Consensus on melanonychia nail plate dermoscopy

This statement, focused on melanonychia and nail plate dermoscopy, is intended to guide medical professionals working with melanonychia and to assist choosing appropriate management for melanonychia patients. The International Study Group on Melanonychia was founded in 2007 and currently has 30 members, including nail experts and dermatopathologists with special expertise in nails. The need for common definitions of nail plate dermoscopy was addressed during the Second Meeting of this Group held in February 2008. Prior to this meeting and to date (2010) there have been no evidence-based guidelines on the use of dermoscopy in the management of nail pigmentation.

Der erste Mord. Der Tod des Apsyrtos als Schlüsselmoment für moderne Interpretationen des Medea-Mythos: Jahnn, Pasolini, Wolf, Loher

Murderous Medea – following Euripides’ seminal tragedy countless authors and artists have depicted Medea as child-slaughtering outlaw and avenger. But the Medea myth is much more diverse and holds more depth than this. Medea’s path through her career as princess, magician, wife, mother and avengress opens with another abominable death: that of her brother Apsyrtos. This article focuses on how and why the death of Medea’s brother Apsyrtos has been examined and instrumentalised in modern adaptions of the myth by Hans Henny Jahnn, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Christa Wolf and Dea Loher. Whether guilty as charged but with sensible intentions to gain self-rule and show herself trustworthy or innocent of crime or murder but stricken with guilt and alienation, Medea’s involvement in her brother’s death seems to hold the key to modern interpretations of antiquity’s different strands of the Medea myth and its adaptability to modern concerns of subjectivity and emancipation.

Radiometric Method for Emissivity Retrieval in High Reflective Materials

High reflective materials in the microwave region play a very important role in the realization of antenna reflectors for a broad range of applications, including radiometry. These reflectors have a characteristic emissivity which needs to be characterized accurately in order to perform a correct radiometric calibration of the instrument. Such a characterization can be performed by using open resonators, waveguide cavities or by radiometric measurements. The latter consists of comparative radiometric observations of absorbers, reference mirrors and the sample under test, or using the cold sky radiation as a direct reference source. While the first two mentioned techniques are suitable for the characterization of metal plates and mirrors, the latter has the advantages to be also applicable to soft materials. This paper describes how, through this radiometric techniques, it is possible to characterize the emissivity of the sample relative to a reference mirror and how to characterize the absolute emissivity of the latter by performing measurements at different incident angles. The results presented in this paper are based on our investigations on emissivity of a multilayer insulation material (MLI) for space mission, at the frequencies of 22 and 90 GHz.

Functional and anatomical outcome of eyes with neovascular age-related macular degeneration treated with intravitreal ranibizumab following an exit strategy regimen.

AIMS To assess the functional and morphological outcome of eyes with neovascular AMD treated with intravitreal ranbizumab following an exit strategy treatment regime. METHODS The Bern treatment regime for neovascular AMD has a fixed injection schedule, even in the non-active stage of the disease. The regimen has been adapted from the PIER study treatment protocol. Eyes with non-active AMD will receive 4 injections in the first year, and 2 injections in the second year of follow-up before treatment stops. Patients that received ranibizumab for treatment and reached the exit criteria were identified, and charts were reviewed to assess functional and morphological outcome. RESULTS Only 2.6% of all patients (15 out of 575 patients) reached the exit criteria. Mean change in best corrected ETDRS visual acuity (VA) was 4.5±16.9 letters when comparing baseline VA to 4 weeks after the last injection (p=0.32). OCT mean foveal thickness was significantly thinner after last treatment (247.9±43.0 µm) compared to baseline (332.5±83.1 µm, p=0.002). The mean total number of ranibizumab injections was 15.6±8.0, and the mean total treatment period was 40.9±18.3 months. Twenty percent of eyes had geographic atrophy present at baseline versus 46.6% at the end of treatment. CONCLUSIONS Even with a fixed treatment regime and a defined treatment exit strategy, only a small percentage of patients reach exit criteria. Retinal thickness has been significantly reduced by repeated intravitreal ranibizumab injections, and geographic atrophy became more frequent.

Enhancing chemotherapy efficacy in Pten-deficient prostate tumors by activating the senescence-associated antitumor immunity

Prosenescence therapy has recently emerged as a novel therapeutic approach for treating cancer. However, this concept is challenged by conflicting evidence showing that the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) of senescent tumor cells can have pro- as well as antitumorigenic effects. Herein, we report that, in Pten-null senescent tumors, activation of the Jak2/Stat3 pathway establishes an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment that contributes to tumor growth and chemoresistance. Activation of the Jak2/Stat3 pathway in Pten-null tumors is sustained by the downregulation of the protein tyrosine phosphatase PTPN11/SHP2, providing evidence for the existence of a novel PTEN/SHP2 axis. Importantly, treatment with docetaxel in combination with a JAK2 inhibitor reprograms the SASP and improves the efficacy of docetaxel-induced senescence by triggering a strong antitumor immune response in Pten-null tumors. Altogether, these data demonstrate that immune surveillance of senescent tumor cells can be suppressed in specific genetic backgrounds but also evoked by pharmacological treatments.