Dosimetric considerations to determine the optimal technique for localized prostate cancer among external photon, proton, or carbon-ion therapy and high-dose-rate or low-dose-rate brachytherapy.

Purpose: To assess the dosimetric differences among volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT), scanned proton therapy (intensity-modulated proton therapy, IMPT), scanned carbon-ion therapy (intensity-modulated carbon-ion therapy, IMIT), and low-dose-rate (LDR) and high-dose-rate (HDR) brachytherapy (BT) treatment of localized prostate cancer.

Methods And Materials: Ten patients were considered for this planning study. For external beam radiation therapy (EBRT), planning target volume was created by adding a margin of 5 mm (lateral/anterior-posterior) and 8 mm (superior-inferior) to the clinical target volume.

Invasive fungal infections and (1,3)-beta-D-glucan serum concentrations in long-term intensive care patients.

Objective: Invasive fungal infections are associated with high morbidity and increased mortality. This study was performed to assess the epidemiology of fungal infections and to determine (1,3)-beta-D-glucan serum concentrations in patients admitted to intensive care units (ICUs).

Patients And Methods: Overall 197 patients were admitted to nine medical and surgical intensive care units (ICUs) at a 2200-bed university hospital during a 3-month period.

How to control lymphangiogenesis: a novel role for rapamycin.

Analysis of the lymphatic microvasculature has become possible only recently by the discovery of novel proteins specifically expressed in lymphatic endothelial cells only. Therapeutic manipulation of de novo lymphangiogenesis might become clinically relevant in the future in diverse situations, such as renal transplant rejection. In this issue Huber et al.

Effects of pentoxifylline and alprostadil on ocular hemodynamics in healthy humans.

Purpose: Alprostadil, a prostaglandin (PG)E(1) analogue and pentoxifylline, an alkylxanthine derivate, have been shown to exert vasodilatory effects in several vascular beds. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of PGE(1) and pentoxifylline on the ocular circulation.

Methods: A placebo-controlled, double-masked, three-way, crossover study was performed in 15 healthy male subjects.

Microdialysis versus other techniques for the clinical assessment of in vivo tissue drug distribution.

Quantification of target site pharmacokinetics (PK) is crucial for drug discovery and development. Clinical microdialysis (MD) has increasingly been employed for the description of drug distribution and receptor phase PK of the unbound fraction of various analytes. Costs for MD experiments are comparably low and given suitable analytics, target tissue PK of virtually any drug molecule can be quantified.

Lymphatic endothelial progenitor cells contribute to de novo lymphangiogenesis in human renal transplants.

De novo lymphangiogenesis influences the course of different human diseases as diverse as chronic renal transplant rejection and tumor metastasis. The cellular mechanisms of lymphangiogenesis in human diseases are currently unknown, and could involve division of local preexisting endothelial cells or incorporation of circulating progenitors. We analyzed renal tissues of individuals with gender-mismatched transplants who had transplant rejection and high rates of overall lymphatic endothelial proliferation as well as massive chronic inflammation.

Podocyte flattening and disorder of glomerular basement membrane are associated with splitting of dystroglycan-matrix interaction.

The transmembrane component of the dystroglycan complex, a heterodimer of alpha- and beta-dystroglycan, was recently localized at the basal cell membrane domain of podocytes, and it was speculated that it serves as a device of the podocyte for maintaining the complex podocyte foot process architecture, and for regulating the exact position of its ligands, the matrix proteins laminin and agrin, in the glomerular basement membrane (GBM). The redistribution of dystroglycan in two experimental rat models of foot process flattening and proteinuria-i.e.