of Spin-Phonon Coupling in [VO(acac)]: A Computational and Spectroscopic Study.

Molecular electronic spins are good candidates as qubits since they are characterized by a large tunability of their electronic and magnetic properties through a rational chemical design. Coordination compounds of light transition metals are promising systems for spin-based quantum information technologies, thanks to their long spin coherence times up to room temperature. Our work aims at presenting an in-depth study on how the spin-phonon coupling in vanadyl-acetylacetonate, [VO(acac)], can change as a function of temperature using terahertz time-domain spectroscopy and density functional theory (DFT) calculations.

Pressure Effects on Water Dynamics by Time-Resolved Optical Kerr Effect.

Despite water being the most common and most widely studied substance in the world, it still presents unknown aspects. In particular, water shows several thermodynamic and dynamical anomalies in the liquid and supercooled metastable phases, and the natures of these phases are still hotly debated. Here, we report measurements of water using the optical Kerr effect as a function of pressure along two isotherms, at 273 K from 0.

Impact of tumor site on the prognosis of small bowel adenocarcinoma.

Background: Because of a lack of large-scale prospective studies there is no clear indication about the management of patients with small bowel adenocarcinoma (SBA). This study evaluated clinical outcome of patients diagnosed with SBA at our institution.

Methods: Clinicopathologic features, treatments, and clinical outcome of patients diagnosed with SBA between 2006 and 2017 were retrospectively analyzed.

Understanding the influence of disorder on the exciton dynamics and energy transfer in Zn-phthalocyanine H-aggregates.

The photophysics of 9(19),16(17),23(24)-tri-tert-butyl-2-[ethynyl-(4-carboxymethyl)phenyl]phthalocyaninatozinc(ii) and its H-aggregates is studied in different solvents by means of ultrafast non-linear optical spectroscopy and computational modeling. In non-coordinating solvents, both stationary and time-resolved spectroscopies highlight the formation of extended molecular aggregates, whose dimension and spectral properties depends on the concentration. In all the explored experimental conditions, time-resolved transient absorption experiments show multi exponential decay of the signals.

Spin Dynamics and Low Energy Vibrations: Insights from Vanadyl-Based Potential Molecular Qubits.

Here we report the investigation of the magnetization dynamics of a vanadyl complex with diethyldithiocarbamate (Etdtc) ligands, namely [VO(Etdtc)] (1), in both solid-state and frozen solution. This showed an anomalous and unprecedentedly observed field dependence of the relaxation time, which was modeled with three contributions to the relaxation mechanism. The temperature dependence of the weight of the two processes dominating at low fields was found to well correlate with the low energy vibrations as determined by THz spectroscopy.

Pressure Dependence of Hydrogen-Bond Dynamics in Liquid Water Probed by Ultrafast Infrared Spectroscopy.

Clarifying the structure/dynamics relation of water hydrogen-bond network has been the aim of extensive research over many decades. By joining anvil cell high-pressure technology, femtosecond 2D infrared spectroscopy, and molecular dynamics simulations, we studied, for the first time, the spectral diffusion of the stretching frequency of an HOD impurity in liquid water as a function of pressure. Our experimental and simulation results concordantly demonstrate that the rate of spectral diffusion is almost insensitive to the applied pressure.

A metronomic schedule as salvage chemotherapy for upper gastrointestinal tract cancer.

In recent years, metronomic chemotherapy, consisting of continuous administration of low doses of cytotoxic agents, has being used as rescue therapy for different tumours. The aim of this study was to retrospectively assess the efficacy and safety of low-dose metronomic, oral capecitabine in pretreated or frail patients with recurrent upper gastrointestinal tract cancer. Patients with pretreated upper gastrointestinal tract cancer or who were not candidates for standard chemotherapy because of toxicity concerns received capecitabine at 1500 mg per day continuously until disease progression or occurrence of toxicity.

Connecting the Water Phase Diagram to the Metastable Domain: High-Pressure Studies in the Supercooled Regime.

Pressure is extremely efficient to tune intermolecular interactions, allowing the study of the mechanisms regulating, at the molecular level, the structure and dynamics of condensed phases. Among the simplest molecules, water represents in many respects a mystery despite its primary role in ruling most of the biological, physical, and chemical processes occurring in nature. Here we report a careful characterization of the dynamic regime change associated with low-density and high-density forms of liquid water by measuring the line shape of the OD stretching mode of HOD in liquid water along different isotherms as a function of pressure.

Identification of the Excited-State C═C and C═O Modes of trans-β-Apo-8'-carotenal with Transient 2D-IR-EXSY and Femtosecond Stimulated Raman Spectroscopy.

Assigning the vibrational modes of molecules in the electronic excited state is often a difficult task. Here we show that combining two nonlinear spectroscopic techniques, transient 2D exchange infrared spectroscopy (T2D-IR-EXSY) and femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy (FSRS), the contribution of the C═C and C═O modes in the excited-state vibrational spectra of trans-β-apo-8'-carotenal can be unambiguously identified. The experimental results reported in this work confirm a previously proposed assignment based on quantum-chemical calculations and further strengthen the role of an excited state with charge-transfer character in the relaxation pathway of carbonyl carotenoids.

Femtosecond transient infrared and stimulated Raman spectroscopy shed light on the relaxation mechanisms of photo-excited peridinin.

By means of one- and two-dimensional transient infrared spectroscopy and femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy, we investigated the excited state dynamics of peridinin, a carbonyl carotenoid occurring in natural light harvesting complexes. The presence of singly and doubly excited states, as well as of an intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) state, makes the behavior of carbonyl carotenoids in the excited state very complex. In this work, we investigated by time resolved spectroscopy the relaxation of photo-excited peridinin in solvents of different polarities and as a function of the excitation wavelength.

Supercooling and freezing processes in nanoconfined water by time-resolved optical Kerr effect spectroscopy.

Using heterodyne-detected optical Kerr effect (HD-OKE) measurements, we investigate the vibrational dynamics and the structural relaxation of water nanoconfined in Vycor porous silica samples (pore size ≃ 4 nm) at different levels of hydration and temperatures. At low levels of hydration corresponding to two complete superficial water layers, no freezing occurs and the water remains mobile at all the investigated temperatures with dynamic features similar, but not equal to, the bulk water. The fully hydrated sample shows the formation of ice at about 248 K.

Continuous, low-dose capecitabine for patients with recurrent colorectal cancer.

The aim of the study was to retrospectively assess the efficacy and safety of low-dose metronomic oral capecitabine in pretreated or frail patients with recurrent colorectal cancer. Patients with recurrent colorectal cancer and prior treatment with fluoropyrimidines, oxaliplatin, and irinotecan or unable to receive standard chemotherapy because of toxicity concerns were included. Treatment consisted of oral capecitabine 1,500 mg daily until disease progression or unacceptable toxicity.

Mechanism of the intramolecular charge transfer state formation in all-trans-β-apo-8'-carotenal: influence of solvent polarity and polarizability.

In this work we analyzed the infrared and visible transient absorption spectra of all-trans-β-apo-8'-carotenal in several solvents, differing in both polarity and polarizability at different excitation wavelengths. We correlate the solvent dependence of the kinetics and the band shape changes in the infrared with that of the excited state absorption bands in the visible, and we show that the information obtained in the two spectral regions is complementary. All the collected time-resolved data can be interpreted in the frame of a recently proposed relaxation scheme, according to which the major contributor to the intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) state is the bright 1Bu(+) state, which, in polar solvents, is dynamically stabilized through molecular distortions and solvent relaxation.

Pharmacogenomics in lung cancer chemotherapy: a review of what the oncologist should know.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death around the world; the addition of chemotherapy to treatment of this disease has been shown to significantly increase progression-free survival and overall survival. Despite newer chemotherapies, it is important to personalize the care (treatment and dose) upon each single patient's susceptibility for controlling and reducing adverse side-effects, at best. The present review describes the current status of pharmacogenomics studies regarding germline DNA variants that may alter response and tolerability to chemotherapeutic agents used to treat lung cancer, including perspective studies.

The effect of myoglobin crowding on the dynamics of water: an infrared study.

Solutions containing 8 and 32 wt% myoglobin are studied by means of infrared spectroscopy, as a function of temperature (290 K and lower temperatures), in the mid- and far-infrared spectral range. Moreover, ultrafast time-resolved infrared measurements are performed at ambient temperature in the O-D stretching region. The results evidence that the vibrational properties of water remain the same in these myoglobin solutions (anharmonicity, vibrational relaxation lifetime…) and in neat water.

Optical Kerr effect of liquid and supercooled water: the experimental and data analysis perspective.

The time-resolved optical Kerr effect spectroscopy (OKE) is a powerful experimental tool enabling accurate investigations of the dynamic phenomena in molecular liquids. We introduced innovative experimental and fitting procedures, that enable a safe deconvolution of sample response function from the instrumental function. This is a critical issue in order to measure the dynamics of liquid water.

Combination of transient 2D-IR experiments and ab initio computations sheds light on the formation of the charge-transfer state in photoexcited carbonyl carotenoids.

The excited state dynamics of carbonyl carotenoids is very complex because of the coupling of single- and doubly excited states and the possible involvement of intramolecular charge-transfer (ICT) states. In this contribution we employ ultrafast infrared spectroscopy and theoretical computations to investigate the relaxation dynamics of trans-8'-apo-β-carotenal occurring on the picosecond time scale, after excitation in the S2 state. In a (slightly) polar solvent like chloroform, one-dimensional (T1D-IR) and two-dimensional (T2D-IR) transient infrared spectroscopy reveal spectral components with characteristic frequencies and lifetimes that are not observed in nonpolar solvents (cyclohexane).

Role of local structure and dynamics of small ligand migration in proteins: a study of a mutated truncated hemoprotein from Thermobifida fusca by time resolved MIR spectroscopy.

Carbon monoxide recombination dynamics in a mutant of the truncated hemoglobin from Thermobida fusca (3F-Tf-trHb) has been analyzed by means of ultrafast Visible-pump/MidIR-probe spectroscopy and compared with that of the wild-type protein. In 3F-Tf-trHb, three topologically relevant amino acids, responsible for the ligand stabilization through the formation of a H-bond network (TyrB10 TyrCD1 and TrpG8), have been replaced by Phe residues. X-ray diffraction data show that Phe residues in positions B10 and G8 maintain the same rotameric arrangements as Tyr and Trp in the wild-type protein, while Phe in position CD1 displays significant rotameric heterogeneity.

Dynamics of the time-resolved stimulated Raman scattering spectrum in presence of transient vibronic inversion of population on the example of optically excited trans-β-apo-8'-carotenal.

We have studied the effect of transient vibrational inversion of population in trans-β-apo-8(')-carotenal on the time-resolved femtosecond stimulated Raman scattering (TR-FSRS) signal. The experimental data are interpreted by applying a quantum mechanical approach, using the formalism of projection operators for constructing the theoretical model of TR-FSRS. Within this theoretical frame we explain the presence of transient Raman losses on the Stokes side of the TR-FSRS spectrum as the effect of vibrational inversion of population.

A Synchronous Pancreatic Metastasis from Renal Clear Cell Carcinoma, with Unusual CT Characteristics, Completely Regressed after Therapy with Sunitinib.

We present a case report of a 75-years-old woman affected by renal clear cell carcinoma with a synchronous pancreatic metastasis and a metachronous lung metastasis. This case has two peculiarities. First the pancreatic metastasis was treated just with medical therapy, that is, Sunitinib, instead of the surgical therapy that is mostly considered.

The use of bevacizumab in non-small cell lung cancer: an update.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide, with approximately 1.2 million deaths annually. The standard-of-care in patients with advanced disease is platinum-based doublet chemotherapy.

Structural analysis of neutral tetracycline using anharmonicity of delocalized vibrations.

While tetracyclines are in active medical use, their bioactive atomic compositions are still questionable. Here, we investigate the structural properties of neutral tetracycline in dimethyl sulfoxide - the environment used often to mimic the environment in vivo. We compare the measured linear and nonlinear infrared spectra to those calculated for a collection of stable and energetically plausible tautomers, and describe the structurally sensitive off-diagonal peaks using anharmonicities of the normal modes.