Search results for "Sample"
showing 10 items of 2270 documents
A Novel System for Semiautomatic Sample Processing in Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia: Increasing Throughput without Impacting on Molecular Monitoring at T…
2021
Molecular testing of the BCR-ABL1 transcript via real-time quantitative-polymerase-chain-reaction is the most sensitive approach for monitoring the response to tyrosine-kinase-inhibitors therapy in chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) patients. Each stage of the molecular procedure has been standardized and optimized, including the total white blood cells (WBCs) and RNA isolation methods. Here, we compare the performance of our current manual protocol to a newly semiautomatic method based on the Biomek i-5 Automated Workstations integrated with the CytoFLEX Flow Cytometer, followed by the automatic QIAsymphony system to facilitate high-throughput processing samples and reduce the hands-on time a…
R-Score: A New Parameter to Assess the Quality of Variants’ Calls Assessed by NGS Using Liquid Biopsies
2021
Next-generation sequencing (NGS) has enabled a deeper knowledge of the molecular landscape in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), identifying a growing number of targetable molecular alterations in key genes. However, NGS profiling of liquid biopsies risk for false positive and false negative calls and parameters assessing the quality of NGS calls remains lacking. In this study, we have evaluated the positive percent agreement (PPA) between NGS and digital PCR calls when assessing EGFR mutation status using 85 plasma samples from 82 EGFR-positive NSCLC patients. According to our data, variant allele fraction (VAF) was significantly lower in discordant calls and the median of the absolute va…
The Role of Religiosity in Symptom Expression of Advanced Cancer Patients
2021
Aim: The aim of this study was to assess the religious pattern and its impact on symptom expression in patients with advanced cancer. Methods: A consecutive sample of advanced cancer patients screened at admission to palliative care. Standard epidemiological data were recorded. Patients were asked about their religious beliefs, the degree of social relationship to existing religions, the role of religion in their life, and the frequency of their prayer. The Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale (ESAS) and Hospital Anxiety Depression scale (HADS) were assessed. Results: Two-hundred-eighty-three patients were screened. Age and gender were found to be independently correlated with religious belief…
Biomarker Analysis in Patients (pts) with Steroid-Refractory Acute Graft-Vs-Host Disease (aGVHD) Treated with Ruxolitinib (RUX) or Best Available The…
2020
BACKGROUND aGVHD, a common complication of allogeneic stem cell transplant (alloSCT), is driven by proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines that activate the immune system, resulting in end-organ damage. Steroids are first-line treatment but up to 50% of pts are steroid refractory (SR), resulting in high mortality and morbidity. RUX, a JAK1/JAK2 inhibitor, inhibits cytokine-dependent activation of the JAK-STAT pathway and cell proliferation and differentiation, which prevents worsening of aGVHD and allows recovery. JAK pathway inhibition by RUX may also lead to modulation of proinflammatory cytokines and prognostic GVHD biomarkers. The phase 3 randomized REACH2 trial (NCT02913261) in SR aGV…
Characterization of PD-1 and PD-L1 Expression in Papillary Renal Cell Carcinoma: Results of a Large Multicenter Study
2021
Abstract Background Programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1)/programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) play a decisive role as prognostic markers in clear-cell renal cell carcinoma (RCC). To date, the role of PD-1/PD-L1 as a prognostic marker in papillary RCC (pRCC) remains scarce. Patients and Methods Patients’ sample collection was a joint collaboration of the nationwide PANZAR consortium – a multicenter study. Medical history and tumor specimens were collected from 245 and 129 patients with pRCC types 1 and 2, respectively. Expression of PD-1 and PD-L1 was determined by immunohistochemistry in pRCC and tumor-infiltrating mononuclear cells. Results Of 374 pRCC specimens, 204 type 1 and 97 type 2 we…
Circulating miR-99a-5p Expression in Plasma: A Potential Biomarker for Early Diagnosis of Breast Cancer
2020
MicroRNAs have emerged as new diagnostic and therapeutic biomarkers for breast cancer. Herein, we analysed miR-99a-5p expression levels in primary tumours and plasma of breast cancer patients to evaluate its usefulness as a minimally invasive diagnostic biomarker. MiR-99a-5p expression levels were determined by quantitative real-time PCR in three independent cohorts of patients: (I) Discovery cohort: breast cancer tissues (n = 103) and healthy breast tissues (n = 26)
Geometric Optimal Control of the Generalized Lotka-Volterra Model of the Intestinal Microbiome
2022
We introduce the theoretical framework from geometric optimal control for a control system modeled by the Generalized Lotka-Volterra (GLV) equation, motivated by restoring the gut microbiota infected by Clostridium difficile combining antibiotic treatment and fecal injection. We consider both permanent control and sampled-data control related to the medical protocols.
Optimal design of incoherent tunable-frequency structured illumination microscope scheme
2018
Structured illumination microscopy (SIM) improves resolution and optical sectioning capability compared to conventional widefield techniques. The main idea of this method is the illumination of the sample with a structured pattern of fixed spatial modulation frequency. Previously, a Fresnel biprism has been implemented in a structured illumination (SI) device providing tunable-frequency sinusoidal patterns. However, the use of this SI system introduces a tradeoff between the visibility and field of view of the illumination fringes. In this contribution, we analyze theoretically this tradeoff and propose the optimal design for the Fresnel biprism-based SIM system.
Block bootstrap methods and the choice of stocks for the long run
2013
Financial advisors commonly recommend that the investment horizon should be rather long in order to benefit from the ‘time diversification’. In this case, in order to choose the optimal portfolio, it is necessary to estimate the risk and reward of several alternative portfolios over a long-run given a sample of observations over a short-run. Two interrelated obstacles in these estimations are lack of sufficient data and the uncertainty in the nature of the return generating process. To overcome these obstacles researchers rely heavily on block bootstrap methods. In this paper we demonstrate that the estimates provided by a block bootstrap method are generally biased and we propose two metho…
The Impact of Bank Concentration on Financial Distress: The Case of the European Banking System
2009
This paper examines the impact of bank concentrationon bank financial distress using a balanced panel of commercial banks in the EU‐25 over a sample period running from 2003 to 2007. Financial distress is proxied by the observations falling below a given threshold of the empirical distribution of a risk‐adjusted indicator of bank performance: the Shareholder Value Ratio. We employ a panel probit regression estimated by GMM in order to obtain consistent and efficient estimates, following the suggestion made by Bertschek and Lechner (1998). After controlling for a number of environment variables, we conclude that our findings suggest a positive effect of bank concentration on financial distre…