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Background Resection with curative intent has been shown to prolong survival of patients with locoregional pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma ( PDAC). However, up to 33 per cent of patients are deemed unresectable at exploratory laparotomy owing to unanticipated locally advanced or metastatic disease. In these patients, prophylactic double bypass ( PDB) procedures have been considered the standard of care. The aim of this study was to compare PDB with exploratory laparotomy alone in terms of impact on postoperative course, chemotherapy and overall survival. Methods This retrospective observational cohort study (2004-2013) was conducted using a prospective institutional database. Patients with histologically confirmed, unresectable PDAC were included. Relationships between PDB procedures, exploratory laparotomy alone, postoperative chemotherapy and best supportive care were investigated by means of Cox regression. Overall survival was compared using Kaplan-Meier estimations and log rank test. Results Of 503 patients with PDAC scheduled for resection with curative intent, 104 were deemed unresectable at laparotomy (resection rate 79·3 per cent). Seventy-four patients underwent PDB procedures and 30 had exploratory laparotomy alone. PDB and exploratory laparotomy were similar in terms of perioperative mortality, initiation of chemotherapy and overall survival. Compared with best supportive care, postoperative chemotherapy prolonged survival (8·0 versus 14·4 months in locally advanced PDAC, P = 0·007; 2·3 versus 8·0 months in metastatic PDAC, P < 0·001). Patients undergoing chemotherapy following exploratory laparotomy alone had longer median overall survival than patients undergoing chemotherapy following PDB procedures (16·3 versus 10·3 months; P = 0·040). Conclusion Patients with pancreatic cancer deemed unresectable at laparotomy may derive survival benefit from subsequent chemotherapy as opposed to supportive care alone. At laparotomy, proceeding with a bypass procedure for prophylactic symptom control may be prognostically unfavourable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we aimed to test the hypothesis that KIR haplotypes (that interact with HLA class I molecules) are associated with susceptibility in patients with T1 DM in utero through maternal-foetal interaction of KIR and their HLA class I ligands in Han Chinese population. We determined the KIR genes and KIR/ligand gene combination frequencies in 59 Han Chinese children with T1D and their mothers and compared it with 159 healthy control children and their mothers. The absence of KIR-2 DS1 in the mother and the presence of HLA-C2 ligand in the child were negatively associated with type 1 diabetes in the child. Our results indicate that maternal KIR genes and their interaction with foetal HLA-C2 may contribute to the risk of type 1 diabetes among Han Chinese children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Locoregional pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma ( PDAC) may progress rapidly and/or disseminate despite having an early stage at diagnostic imaging. A prolonged interval from imaging to resection might represent a risk factor for encountering tumour progression at laparotomy. The aim of this study was to determine the therapeutic window for timely surgical intervention. Methods This observational cohort study included patients with histologically confirmed PDAC scheduled for resection with curative intent from 2008 to 2014. The impact of imaging-to-resection/reassessment ( IR) interval, vascular involvement and tumour size on local tumour progression or presence of metastases at reimaging or laparotomy was evaluated using univariable and multivariable regression. Risk estimates were approximated using hazard ratios ( HRs). Results Median IR interval was 42 days. Of 349 patients scheduled for resection, 82 had unresectable disease (resectability rate 76·5 per cent). The unresectability rate was zero when the IR interval was 22 days or shorter, and was lower for an IR interval of 32 days or less compared with longer waiting times (13 versus 26·2 per cent; HR 0·42, P = 0·021). It was also lower for tumours smaller than 30 mm than for larger tumours (13·9 versus 32·5 per cent; HR 0·34, P < 0·001). Tumours with no or minor vascular involvement showed decreased rates of unresectable disease (20·6 per cent versus 38 per cent when there was major or combined vascular involvement; HR 0·43, P = 0·007). However, this failed to reach statistical significance on multivariable analysis ( P = 0·411), in contrast to IR interval ( P = 0·028) and tumour size ( P < 0·001). Conclusion Operation within 32 days of diagnostic imaging reduced the risk of tumour progression to unresectable disease by half compared with a longer waiting time. The results of this study highlight the importance of efficient clinical PDAC management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim Killer immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIRs) and their interaction with HLA class I ligands have been shown to be associated with Type 1 diabetes mellitus. The aim of our study was to investigate the influence of KIR genes and their HLA-C ligands for susceptibility to Type 1 diabetes in patients from Eastern India. Methods A total of 135 patients with Type 1 diabetes and 98 healthy subjects from Eastern India were typed for KIR genes and HLA-C ligands using PCR-based genotyping. The frequencies of these genes were compared between patients and controls. Results Comparison of KIR genes between Type 1 diabetes patients and healthy subjects revealed significantly different frequencies of KIRs 2DL2 and 2DS4. The presence of HLA-C1 was negatively associated with disease. The presence of both HLA-C1 and -C2 showed a negative association with Type 1 diabetes, whereas the absence of C1 and presence of C2 was positively associated with disease. Stratification analysis of HLA-C ligands and KIRs showed significant associations between Type 1 diabetes and 2DL2+/C1-, 2DL2-/C1+, 2DL3+/C1+, 2DL3+/C1- and 2DS2+/C1-. Conclusions Our results suggest that the interaction of KIRs with HLA-C ligands are significant and certain combinations contribute to susceptibility to and protection against Type 1 diabetes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study aqueous, ethanol and methanol extracts of freshwater mussel Parreysia corrugata were screened for antibacterial activity. The extracts were obtained from the whole body tissue of the animals and tested against 5 pathogenic bacteria viz., Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella typhi, Enterococcus faecalis and Staphylococcus aureus. Ethanol extract of P.corrugata showed maximum antibacterial activity 11 mm against P.aeruginosa and the minimum activity 9 mm against K. pneumoniae. Methanol extract of P.corrugata showed Maximum inhibition 13mm against P.aeruginosa and the minimum inhibition zone of 8mm against K. pneumoniae. Aqueous extract of P.corrugata showed the maximum inhibition zone was 10mm against S.aureus and the minimum inhibition zone was 7 mm against S.typhi. Aqueous, Ethanol and Methanol extracts showed antibacterial activity against five human pathogen bacteria tested. Compare to water extracts Ethanol and Methanol extracts showed more activity against all pathogens. FTIR analysis revealed the presence of bioactive compounds signals at different ranges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Molluscs are highly delicious seafood and they are also very good source for biomedically imported products. Gastropod crude extract was tested for inhibition of bacterial growth against human pathogenic bacteria. Pila virens was screened against five human pathogenic bacteria strains for antibacterial activities. Five species of pathogenic bacteria namely Klepsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella typhi, Staphylococcus aureus , Enterococcus faecalis. Control discs were with water and solvents to assess the effect of water and solvents on pathogens. The plates were incubated at 37 °C for 24 h the antimicrobial activity was measured accordingly based on the inhibition zone around the disc impregnated with gastropod extract. Ethanol extract of Pila virens was found active against five species of pathogens. The inhibition zone ranged from 9 mm to 11 mm. The maximum inhibition zone was 11 mm against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus faecalis. The minimum zone was 9mm in Salmonella typhi and 10mm in Klepsiella pneumoniae. Water extract of Pila virens zone ranged from 9mm to 10mm. The maximum inhibition zone was 10mm in Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus faecalis and the minimum inhibition zone was 9mm in Klepsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella typhi. Commercial antibiotics are highly effective to kill the bacterial and fungal pathogens involved in common infection. Water, ethanol extracts of gastropods used in the present study showed significant antibacterial activity compare with other solvents extraction. FTIR analysis revealed the presence of bioactive compounds signals at different ranges. It is worthy to note that the product from natural source is good for health and to avoid side effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a novel hyperspectral matching technique by integrating the Jeffries-Matusita measure (JM) and the Spectral Angle Mapper (SAM) algorithm. The deterministic Spectral Angle Mapper and stochastic Jeffries-Matusita measure are orthogonally projected using the sine and tangent functions to increase their spectral ability. The developed JM-SAM algorithm is implemented in effectively discriminating the landcover classes and cover types in the hyperspectral images acquired by PROBA/CHRIS and EO-1 Hyperion sensors. The reference spectra for different land-cover classes were derived from each of these images. The performance of the proposed measure is compared with the performance of the individual SAM and JM approaches. From the values of the relative spectral discriminatory probability (RSDPB) and relative discriminatory entropy value (RSDE), it is inferred that the hybrid JM-SAM approach results in a high spectral discriminability than the SAM and JM measures. Besides, the use of the improved JM-SAM algorithm for supervised classification of the images results in 92.9% and 91.47% accuracy compared to 73.13%, 79.41%, and 85.69% of minimum-distance, SAM and JM measures. It is also inferred that the increased spectral discriminability of JM-SAM measure is contributed by the JM distance. Further, it is seen that the proposed JM-SAM measure is compatible with varying spectral resolutions of PROBA/CHRIS (62 bands) and Hyperion (242 bands). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

B Presenter: b Srinivas Sanjeevi MD | University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston B Background: b Studies have demonstrated a modest survival benefit amongst hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients treated with yittrium-90 radioembolization (RE). We hypothesize that a RE survival benefit versus chemotherapy may be influenced by cirrhosis. B Conclusion: b Using this model yittrium-90 radioembolization resulted in a modest survival increase for patients with higher MELD scores. [Extracted from the article]

Lunar surface exploration is increasing rapidly. These exploring satellites provide a large number of high resolution images containing topographical information. The topographical information in lunar surface are craters, ridges, mountains and grabens. Extracting this topographical information manually is time-consuming. Hence, an automatic feature extraction is favored. This paper presents a novel approach using image processing techniques to automatically detect ridges in lunar images. The approaches adopted for this development includes phase symmetry, phase congruency and morphological operations to automatically detect significant ridges. The phase symmetry extracts symmetry features with discontinuities, phase congruency extracts features lying in low contrast regions and morphological operations such as thinning and pruning are used to obtain significant ridges. The proposed novel approach experiments on a test set of different regions. These different region images are obtained from different sensors (LROC, Selene and Clementine) having different spatial resolution and illumination variation. The results obtained are compared with the plan curvature method; and they are evaluated based on true and false detection of ridge pixels. Irrespective of illumination variation and spatial resolution, the proposed approach provides better results than the plan curvature method and its detection rate is approximately 92%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the complications of biliary anastomotic strictures (BAS) post pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD), and talks of study conducted by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, development of postoperative pancreatic fistula (POPF), and independent predictors such as jaundice.