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Background: We determined the occurrence frequency of Clinical signs, subclinical characteristics on positive anti-IgG Toxocara ELISA cases, and clinical response results after 1 month of albendazole-specific treatment. Methods: A number of 103 clinically treated patients were studied between 2018 and 2019 in two hospitals. Relevant data are collected from examination and medical records such as age, sex, job, resident, clinical and sub-clinical signs. Sera samples were subjected to anti-IgG Toxocara antigen using ELISA. Results: The median age of the patient was 43.6 ± 14.4 years. The most common symptom groups were the skin and mucosa (88.3%), followed by neurological symptoms (44%). There are 76.7% of patients with risk factors for contact with pet dogs and cats. The majority of eosinophils in the normal range (< 8%) accounted for 85.4%, the major results of the OD value of ELISA were in the group (≥ 0.3-< 1.5) accounted for 75.7%. The skin and mucosa lesions in toxocariasis patients related to IgE values were statistically significant (P

Infections with the zoonotic liver flukes Fasciola gigantica and Fasciola hepatica may result in severe disease in humans. In Vietnam, an emergence of fascioliasis cases has been observed from the late 1990s onwards. Various diagnostic tools are used in the country, but the agreement between these tools has not been critically evaluated. We aimed to describe the clinical presentation and diagnostic outcomes in fascioliasis patients in Vietnam. A retrospective, cross-sectional study was conducted on the medical records of a group of 145 patients diagnosed with fascioliasis at a tertiary referral hospital in Hanoi. Based on the review, sociodemographic background and clinical presentation were recorded. These patients all received standard routine serologic tests, including internal antibody (Ab)-ELISA, an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and commercial coproantigen (cAg)-ELISA. The majority of cases were between 30 and 59 years old (68.3%), and about half of them were male (51.0%). Upper quadrant and epigastric pain were the most commonly reported symptoms (61.4% and 35.2%, respectively). All but one patient had liver lesions upon ultrasound examination (99.3%), and eosinophilia was present in most of the patients (89.7%). A high number of patients were positive in the in-house and the commercial Ab-ELISA (95.9% and 87.4%, respectively), yet only a slight agreement was observed between the two tests (kappa coefficient, 0.06). A further 47.4% of cases were positive for the commercial cAg-ELISA, whereas stool microscopy indicated the presence of Fasciola spp. eggs in 25.7% of patients. The current study emphasizes the challenges related to the diagnosis of human fascioliasis in Vietnam.

Abstract Background 131I radioactive iodine therapy (RAI) has been commonly applied for metastatic differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) and played an adjunctive role to total thyroidectomy. However, there is no reliable method to predict therapeutic response to RAI in metastatic DTC. Several studies showed potential use of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (18F-FDG PET) in lesion detection or therapeutic response prediction of DTC. Thus we aimed to evaluate the feasibility of 18F-FDG PET for the prediction of therapeutic response to RAI in patients with metastatic DTC. Methods We retrospectively evaluated 29 adult patients with metastatic DTC who underwent RAI after total thyroidectomy. 18F-FDG PET/CT was performed within three months before RAI, and the maximum, average and sum of each maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax), metabolic tumor volume (MTV) and total lesion glycolysis (TLG) were assessed. Therapeutic response to RAI was categorized into the progressive disease (PD) or non-progressive disease (Non-PD), based on the Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumor (RECIST) 1.1 using pre- and post-therapeutic computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images. The area under curve (ROC) analyses were performed to evaluate their predictive potentials of therapeutic response to RAI. Results Among 29 patients (12 men; median age, 62.4 y.o.; range, 26–81), eight patients were classified into PD and 21 were into Non-PD. PD patients showed a significantly higher maximum, average and sum SUVmax, MTV and TLG before RAI, compared to the Non-PD group (p

Leprosy is a chronic disease of the skin and peripheral nerves caused by Mycobacterium leprae. A major public health and clinical problem are leprosy reactions, which are inflammatory episodes that often contribute to nerve damage and disability. Type I reversal reactions (T1R) can occur after microbiological cure of leprosy and affect up to 50% of leprosy patients. Early intervention to prevent T1R and, hence, nerve damage, is a major focus of current leprosy control efforts. In a prospective study, we enrolled and collected samples from 32 leprosy patients before the onset of T1R. Whole blood aliquots were challenged with M. leprae sonicate or media and total RNA was extracted. After a three-year follow-up, the transcriptomic response was compared between cells from 22 patients who remained T1R-free and 10 patients who developed T1R during that period. Our analysis focused on differential transcript (i.e. isoform) expression and usage. Results showed that, at baseline, cells from T1R-destined and T1R-free subjects had no main difference in their transcripts expression and usage. However, the cells of T1R patients displayed a transcriptomic immune response to M. leprae antigens that was significantly different from the one of cells from leprosy patients who remained T1R-free. Transcripts with significantly higher upregulation in the T1R-destined group, compared to the cells from T1R-free patients, were enriched for pathways and GO terms involved in response to intracellular pathogens, apoptosis regulation and inflammatory processes. Similarly, transcript usage analysis pinpointed different transcript proportions in response to the in-vitro challenge of cells from T1R-destined patients. Hence, transcript usage in concert with transcript expression suggested a dysregulated inflammatory response including increased apoptosis regulation in the peripheral blood cells of T1R-destined patients before the onset of T1R symptoms. Combined, these results provided detailed insight into the pathogenesis of T1R. Author summary: The prevention and clinical management of type 1 reactions (T1R) remain an important unmet need to reduce nerve damage in leprosy patients. It is not known why 30–50% of leprosy patients will develop T1R. This knowledge gap underlies the need for a better mechanistic understanding of T1R that could lead to biomarker candidates to identify leprosy patients who are at high risk of developing T1R. Here, we used a prospective design in which leprosy patients were enrolled before the onset of T1R.Whole blood samples were obtained at enrollment, aliquots were left unstimulated or were stimulated M. leprae antigens and total RNA was extracted. Patients were followed for three years at which time 10 out of 32 participants had developed T1R. Subsequent transcript expression and usage analyses revealed that groups differed little in their isoform landscape at baseline. Following stimulation, transcriptomic response differences became pronounced. Transcripts with higher response in T1R group preferentially involved genes of intracellular defense and inflammatory pathways. Among these transcripts, non-coding ones had higher frequency in T1R. Our study provided new insights into the T1R pathogenesis by suggesting a role for non-coding transcripts into the immune dysregulations of T1R and providing additional candidate genes and their isoforms to be further investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the possible unparticle signatures through Bhabha scattering. The numerical results show that the angular distribution with unparticle effects can be up to 42% of the one that is confirmed by Born QED and Born + 1-loop QED calculation and the total cross section with unparticle effects are about 0.04-4.24 pb. This could have important implications for unparticle searches and for the measurement of the cross section of the Bhabha scattering. Key words: theoretical physics, unparticle physics, cross section, Bhabha scattering, total effect. Nous explorons les signatures possibles de particules improbables (unparticle de Georgi) dans la diffusion de Bhabha. Les resultats numeriques montrent que la distribution angulaire avec effets des particules improbables peut etre jusqu'a 42 % de celle obtenue d'un calcul EDQde Born et EDQde Born + 1 boucle, alors que la section efficace totale avec effets des particules improbables est de l'ordre de 0.04 a 4.24 pb. Ceci pourrait avoir des consequences importantes pour la recherche des particules improbables et pour la diffusion de Bhabha. [Traduit par la Redaction] Mots-cles: physique theorique, physique des particules improbables, section efficace, diffusion de Bhabha, effet total., 1. Introduction Bhabha scattering is among the most important and carefully studied processes in particle physics. It provides a very efficient tool for luminosity at electron-positron colliders and thus mediates [...]

It is important to detect mediastinal lymph node metastases in patients with lung cancer to improve outcomes, and it is possible that activatable fluorescence imaging with indocyanine green (ICG) can help visualize metastatic lymph nodes. Therefore, we investigated the feasibility of applying this method to mediastinal lymph node metastases in an epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-positive squamous cell carcinoma of the lung. Tumors were formed by injecting H226 (EGFR-positive) and H520 (EGFR-negative) cell lines directly in the lung parenchyma of five mice each. When computed tomography revealed tumors exceeding 8 mm at their longest or atelectasis that occupied more than half of lateral lung fields, a panitumumab (Pan)-ICG conjugate was injected in the tail vein (50 μg/100 μL). The mice were then sacrificed 48 hours after injection and their chests were opened for fluorescent imaging acquisition. Lymph node metastases with the five highest fluorescent signal intensities per mouse were chosen for statistical analysis of the average signal ratios against the liver. Regarding the quenching capacity, the Pan-ICG conjugate had almost no fluorescence in phosphate-buffered saline, but there was an approximate 61.8-fold increase in vitro after treatment with 1% sodium dodecyl sulfate. Both the fluorescent microscopy and the flow cytometry showed specific binding between the conjugate and H226, but almost no specific binding with H520. The EGFR-positive mediastinal lymph node metastases showed significantly higher average fluorescence signal ratios than the EGFR-negative ones (n = 25 per group) 48 hours after conjugate administration (70.1% ± 4.5% vs. 13.3% ± 1.8%; p < 0.05). Thus, activatable fluorescence imaging using the Pan-ICG conjugate detected EGFR-positive mediastinal lymph node metastases with high specificity.

In this paper we suggest a graphical tool for multiple time series modelling with an application in macroeconomies. The asymptotic distribution of the adjusted residual traces introduced in [1, Velilla and Nguyen] is examined and further developed. We propose critical bands of the adjusted residual traces as a useful tool in model selection. An advantage of the method is that visual displays of the critical bands and plots of the adjusted residual traces can assist in selecting a proper multiple time series model. This technique is less dependent on the choice of lag. Several simulations, examples and an application with German time series are included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are increasing calls for more child specific measures of poverty in developing countries and the need for such measures to be multi-dimensional (that is not just based on income) has been recognised. Participatory Poverty Assessments (PPAs) are now common in international development research. Most PPAs have been undertaken with adults and there are still relatively few PPAs with children. The objective of the current study was to understand adults' and children's perceptions of the causes and consequences of child poverty in rural Vietnam using a variety of participatory methods. Poor children are perceived by poor children as those who lack basic needs such as food, clothes, and safe shelter. Poor children feel they do not receive enough attention from their parents, have to work and have no safe place to play.