Breast cancer care is a costly global health issue where effective management depends on early detection and treatment. A breast cancer diagnosis can result in financial catastrophe especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). Large inequities in breast cancer care are observed and represent a global challenge to caregivers and patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Children living in the most deprived regions are more than twice as likely as their affluent peers to be obese. One way we can explain the social gradient of health (determined by relative position on the scale of social disadvantage or advantage) is by identifying the barriers and drivers to health that different groups of people experience. This study explored the understanding and perceptions of (and barriers and drivers to) a healthy lifestyle to investigate how commissioned services can better support residents to enable behaviour change in an area of high social deprivation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAm J Respir Crit Care Med
January 2024
Respiratory metagenomics (RMg) needs evaluation in a pilot service setting to determine utility and inform implementation into routine clinical practice. Feasibility, performance, and clinical impacts on antimicrobial prescribing and infection control were recorded during a pilot RMg service. RMg was performed on 128 samples from 87 patients with suspected lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) on two general and one specialist respiratory ICUs at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhysicians treating breast cancer patients often wonder why this dreaded disease is still fatal in some women despite our best diagnostic and therapeutic efforts. Our own studies on prospectively documented cases spanning several decades have given us new insights for approaching this problem. By using imaging biomarkers to classify breast cancer subtypes according to their apparent site of origin, we found that a majority of breast cancer deaths (71%) occur in a minority of breast cancers (45%).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To use mammographic tumour features (imaging biomarkers) to identify and investigate breast cancers originating from the terminal ductal lobular units (TDLUs) of the breast in order to overcome the confusion arising from the current histopathology terminology, which calls cancers arising from the TDLUs either "ductal" or "lobular".
Method: Prospectively collected data from a randomized controlled mammography screening trial with more than four decades of follow up, and data from the subsequent population-based service screening program in Dalarna County, Sweden, provided the database necessary for studying nonpalpable, primarily screen-detected breast cancer cases in their earliest detectable phases. Large format thick (subgross) and thin section histopathologic images of breast cancers originating from the TDLUs were correlated with their mammographic tumour features (imaging biomarkers) and long-term patient outcome.
Background Optoacoustic imaging can assess tumor hypoxia coregistered with US gray-scale images. The combination of optoacoustic imaging and US may have a role in distinguishing breast cancer molecular subtypes. Purpose To investigate whether optoacoustic US feature scores correlate with breast cancer molecular subtypes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe published online version contains the following errors: On the cover page "JRC Management Committee" - should be corrected to JRC-EUROCAT Management Committee. In the authors list under the title, same as above, "JRC Management Committee" should be corrected to JRC-EUROCAT Management Committee.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Optoacoustic ultrasound breast imaging is a fused anatomic and functional modality that shows morphologic features, as well as hemoglobin amount and relative oxygenation within and around breast masses. The purpose of this study is to investigate the positive predictive value (PPV) of optoacoustic ultrasound features in benign and malignant masses.
Subjects And Methods: In this study, 92 masses assessed as BI-RADS category 3, 4, or 5 in 94 subjects were imaged with optoacoustic ultrasound.
Objective: False-positive findings remain challenging in breast imaging. This study investigates the incremental value of optoacoustic imaging in improving BI-RADS categorization of breast masses at ultrasound.
Subjects And Methods: The study device is an optoacoustic breast imaging device with a handheld duplex laser and internal gray-scale ultrasound probe, fusing functional and morphologic information (optoacoustic ultrasound).
This paper provides an outline of the development and growth of EUROCAT, the European network of congenital anomaly registers. In recent years the network has been through a period of transition and change. The Central Register of data has transferred from the Ulster University to the EU Joint-Research-Centre, Ispra, Italy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose To compare the diagnostic utility of an investigational optoacoustic imaging device that fuses laser optical imaging (OA) with grayscale ultrasonography (US) to grayscale US alone in differentiating benign and malignant breast masses. Materials and Methods This prospective, 16-site study of 2105 women (study period: 12/21/2012 to 9/9/2015) compared Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) categories assigned by seven blinded independent readers to benign and malignant breast masses using OA/US versus US alone. BI-RADS 3, 4, or 5 masses assessed at diagnostic US with biopsy-proven histologic findings and BI-RADS 3 masses stable at 12 months were eligible.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAdolescents, in many jurisdictions, have the power to consent to life saving treatment but not necessarily the power to refuse it. A recent defence of this asymmetry is Neil Manson's theory of 'transitional paternalism'. Transitional paternalism holds that such asymmetries are by-products of sharing normative powers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFModern breast imaging, including magnetic resonance imaging, provides an increasingly clear depiction of breast cancer extent, often with suboptimal pathologic confirmation. Pathologic findings guide management decisions, and small increments in reported tumor characteristics may rationalize significant changes in therapy and staging. Pathologic techniques to grossly examine resected breast tissue have changed little during this era of improved breast imaging and still rely primarily on the techniques of gross inspection and specimen palpation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: The goal for this study was to determine methods to modify outcome measures for people with aphasia and to provide beginning support for the efficacy of these suggested modifications.
Method: Twenty-nine community-dwelling people with aphasia participated. Modified outcome measures included the Stroke Impact Scale, the 36-item short form Medical Outcomes Study, Reintegration to Normal Living Scale, and Activity Card Sort.
A growing body of audience research reveals medical personnel in hospitals are unprepared for a large-scale radiological emergency such as a terrorist event involving radioactive or nuclear materials. Also, medical personnel in hospitals lack a basic understanding of radiation principles, as well as diagnostic and treatment guidelines for radiation exposure. Clinicians have indicated that they lack sufficient training on radiological emergency preparedness; they are potentially unwilling to treat patients if those patients are perceived to be radiologically contaminated; and they have major concerns about public panic and overloading of clinical systems.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMedical health physicists working in a clinical setting will have a number of key roles in the event of a nuclear or radiological emergency, such as a terrorist attack involving a radiological dispersal device or an improvised nuclear device. Their first responsibility, of course, is to assist hospital administrators and facility managers in developing radiological emergency response plans for their facilities and train staff prior to an emergency. During a hospital's response to a nuclear or radiological emergency, medical health physicists may be asked to (1) evaluate the level of radiological contamination in or on incoming victims; (2) help the medical staff evaluate and understand the significance to patient and staff of the levels of radioactivity with which they are dealing; (3) orient responding medical staff with principles of dealing with radioactive contaminants; (4) provide guidance to staff on decontamination of patients, facilities, and the vehicles in which patients were transported; and (5) assist local public health authorities in monitoring people who are not injured but who have been or are concerned that they may have been exposed to radioactive materials or radiation as a result of the incident.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Manipulative Physiol Ther
January 2005
Objective: To determine if 2 practitioners of differing skill levels could reliably agree on the presence of a weak or strong deltoid or psoas muscle.
Study Design: Interexaminer reliability study of 2 common muscle tests.
Main Outcome Measures: Cohen kappa (unweighted) scores, observer agreement, and 95% confidence intervals (CIs).
Bull Environ Contam Toxicol
September 2004
Growth inhibitory activity has proven important in Qiufeng x Baiyu and Qingsong x Haoyue silkworm larvae. The consumption of mulberry leaves was reduced in both silkworm races while Qiufeng x Baiyu larvae showed the higher reduction in leaf consumption. From the results obtained, it was revealed that even at low concentrations of 400 mg/L of either Cr(III) or Cr(VI) ions, growth of Qiufeng x Baiyu and Qingsong x Haoyue was significantly depressed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe cloning of cattle by somatic cell nuclear transfer (NT) is associated with a high incidence of abnormal placentation, excessive fluid accumulation in the fetal sacs (hydrops syndrome), and fetal overgrowth. Fetal and placental development was investigated at Day 50, during placentome formation; at Day 100, when placentation was completed; and at Day 150, when the hydrops syndrome frequently develops. The NT fetuses were compared with contemporary half-siblings generated from in vitro-produced embryos or by artificial insemination (AI).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCloning Stem Cells
December 2003
As the demand for cloned embryos and offspring increases, the need arises for the development of nuclear transfer procedures that are improved in both efficiency and ease of operation. Here, we describe a novel zona-free cloning method that doubles the throughput in cloned bovine embryo production over current procedures and generates viable offspring with the same efficiency. Elements of the procedure include zona-free enucleation without a holding pipette, automated fusion of 5-10 oocyte-donor cell pairs and microdrop in vitro culture.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSeveral studies have shown that both quiescent and proliferating somatic donor cells can be fully reprogrammed after nuclear transfer (NT) and result in viable offspring. So far, however, no comparative study has conclusively demonstrated the relative importance of donor cell cycle stage on nuclear cloning efficiency. Here, we compare two different types of bovine fetal fibroblasts (BFFs) that were synchronized in G(0), G(1), and different phases within G(1).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) and postconcussive syndrome can result in difficult to document complaints regarding subtle language use. Narrative discourse production has been shown to be a sensitive index of linguistic and cognitive deficits in the more severe TBI population. The narrative discourse production of MTBI subjects was investigated to determine whether cognitive changes were reflected in linguistic production.
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