Linguistic Relevance and Applicability of the Spanish VHI-10 in a Population Outside Spain

xlomafota13 shared this article with you from Inoreader Linguistic Relevance and Applicability of the Spanish VHI-10 in a Population Outside Spain Via Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica Introduction: The Voice Handicap Index 10 (VHI-10) has been translated to many languages. There are substantial differences between the translation methods. Translated questionnaires without appropriate linguistic validation may not capture cultural differences or be understood by the participants in the manner intended by the original developers. This also holds true between dialects within a language. There are two versions of the VHI-10 in Spanish, both translated in Spain. Considering the cultural and dialectical differences am ongst Spanish speakers, it is hypothesized that these translations may not be applicable globally. The purpose of this study was to determine the linguistic relevance and applicability of the currently available versions of the VHI-10 in Spanish amongst Spanish speakers outside of Spain. Methods: This study used mixed methods qualitative and quantitative procedures consisting of semi-structured interviews and quantitative analysis of data. Sixty-nine participants met the inclusion criteria. Participants with and without a diagnosis of dysphonia were included. Demographic data collected included age, gender, cultural/dialectical background, level of education, and number of years residing in Southern California. Participants were provided the currently available translated versions of the VHI-10 in Spanish (V1 and V2). After reading both questionnaires, a semi-structured interview was conducted by a bilingual SLP. Semi-structured interview responses were coded to determine patterns of words marked as problematic/not understood or non-representative of the Spanish dialect spoken by the participants. Results: The majority of participants marked at least one word in both versions as problematic/not understood or non-representative of the Spanish dialect spoken (60/69, 87.0% for V1 and 63/69, 92.3%, for V2). The two words most frequently marked as problematic/not understood or non-representative of the Spanish dialect spoken were "hándicap" (marked by 51/69 participants, 73.9%) and "minusvalía" (marked by 52/69 participants, 75.4%). Conclusions: Data analysis demonstrates that the majority of participants marked words as not understood/non-representative of their dialect on either V1 or V2. One question not understood or not answered could have an impact on how we interpret this PRO measure in clinical practice. Use of currently available Spanish translations of the VHI-10 may yield unreliable results when used amongst Spanish speakers outside Spain due to dialectal and cultural differences. Future work will include validation of a voice patient-reported outcome (PRO) measure that is culturally and linguistically appropriate for Spanish speakers outside Spain. View on the web Inoreader. Take back control of your news feed. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Anterior cerebral artery trifurcation with infraoptic origin and contralateral A1 segment absence

xlomafota13 shared this article with you from Inoreader Anterior cerebral artery trifurcation with infraoptic origin and contralateral A1 segment absence Via radiol anat Surg Radiol Anat. 2021 Nov 6. doi: 10.1007/s00276-021-02855-x. Online ahead of print. ABSTRACT PURPOSE: To describe an uncommon anatomical variant of the anterior cerebral artery and the imaging findings. METHODS: A 2-month-old infant with known history of atrial and ventricular septal defects was admitted to our institution for evaluation and management of growth failure. Given the clinical presentation and medical history, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brai n and MR angiography (MRA) were performed to exclude congenital hypopituitarism and any vascular abnormality. RESULTS: Time of flight MRA revealed trifurcation of the anterior cerebral artery with one of the vessels arising from the ophthalmic segment of the right internal carotid artery; thus, the A1 segment of the left anterior cerebral artery (ACA) was absent, and the right posterior cerebral artery (PCA) had a fetal origin. CONCLUSION: Anatomical variants of the cerebral circulation are asymptomatic and found incidentally. Knowledge of these variants and careful examination of CT/MRI angiograms are important for diagnosis and treatment planning. PMID:34741640 | DOI:10.1007/s00276-021-02855-x View on the web Inoreader. Take back control of your news feed. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

A comparison between abdominal based and inner thigh based free flaps in breast reconstruction: A single surgeon's experience

xlomafota13 shared this article with you from Inoreader A comparison between abdominal based and inner thigh based free flaps in breast reconstruction: A single surgeon's experience Via Journal of plastic, reconstructive & aesthetic surgery : JPRAS J Plast Reconstr Aesthet Surg. 2021 Oct 22:S1748-6815(21)00487-3. doi: 10.1016/j.bjps.2021.09.048. Online ahead of print. NO ABSTRACT PMID:34742658 | DOI:10.1016/j.bjps.2021.09.048 View on the web Inoreader. Take back control of your news feed. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Acute appendicitis secondary to desmoplastic melanoma metastasis in immune-checkpoint inhibitors era

xlomafota13 shared this article with you from Inoreader Acute appendicitis secondary to desmoplastic melanoma metastasis in immune-checkpoint inhibitors era Via Melanoma Research - Current Issue No abstract available View on the web Inoreader. Take back control of your news feed. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Regression of nevi, vitiligo-like depigmentation and halo phenomenon may indicate response to immunotherapy and targeted therapy in melanoma

xlomafota13 shared this article with you from Inoreader Regression of nevi, vitiligo-like depigmentation and halo phenomenon may indicate response to immunotherapy and targeted therapy in melanoma Via Melanoma Research - Current Issue We present two patients with stage IV melanoma, the first with BRAF wild-type melanoma with multiple visceral metastases treated with immunotherapy (pembrolizumab) and the second with BRAFV600E melanoma with subcutaneous and lymph nodes metastasis treated with BRAF and MEK-inhibitors (dabrafenib/trametinib). Already after the second cycle of immunotherapy, the first patient developed a diffuse regression of nevi, perceptible only with the use of dermoscopy and 3 months later a clinically evident poliosis of the eyebrows. The second patient, treated with dabrafenib/trametinib, developed small areas of leukoderma on his chest and white halos around nevi with a dermoscopic globular or structureless pattern. Both observations are suggestive for an immune reaction against melanocytic cells, which is further supported by the complete response to systemic therapy in both patients. It has been demonstrated that the development of vitiligo-like depigmentation during immunotherapy is associated with a better prognosis; in our patient, the phenomenon of poliosis appeared much later than the dermoscopic presence of regression among his nevi, suggesting that the latter may be an early sign (along with vitiligo-like phenomena) of good response to immunotherapy. On the other hand, the development of halo nevi and leukoderma during treatment with BRAF/MEK-inhibitors, suggests that not only immunotherapy but also targeted therapy may induce an immunologic response against melanoma and nevi, again indicative of a favorable prognosis. More data are needed to confirm these findings; however, they indicate that d ermatologists should be involved in the follow-up of patients with melanoma, both in studies and clinical practice. View on the web Inoreader. Take back control of your news feed. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Prospective study of clinical characteristics of melanoma patients with retinopathy caused by a high-dose interferon α-2b

xlomafota13 shared this article with you from Inoreader Prospective study of clinical characteristics of melanoma patients with retinopathy caused by a high-dose interferon α-2b Via Melanoma Research - Current Issue Retinopathy is a rare side effect of interferon α-2b treatment. The goal of this study was to prospectively investigate the clinical characteristics of Chinese patients with melanomas who developed retinopathy following high doses of interferon α-2b (HD-IFN) therapy. The study included 56 melanoma stage I–III patients that were treated with HD-IFN. Fourty-three patients developed HD-IFN-induced retinopathies. Forty-three melanoma patients (76%) developed retinopathy after being treated with HD-IFN. Among these patients, 49% had cotton–wool spots, 19% had retinal hemorrhage, and 30% had retinal hemorrhage. The me dian time of occurrence of retinopathy was 4 weeks after treatment, and the median time of duration was 4 weeks. No patient showed other symptoms except one who had blurred vision. A comparison of clinical characteristics (age, gender, primary site, stage, and ulceration) and laboratory examinations (white blood cell and platelet counts, hemoglobin, serum lactate dehydrogenase, alanine transaminase, aspartate aminotransferase, triiodothyronine, thyroxine, thyroid-stimulating hormone, and lipid) between the HD-IFN-induced retinopathy patients and nonretinopathy patients did not show any significant differences (P > 0.05). Although all patients that developed retinopathy had diabetes or hypertension, an equal percentage of patients were without retinopathy had diabetes or hypertension. HD-IFN therapy in patients with melanomas may induce mild retinopathy. Our results; however, do not necessarily suggest to discontinue the HD-IFN treatment because retinopathy is a reversible disorder. View on the web Inoreader. Take back control of your news feed. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Retrospective analysis of adjuvant therapy using dabrafenib plus trametinib in Japanese patients with advanced melanoma: analysis of 36 cases

xlomafota13 shared this article with you from Inoreader Retrospective analysis of adjuvant therapy using dabrafenib plus trametinib in Japanese patients with advanced melanoma: analysis of 36 cases Via Melanoma Research - Current Issue Patients with resected stage IIIB, IIIC and IIID melanomas have a high risk of recurrence. Therefore, an appropriate protocol for stage III melanoma is needed. Since adjuvant dabrafenib plus trametinib (D+T) combined therapy and anti-PD1 antibody (Ab) therapy reduce the risk of recurrence in patients with resected stage III BRAF-mutated melanoma, selecting the adjuvant therapy for BRAF-mutated melanoma is controversial. The efficacy and safety profiles of D+T combined therapy in the adjuvant setting were retrospectively analyzed in 36 Japanese. BRAF-mutated advanced melanoma patients. The relapse-free rate (RFR) at 1 2 months was 82.1% (95% confidential interval (CI), 63.9–92.6%). In the 21 patients who completed the protocol, the RFR at 12 months was 85.7% (95% CI, 64.5–95.9%). In the seven patients whose protocol was interrupted by adverse events, the RFR was 71.4% (95% CI, 35.2–92.4%). The incidence rate of any AEs for all patients was 69.7% (95% CI, 52.5–82.8%), including 13 cases of pyrexia, five cases of skin rash and four cases of liver dysfunction. The present study suggested that D+T therapy in the adjuvant setting is a useful and very tolerable protocol for BRAF-mutated melanoma in the Japanese population. View on the web Inoreader. Take back control of your news feed. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Diagnostic and prognostic value of Beclin 1 expression in melanoma: a meta-analysis

xlomafota13 shared this article with you from Inoreader Diagnostic and prognostic value of Beclin 1 expression in melanoma: a meta-analysis Via Melanoma Research - Current Issue Autophagy plays a complicated role in the occurrence and development of cancer. Beclin 1 is a significant autophagy-related protein that plays an essential role in tumorigenesis, but its expression is controversial in melanoma. In this meta-analysis, we searched seven studies involving 638 melanoma patients. PubMed, Web of Science, Google Scholar, Elsevier, and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure were used for literature retrieval. The I2 index was used to assess heterogeneity. The expression of Beclin 1 in the primary melanoma group was significantly lower than the non-tumor group tissues (P 0.05). Different expres sion intensities of Beclin 1 did not affect the overall survival and disease-free survival of melanoma patients. This study showed a trend of low expression of Beclin 1 in melanoma; patients with low expression of Beclin 1 were prone to the possibility of distant metastasis. The inconsistent profile of Beclin 1 expression in the prognosis of melanoma patients warrants further clinical investigation. View on the web Inoreader. Take back control of your news feed. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Connective tissue panniculitis and vitiligo in a patient with stage IV melanoma achieving complete response to dabrafenib and trametinib combination therapy

xlomafota13 shared this article with you from Inoreader Connective tissue panniculitis and vitiligo in a patient with stage IV melanoma achieving complete response to dabrafenib and trametinib combination therapy Via Melanoma Research - Current Issue The combination of BRAF and MEK inhibitors, such as dabrafenib and trametinib, respectively, is an established treatment option for patients with advanced BRAFV600-mutated melanoma. With the wide adoption of these therapies, a range of cutaneous adverse effects has been reported. We describe the case of a 47-year-old woman with BRAFV600E-mutated stage IV melanoma treated with dabrafenib and trametinib for 30 months who presented to our attention for painful skin lesions that had been present on her limbs since the start of targeted therapy. We also observed vitiligo-like lesions on the extensor surface of both legs. Despite achieving a complete oncological response, the patient had to discontinue the treatment because of persisting fever, nausea and painful skin nodules that significantly impaired her quality of life. The recognition of cutaneous signs of efficacy of such drugs for advanced melanoma is of primary importance in order to identify patients with potential long-term clinical benefits. View on the web Inoreader. Take back control of your news feed. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Novel strategy for applying hierarchical density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise towards spectroscopic analysis and detection of melanocytic lesions

xlomafota13 shared this article with you from Inoreader Novel strategy for applying hierarchical density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise towards spectroscopic analysis and detection of melanocytic lesions Via Melanoma Research - Current Issue Advancements in dermoscopy techniques have elucidated identifiable characteristics of melanoma which revolve around the asymmetrical constitution of melanocytic lesions consequent of unfettered proliferative growth as a malignant lesion. This study explores the applications of hierarchical density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (HDBSCAN) in terms of the direct diagnostic implications of applying agglomerative clustering in the spectroscopic analysis of malignant melanocytic lesions and benign dermatologic spots. 100 images of benign (n = 50) and malignant moles (n = 50) were sampled from the Inter national Skin Imaging Collaboration Archive and processed through two separate Python algorithms. The first of which deconvolutes the three-digit tupled integer identifiers of pixel color in image composition into three separate matrices corresponding to the red, green and blue color channel. Statistical characterization of integer variance was utilized to determine the optimal channel for comparative analysis between malignant and benign image groups. The second applies HDBSCAN to the matrices, identifying agglomerative clustering in the dataset. The results indicate the potential diagnostic applications of HDBSCAN analysis in fast-processing dermoscopy, as optimization of clustering parameters according to a binary search strategy produced an accuracy of 85% in the classification of malignant and benign melanocytic lesions. View on the web Inoreader. Take back control of your news feed. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

MicroRNA-146b-5p/EPHA7 axis regulates cell invasion, metastasis, proliferation, and temozolomide-induced chemoresistance via regulation of IRAK4/TRAF6/NF-κB signaling pathway in aggressive pituitary adenoma

xlomafota13 shared this article with you from Inoreader MicroRNA-146b-5p/EPHA7 axis regulates cell invasion, metastasis, proliferation, and temozolomide-induced chemoresistance via regulation of IRAK4/TRAF6/NF-κB signaling pathway in aggressive pituitary adenoma Via Cellular and Molecular Biology Histol Histopathol. 2021 Nov 4:18391. doi: 10.14670/HH-18-391. Online ahead of print. ABSTRACT BACKGROUND: Aggressive pituitary adenoma (APA) is a huge challenge for neurosurgeons. Temozolomide (TMZ) is conventionally used in chemotherapy against APA, but acquired resistance developed during long-term therapy limits its benefits. MiRNA-146b-5p has been confirmed to inhibit tumor metastasis. This study aimed to explore the underlying biological functions of miRNA-146b-5p in APA. METHODS: Sixty confirmed APA tissues and corresponding adjacent normal tissues were collected. We established a TMZ-resistant cell line (GH3/TMZ) by exposing GH3 cells to gradually increasing doses of TMZ for 5 months. Cell Counting Kit-8 assay, flow cytometric analysis, RNA pull-down assay, 5-ethynyl-20-deoxyuridine assay, dual-luciferase reporter gene assay, wound healing assay, and invasion assay were used to explore the malignant biological characteris tics of cells. Immunohistochemistry (IHC), western blotting analysis, and real-time quantitative PCR (qRT-PCR) were used to analyze the expression level of related proteins and nucleic acids. RESULTS: The expression of miRNA-146b-5p was down-regulated not only in APA tissues but also in PA cell lines compared with the matched adjacent non-tumor tissues or normal human astrocyte (NHA) cells. Low expression of miRNA-146b-5p was notably associated with poorer disease-free survival rate (P=0.032), overall survival rate (P=0.039), larger tumor size (P=0.028), poorer Knosp grade (P=0.020), and poorer Hardy grade (P=0.006) in APA patients. MiRNA-146b-5p negatively regulated cell proliferation, invasion, migration, and induced apoptosis in GH3 cells. Overexpression of miRNA-146b-5p suppressed IRAK4 and TRAF6 protein expression and negatively regulated NF-κB phosphorylation. The restoration of EPHA7 expression in GH3 cells notably reversed the inhibitory effects of miRNA-146b-5p. MiRN A-146b-5p expression was significantly down-regulated and EPHA7 gene expression was significantly up-regulated in GH3/TMZ cells, compared to the parental cell line. Similarly, EPHA7 was up-regulated, while the miRNA-146b-5p level was down-regulated in chemoresistance tissues more than in chemosensitive tissues. The autophagic activity was decreased markedly with increasing miRNA-146b-5p expression, while it was enhanced after Lv-EPHA7 treatment in GH3/TMZ cells. CONCLUSIONS: MiRNA-146b-5p can inhibit EPHA7 expression, suppress the IRAK4/TRAF6/NF-κB signaling pathway, and weaken PA cell invasion, metastasis, proliferation, and TMZ-induced chemoresistance in vitro. PMID:34746996 | DOI:10.14670/HH-18-391 View on the web Inoreader. Take back control of your news feed. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.