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Purpose Many hospitals in the United States are limited in their capabilities to treat advanced heart disease. This limitation results in patients needing to be transferred to a facility with the capacity to provide higher levels of care when ECMO support has been initiated. In this study we aim to look at whether transport time or distance impacts survival rate of implanted ECMO patients. Methods The Artificial Heart Program's database at Intermountain Medical Center was queried from June 2007 - 2017 for patients transported to the Intermountain facility on ECMO. Patients were stratified into two groups. Group 1: those who survived to discharge and Group 2: those who expired before discharge. Seven parameters were evaluated for significance: age, distance transported, time from initial request to arrival, transport time, whether chest compressions were performed, indication for support and type of support. A two-sample t-test was used to determine significance. Results 50 patients met study inclusion criteria; 29 were male and 21 were female. The average age for Group 1 was 49±13 years compared to Group 2, 55 ± 15 years. The average transport distance and time was 125±118 miles & 73±24 minutes for Group 1 vs 74±78 miles & 105±55 minutes for Group 2. The time from life flight request was 293±85 minutes vs 365±139 minutes for Group 1 vs Group 2. The majority of patients were implanted with CARDIOHELP (CH) (p=0.52). Additional preliminary factors such as indications for support and whether patient received chest compressions are summarized below. Conclusion Our observations indicate that increased transport time correlates with a lower survival rate. Whereas we found no significance in the distance the patient traveled. The average distance for Group 1 was 40% farther then Group 2. This study suggests that decreasing the time from ECMO request to transportation arrival and decreasing the time of transport could lead to improved survival of ECMO patients transferred between hospitals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chestnut blight is a devastating disease of Castanea spp. Mycoviruses that reduce virulence (hypovirulence) of the causative agent, Cryphonectria parasitica, can be used to manage chestnut blight. However, vegetative incompatibility (vic) barriers that restrict anastomosis-mediated virus transmission hamper hypovirulence efficacy. In order to effectively determine the vegetative incompatibility genetic structure of C. parasitica field populations, we have designed PCR primer sets that selectively amplify and distinguish alleles for each of the six known diallelic C. parasitica vic genetic loci. PCR assay results were validated using a panel of 64 European tester strains with genetically determined vic genotypes. Analysis of 116 C. parasitica isolates collected from five locations in the eastern United States revealed 39 unique vic genotypes and generally good agreement between PCR and tester strain coculturing assays in terms of vic diversity and genotyping. However, incongruences were observed for isolates from multiple locations and suggested that the coculturing assay can overestimate diversity at the six known vic loci. The availability of molecular tools for rapid and precise vic genotyping significantly improves the ability to predict and evaluate the efficacy of hypovirulence and related management strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Mammary carcinoma is at the moment the most common cancer type among women.Studies have shown that 2 out of 3 cases are diagnosed in advanced stages, when therapeutic procedures are surpassed.Anually 77.000 women in Europe die because of this pathology.In USA 1 out of 8 women are diagnosed during their lifetime with invasive breast cancer.In Romania there are no studies that show the incidence of the presented pathology, both from the diagnosis and mortality viewpoint. Objective: Presenting the incidence of the breast cancer in the case series of the Department of Pathology of the Clinical County Hospital of Târgu-Mureş, analyzing the carcinoma cases, the most susceptible age to develop the pathology and the immunohistochemical profile. Material and methods: The retrospective study included a case series of female patients.We collected the clinical, the laboratory diagnosis and the immunohistochemical profile through the inpatient and outpatient care registers.The data included surgical biopsies and tru-cut biopsies.The immunohistochemical markers used for diagnosis were Ki67, ER, HER-2, PR, CK7, E-cadherin and p63. Results: During 2018 there were 210 patients with breast carcinoma between the age of 30 and 90 years old,with the mean age of 60±0.98 SD. 199 cases (94,76%) were invasive carcinomas:13,8% (n=29) cases of NST/G1; 42,38% (n=89) cases of NST/G2; 23,80% (n=50) cases of NST/G3; 5,71% (n=12) cases of lobular carcinoma; 3,80% (n=8) cases of mucinous carcinoma; 2,85% (n=6) cases of papillar carcinoma; 1,42% (n=3) cases of metaplastic carcinoma; 0,47% (n=1) case of mucino-papillary carcinoma; 0,47% (n=1) case of cribriform carcinoma. 5,23 (n=11) cases were in-situ carcinomas, out of which 3,33% (n=7) cases of ductal carcinoma; 1,90% (n=4) cases of papillar carcinoma. Conclusions: In our department the most common carcinomas were the invasive ones, more precisely the NST/G2, followed by the other NST carcinomas.The mean age was 60±0.98 SD and it was diagnosed exclusively among women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]