U-CHANGE Project: a multidimensional consensus on how clinicians, patients and caregivers may approach together the new urothelial cancer scenario.

Introduction: Advanced urothelial carcinoma remains aggressive and very hard to cure, while new treatments will pose a challenge for clinicians and healthcare funding policymakers alike. The U-CHANGE Project aimed to redesign the current model of care for advanced urothelial carcinoma patients to identify limitations ("as is" scenario) and recommend future actions ("to be" scenario).

Methods: Twenty-three subject-matter experts, divided into three groups, analyzed the two scenarios as part of a multidimensional consensus process, developing statements for specific domains of the disease, and a simplified Delphi methodology was used to establish consensus among the experts.

Resource allocation accounts for the large variability of rate-yield phenotypes across bacterial strains.

Different strains of a microorganism growing in the same environment display a wide variety of growth rates and growth yields. We developed a coarse-grained model to test the hypothesis that different resource allocation strategies, corresponding to different compositions of the proteome, can account for the observed rate-yield variability. The model predictions were verified by means of a database of hundreds of published rate-yield and uptake-secretion phenotypes of strains grown in standard laboratory conditions.

The national COVID-19 vaccination campaign targeting the extremely vulnerable: the Florence Medical Oncology Unit experience in patients with cancer.

Background: International and national oncology societies had released recommendations in favor of COVID-19 vaccination in cancer patients. In the context of the national vaccination campaign targeting the so called extremely vulnerable, we aimed to assess the safety and efficacy of the mRNA vaccines in a cohort of 623 patients.

Methods: Between March 26 and April 04, 2021, the Pfizer and BioNTech BNT162b2 mRNA and the Moderna mRNA-1273 vaccines were given as a two-dose prime-boost regimen.

Model-assisted comparison of sugar accumulation patterns in ten fleshy fruits highlights differences between herbaceous and woody species.

Background And Aims: Sugar concentration is a key determinant of fruit quality. Soluble sugars and starch concentrations in fruits vary greatly from one species to another. The aim of this study was to investigate similarities and differences in sugar accumulation strategies across ten contrasting fruit species using a modelling approach.

Reducing a model of sugar metabolism in peach to catch different patterns among genotypes.

Several studies have been conducted to understand the dynamic of primary metabolisms in fruit by translating them into mathematics models. An ODE kinetic model of sugar metabolism has been developed by Desnoues et al. (2018) to simulate the accumulation of different sugars during peach fruit development.

Leaf Production and Expansion: A Generalized Response to Drought Stresses from Cells to Whole Leaf Biomass-A Case Study in the Tomato Compound Leaf.

It is clearly established that there is not a unique response to soil water deficit but that there are as many responses as soil water deficit characteristics: Drought intensity, drought duration, and drought position during plant cycle. For a same soil water deficit, responses can also differ on plant genotype within a same species. In spite of this variability, at least for leaf production and expansion processes, robust tendencies can be extracted from the literature when similar watering regimes are compared.

Organ-wide and ploidy-dependent regulation both contribute to cell-size determination: evidence from a computational model of tomato fruit.

The development of a new organ is the result of coordinated events of cell division and expansion, in strong interaction with each other. This study presents a dynamic model of tomato fruit development that includes cell division, endoreduplication, and expansion processes. The model is used to investigate the potential interactions among these developmental processes within the context of the neo-cellular theory.

Are compound leaves more complex than simple ones? A multi-scale analysis.

Background And Aims: The question of which cellular mechanisms determine the variation in leaf size has been addressed mainly in plants with simple leaves. It is addressed here in tomato taking into consideration the expected complexity added by the several lateral appendages making up the compound leaf, the leaflets.

Methods: Leaf and leaflet areas, epidermal cell number and areas, and endoreduplication (co-) variations were analysed in Solanum lycopersicum considering heteroblastic series in a wild type (Wva106) and an antisense mutant, the Pro35S:Slccs52AAS line, and upon drought treatments.

A kinetic model of sugar metabolism in peach fruit reveals a functional hypothesis of a markedly low fructose-to-glucose ratio phenotype.

The concentrations of sugars in fruit vary with fruit development, environment and genotype. In general, there were weak correlations between the variations in sugar concentrations and the activities of enzymes directly related with the synthesis or degradation of sugars. This finding suggests that the relationships between enzyme activities and metabolites are often non-linear and are difficult to assess.

Model-Assisted Estimation of the Genetic Variability in Physiological Parameters Related to Tomato Fruit Growth under Contrasted Water Conditions.

Drought stress is a major abiotic stress threatening plant and crop productivity. In case of fleshy fruits, understanding mechanisms governing water and carbon accumulations and identifying genes, QTLs and phenotypes, that will enable trade-offs between fruit growth and quality under Water Deficit (WD) condition is a crucial challenge for breeders and growers. In the present work, 117 recombinant inbred lines of a population of were phenotyped under control and WD conditions.

Integrating Physiology and Architecture in Models of Fruit Expansion.

Architectural properties of a fruit, such as its shape, vascular patterns, and skin morphology, play a significant role in determining the distributions of water, carbohydrates, and nutrients inside the fruit. Understanding the impact of these properties on fruit quality is difficult because they develop over time and are highly dependent on both genetic and environmental controls. We present a 3D functional-structural fruit model that can be used to investigate effects of the principle architectural properties on fruit quality.

Complete response in metastatic renal cell carcinoma after radiotherapy and everolimus: a clinical case and review of the literature.

We report the case of a man affected by renal cell carcinoma with vertebral metastases, who presented a radiological complete response after systemic treatment with everolimus.

Inter-Species Comparative Analysis of Components of Soluble Sugar Concentration in Fleshy Fruits.

The soluble sugar concentration of fleshy fruit is a key determinant of fleshy fruit quality. It affects directly the sweetness of fresh fruits and indirectly the properties of processed products (e.g.

Dynamic QTLs for sugars and enzyme activities provide an overview of genetic control of sugar metabolism during peach fruit development.

Knowledge of the genetic control of sugar metabolism is essential to enhance fruit quality and promote fruit consumption. The sugar content and composition of fruits varies with species, cultivar and stage of development, and is controlled by multiple enzymes. A QTL (quantitative trait locus) study was performed on peach fruit [Prunus persica (L.

Safety of eribulin mesylate and concomitant radiotherapy for metastatic breast cancer: a single-center experience.

Aim: This study evaluates, for the first time, the safety of eribulin in metastatic breast cancer patients concomitantly treated with palliative radiotherapy (RT). Patients & materials: A total of 17 patients were pretreated for metastatic breast cancer. Patients received eribulin mesylate and bone RT.

Impact of age on cytotoxic-induced ovarian failure in breast cancer treated with adjuvant chemotherapy and triptorelin.

Aim: This study analyzes our single-center, retrospective experience on 63 premenopausal breast cancer patients treated with monthly triptorelin and concomitant chemotherapy.

Patients & Methods: Concomitant chemotherapy and triptorelin were adopted as part of premature ovarian failure prevention strategy.

Results: Age at diagnosis was the main factor influencing fertility preservation (p = 0.

Hyperlipidemia and hypothyroidism among metastatic renal cell carcinoma patients taking sunitinib malate. Related or unrelated adverse events?

Background: In recent years, new-onset hypothyroidism was extensively reported in patients receiving sunitinib for malignancy. Effects of sunitinib on serum lipids are not described, however a hyperlipidemic state is commonly observed in hypothyroid patients. Here we report about the incidence and severity of hypercholesterolemia and hypertriglyceridemia in a cohort of patients receiving sunitinib for metastatic renal cell carcinoma.

Prognostic factors in patients receiving third line targeted therapy for metastatic renal cell carcinoma.

Purpose: Several prognostic models have been proposed for metastatic renal cell carcinoma but none has been validated in patients who receive third line targeted agents. We evaluated prognostic factors in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma who received a third line targeted agent.

Materials And Methods: We retrospectively reviewed data on 2,065 patients with clear cell metastatic renal cell carcinoma who were treated with targeted therapy at a total of 23 centers in Italy.

Profiling sugar metabolism during fruit development in a peach progeny with different fructose-to-glucose ratios.

Background: Fruit taste is largely affected by the concentration of soluble sugars and organic acids and non-negligibly by fructose concentration, which is the sweetest-tasting sugar. To date, many studies investigating the sugars in fruit have focused on a specific sugar or enzyme and often on a single variety, but only a few detailed studies addressing sugar metabolism both as a whole and dynamic system are available. In commercial peach fruit, sucrose is the main sugar, followed by fructose and glucose, which have similar levels.

Lymphopenia and clinical outcome of elderly patients treated with sunitinib for metastatic renal cell cancer.

Objective: Lymphopenia is associated with toxicity and outcomes in several cancer types. We assessed the association between pre-treatment lymphopenia, toxicity, and clinical outcomes in elderly patients with metastatic renal cell cancer (mRCC) treated with first-line sunitinib. Prognostic factors in these patients were also evaluated.

Standard vs adapted sunitinib regimen in elderly patients with metastatic renal cell cancer: results from a large retrospective analysis.

Background: There are no data on the patterns of care and outcome of elderly patients with mRCC treated with sunitinib. In a retrospective study, we assessed the routine use of first-line sunitinib in mRCC patients aged ≥ 70 years.

Patients And Methods: We reviewed the clinical files of 185 patients aged ≥ 70 years with mRCC treated with first-line sunitinib in 17 Italian oncology units from February 2006 to September 2011.

In-silico analysis of water and carbon relations under stress conditions. A multi-scale perspective centered on fruit.

Fruit development, from its early stages, is the result of a complex network of interacting processes, on different scales. These include cell division, cell expansion but also nutrient transport from the plant, and exchanges with the environment. In the presence of nutrient limitation, in particular, the plant reacts as a whole, by modifying its architecture, metabolism, and reproductive strategy, determining the resources available for fruit development, which in turn affects the overall source-sink balance of the system.

Ecophysiological process-based model to simulate carbon fluxes in plants.

Carbon fluxes in plants have been subject to many modeling studies. The conceptual framework of models of carbon acquisition, allocation, and metabolism in plants are first introduced, together with methods to calibrate and evaluate the validity of the resulting models. The possibility to combine different models within an integrated plant-organ system is illustrated.

Clinical outcomes in patients receiving three lines of targeted therapy for metastatic renal cell carcinoma: results from a large patient cohort.

Aim: A number of targeted therapies (TTs) are effective in metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) but clinical outcomes with the sequential use of three TTs have been poorly investigated, this study evaluates their outcome.

Methods: Patients with clear cells mRCC treated with three TTs were retrospectively studied. Therapies were classified as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)/vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR) or mammalian target of rapamycin inhibitors (mTORi).