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PURPOSE: This study evaluates long-term patient-reported bowel quality of life (QOL), rectal bleeding, and bleeding bother in patients with prostate cancer treated with external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) and Cesium-131 LDR brachytherapy (LDR-BT) boost with and without hydrogel rectal spacer. METHODS AND MATERIALS: This is a retrospective analysis of prostate cancer patients treated between 2007 and 2022 with 45 Gy EBRT followed by 85 Gy Cs-131 LDR-BT boost with or without hydrogel rectal spacer. Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite (EPIC) QOL questionnaires pre-treatment and at each follow-up were collected. Patient-reported rectal bleeding occurring more than "rarely" and bother from rectal bleeding occurring more than a "very small problem" were deemed clinically significant. Fisher's exact test was used to test the association of rectal spacer use and the incidence of clinically significant rectal bleeding and bleeding bother. Paired samples t-test was used to analyze mean bowel scores at each time point. RESULTS: Three hundred and forty-one patients were included in the analysis. The rectal spacer was used in 108 patients. Overall median follow-up was 48 months (IQR, 24-72), with a median follow-up of 24 months (IQR, 12-37.5) for the hydrogel group and 60 months (IQR, 36-84) for the non-hydrogel group. EPIC questionnaire response rates at median follow-up were 33% and 37% for the hydrogel and non-hydrogel groups, respectively. A clinically significant decrease in mean bowel domain scores was seen in the bowel bother domain at 6 and 12 months for patients who did not receive a rectal spacer. At the last follow-up of 60 months, the prevalence of clinically significant rectal bleeding and bleeding bother were 2.2% and 2.2%, respectively. The cumulative incidence of clinically significant long-term rectal bleeding was 2.8% and 18.9% in the hydrogel group and non-hydrogel group, respectively (Fisher's exact test, p < 0.0001). The cumulative incidence of clinically significant long-term bowel bother was 4.6% and 19.7% in the hydrogel group and non-hydrogel group, respectively (Fisher's exact test, p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Use of hydrogel rectal spacer with EBRT and Cs-131 LDR-BT boost was significantly associated with a lower incidence of patient-reported rectal bleeding and bother from rectal bleeding, and better long-term bowel QOL. Cumulative incidence was 2.8% (hydrogel group) versus 18.9% (non-hydrogel group) and 4.6% (hydrogel group) versus 19.7% (non-hydrogel group) for clinically significant long-term rectal bleeding and long-term bleeding bother, respectively.
Assuntos
Braquiterapia , Neoplasias da Próstata , Masculino , Humanos , Próstata , Radioisótopos de Césio , Braquiterapia/métodos , Hidrogéis , Qualidade de Vida , Estudos Retrospectivos , Neoplasias da Próstata/radioterapia , Hemorragia Gastrointestinal/etiologia , Medidas de Resultados Relatados pelo Paciente , Dosagem RadioterapêuticaRESUMO
The objective of this study was to determine the effect of application of pesticides on morphology, viability, and germination of pollen grains of Blackberry (Rubus glaucus Benth.) and Tree tomato (Solanum betaceum Cav.). The study was performed at Patate, Tungurahua province, Ecuador and was divided into two phases. Phase one dedicated to the study of morphology, viability, and identification of nutrient solution for better germination of pollen grains and phase two for the analysis of the effect of conventional, organic, and biological pesticides on pollen grain germination and pollen tube length. To study pollen morphology, pollens were extracted by hand pressure and was analyzed by optical and electron microscopy. The viable pollen grains were identified by staining with 1% acetocarmine. Even though Tree tomato and Blackberry pollen grains are morphologically similar, their exine shapes differ. We observed four times increase in pollen germination rate when suspended in nutrient solution (Sucrose with Boric acid) than control (water). Pollen grains under nutrient solution were subjected to different groups of pesticides for the period of 2, 4, and 6 h. With respect to pesticide affect, the Blackberry pollen grain germination followed the following order: Lecaniceb > Beauveb > Metazeb => Myceb > Control. However, the effect on Tree tomato pollen grains was as follows: Lecaniceb > Myceb > Cantus > Bacillus thuringiensis > Kripton > Control. As per as pollen grain germination is concerned, we observed that the chemical pesticides are more harmful than other pesticides. So, it is necessary to perform screening test for different pesticides and their effect on pollen grain germination before applying to the fields.
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ABSTRACT Insects play significant role in the human life. And insects pollinate major food crops consumed in the world. Insect pests consume and destroy major crops in the world. Hence to have control over the disease and pests, researches are going on in the area of entomology using chemical, biological and mechanical approaches. The data relevant to the flying insects often changes over time, and classification of such data is a central issue. And such time series mining tasks along with classification is critical nowadays. Most time series data mining algorithms use similarity search and hence time taken for similarity search is the bottleneck and it does not produce accurate results and also produces very poor performance. In this paper, a novel classification method that is based on the dynamic time warping (DTW) algorithm is proposed. The dynamic time warping algorithm is deterministic and lacks in modeling stochastic signals. The dynamic time warping (DTW) algorithm is improved by implementing a nonlinear median filtering (NMF). Recognition accuracy of conventional DTW algorithms is less than that of the hidden Markov model (HMM) by same voice activity detection (VAD) and noise-reduction. With running spectrum filtering (RSF) and dynamic range adjustment (DRA). NMF seek the median distance of every reference of time series data and the recognition accuracy is much improved. In this research work, optical sensors are used to record the sound of insect flight, with invariance to interference from ambient sounds. The implementation of our tool includes two parts, an optical sensor to record the "sound" of insect flight, and a software that leverages on the sensor information, to automatically detect and identify flying insects.
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We study the grand-canonical solution of a system of hard polydispersed rods placed on the square lattice using transfer matrix and finite-size scaling calculations. We determine the critical line separating an isotropic from a nematic phase. No second transition to a disordered phase is found at high density, contrary to what is observed in the monodispersed case. The estimates of critical exponents and the central charge on the critical line are consistent with the Ising universality class.
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The low affinity sodium glucose cotransporter (SGLT2) plays a major role in physiology of glucose re-absorption from proximal part of kidney. Almost all glucose excreted through glomerular filtration, is re-absorbed via SGLT2 until blood glucose level reaches to its threshold value for glucose excretion i.e. - 180mg/dl. Increasing the glucose excretion by inhibiting the SGLT2 is the novel approach for the treatment of diabetes. Safe and normal life of patients having familial renal glucosuria due to SLC5A2 gene mutation is accelerating the development of SGLT2 inhibitors. Weight loss and very low risk of hypoglycemia are the potential benefits of these inhibitors. There are number of molecules in this class under the stage of development.