Effect of postoperative 131I treatment on thyroglobulin measurements in the follow-up of patients with thyroid cancer

Correlation of serum thyroglobulin (Tg) levels with recurrent cancer was performed in 200 patients who had undergone a subtotal thyroidectomy for well-differentiated thyroid carcinoma. Patients were divided into three groups: (1) those not treated postoperatively with radioactive iodine, (2) those treated with low dose (30 mCi) radioactive iodine, and (3) those treated with high dose (50-250 mCi) radioactive iodine. Tg levels proved to be reliable in detecting recurrent thyroid cancer regardless of the dose of radioactive iodine given postoperatively. These results reinforce the recommendation of using the Tg assay as the primary method of following these patients postoperatively, even when there was less than a total thyroidectomy and ablation with radioactive iodine.     

Effects of Forgiveness Therapy on Anger, Mood, and Vulnerability to Substance Use Among Inpatient Substance-Dependent Clients.

Anger and related emotions have been identified as triggers in substance use. Forgiveness therapy (FT) targets anger, anxiety, and depression as foci of treatment. Fourteen patients with substance dependence from a local residential treatment facility were randomly assigned to and completed either 12 approximately twice-weekly sessions of individual FT or 12 approximately twice-weekly sessions of an alternative individual treatment based on routine drug and alcohol therapy topics. Participants who completed FT had significantly more improvement in total and trait anger, depression, total and trait anxiety, self-esteem, forgiveness, and vulnerability to drug use than did the alternative treatment group. Most benefits of FT remained significant at 4-month follow-up. These results support FT as an efficacious newly developed model for residential drug rehabilitation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Barriers to completion of health care proxies: an examination of ethnic differences

BACKGROUND: Advance directives have not been uniformly used by different segments of the US population and studies have consistently shown a lower prevalence of advance directives among African Americans and Hispanics compared with non-Hispanic whites. OBJECTIVE: To examine barriers to completion of health care proxies for different ethnic groups. METHODS: One hundred ninety-seven subjects aged 65 years or older self-identified as African American (n = 65), Hispanic (n = 65), or non-Hispanic white (n = 67) attending a geriatrics and internal medicine outpatient clinic of a large New York City teaching hospital were administered a questionnaire. Questionnaires were developed to examine potential barriers to completion of health care proxies. Barriers were drawn from the literature and from focus groups. RESULTS: Significant predictors of proxy completion using logistic regression analysis included knowledge of health care proxies, availability of a health care agent, exposure to mechanical ventilation, age, and self-reported health status as fair to poor. Subjects who believed that a health care agent was irrelevant in the setting of involved family were significantly less likely to have completed a health care proxy. Although there were significant differences in the baseline completion rates of health care proxies for the 3 ethnic groups, ethnicity did not predict prior appointment of a health care agent in multivariate analysis. CONCLUSIONS: Differences in health care proxy completion rates across white, African American, and Hispanic elderly individuals in this New York City population seem to be related to potentially reversible barriers such as lack of knowledge and the perceived irrelevance of advance directives in the setting of involved family. Enhanced educational efforts of both health care personnel and patients could increase the rate of formal health care proxy appointment.     

Establishing Specificity in Psychotherapy: A Meta-Analysis of Structural Equivalence of Placebo Controls.

Placebo treatments in psychotherapy cannot adequately control for all common factors, which thereby attenuates their effects vis-à-vis active treatments. In this study, the authors used meta-analytic procedures to test one possible factor contributing to the attenuation of effects: structural inequalities between placebo and active treatments. Structural aspects of the placebo included number and duration of sessions, training of therapist, format of therapy, and restriction of topics. Results indicate that comparisons between active treatments and structurally inequivalent placebos produced larger effects than comparisons between active treatments and structurally equivalent placebos: moreover, the latter comparison produced negligible effects, indicating that active treatments were not demonstrably superior to well-designed placebos. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) BB acts as a chemoattractant for human malignant mesothelioma cells via PDGF receptor beta-integrin alpha3beta1 interaction

Linear amplification, or primer directed single-strand DNA synthesis, is commonly used in applications such as cycle sequencing and mapping replication block sites in DNA. Although linear amplification reactions would be expected to synthesize full-length single-stranded DNA, the synthesis is often prematurely terminated. We describe the optimization of a linear amplification protocol for synthesizing a full-length (985-nt) single-stranded pBR322 segment. The enzyme activities of five DNA polymerases commonly used in PCR amplification, namely, AmpliTaq, Stoffel fragment, Tth, Pfu, and Vent, were tested either singly or in combination. The results indicate that the additive action of small amounts of proofreading DNA polymerases to a nick-translating polymerase is optimum for linear amplification. From these results, a linear amplification protocol was developed to map DNA synthesis-blocking sites generated by the reaction of (+/-) anti-benzo[a]pyrene-7,8-diol-9,10-epoxide, or anti- or syn-dibenzo[a,l]pyrene-9,10-diol-11,12-epoxide with H-ras DNA surrounding the oncogenic codon 61 region. The results indicate that the central A of H-ras codon 61 (CAA) reacts with these polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.     

DNA separation methodology based on charge neutralization in a polycationic gel matrix

A novel method for separation of DNA fragments is here reported, based on migrating the polyanionic DNA fragments in a polycationic polyacrylamide gel, made by incorporating positively charged monomers (the Immobilines used for creating immobilized pH gradients) into the neutral polyacrylamide backbone. Separations can be operated under two working conditions: either against a gradient of positive charges, to allow the various DNA fragments to reach a steady-state position along the migration path and condense (focus) in an environment inducing charge neutralization, or in a plateau gel (i.e., in a gel containing a constant level of positive charges from anode to cathode). In this last case, separation is still obtained due to differential charge modulation of the various DNA fragments. In the 100-1000-bp length, it is shown that separation can be obtained even for fragments differing in length by <0.5%, as shown in the splitting of a 656- and 659-bp doublet, that could not be resolved by conventional polyacrylamide gels. In the 10-100-bp range, it is shown that the present method can resolve single nucleotide polymorphisms, i.e. fragments of identical number of nucleotides but differing by one base substitution. In this last case, separations are obtained only in gradient gels containing a much steeper gradient of charges (0-20 mM Immobiline pK 10.3 and pK 12, as opposed to gradients of only 2-4 mM positive charges for larger size fragments). This novel methodology represents a marked improvement over existing techniques and appears to hold promises for applications in diverse fields, such as molecular biology, forensic medicine, and genetic screening.     

Investigating LMNA-Related Dilated Cardiomyopathy Using Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Cardiomyocytes

LMNA-related dilated cardiomyopathy is an inherited heart disease caused by mutations in the LMNA gene encoding for lamin A/C. The disease is characterized by left ventricular enlargement and impaired systolic function associated with conduction defects and ventricular arrhythmias. We hypothesized that LMNA-mutated patients’ induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-derived cardiomyocytes (iPSC-CMs) display electrophysiological abnormalities, thus constituting a suitable tool for deciphering the arrhythmogenic mechanisms of the disease, and possibly for developing novel therapeutic modalities. iPSC-CMs were generated from two related patients (father and son) carrying the same E342K mutation in the LMNA gene. Compared to control iPSC-CMs, LMNA-mutated iPSC-CMs exhibited the following electrophysiological abnormalities: (1) decreased spontaneous action potential beat rate and decreased pacemaker current (I_f) density; (2) prolonged action potential duration and increased L-type Ca²⁺ current (I_Ca,L) density; (3) delayed afterdepolarizations (DADs), arrhythmias and increased beat rate variability; (4) DADs, arrhythmias and cessation of spontaneous firing in response to β-adrenergic stimulation and rapid pacing. Additionally, compared to healthy control, LMNA-mutated iPSC-CMs displayed nuclear morphological irregularities and gene expression alterations. Notably, KB-R7943, a selective inhibitor of the reverse-mode of the Na⁺/Ca²⁺ exchanger, blocked the DADs in LMNA-mutated iPSC-CMs. Our findings demonstrate cellular electrophysiological mechanisms underlying the arrhythmias in LMNA-related dilated cardiomyopathy.