Stromal tissue segmentation in Ki67 histology images based on cytokeratin-19 stain translation.

Purpose: The diagnosis and prognosis of breast cancer relies on histopathology image analysis. In this context, proliferation markers, especially Ki67, are increasingly important. The diagnosis using these markers is based on the quantification of proliferation, which implies the counting of Ki67 positive and negative tumoral cells in epithelial regions, thus excluding stromal cells. However, stromal cells are often very difficult to distinguish from negative tumoral cells in Ki67 images and often lead to errors when automatic analysis is used. Approach: We study the use of automatic semantic segmentation based on convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to separate stromal and epithelial areas on Ki67 stained images. CNNs need to be accurately trained with extensive databases with associated ground truth. As such databases are not publicly available, we propose a method to produce them with minimal manual labelling effort. Inspired by the procedure used by pathologists, we have produced the database relying on knowledge transfer from cytokeratin-19 images to Ki67 using an image-to-image (I2I) translation network. Results: The automatically produced stroma masks are manually corrected and used to train a CNN that predicts very accurate stroma masks for unseen Ki67 images. An F-score value of 0.87 is achieved. Examples of effect on the KI67 score show the importance of the stroma segmentation. Conclusions: An I2I translation method has proved very useful for building ground-truth labeling in a task where manual labeling is unfeasible. With reduced correction effort, a dataset can be built to train neural networks for the difficult problem of separating epithelial regions from stroma in stained images where separation is very hard without additional information.

New Insights on the Impact of Cattle Handling on Post-Mortem Myofibrillar Muscle Proteome and Meat Tenderization.

This study investigated the effect of different cattle management strategies at farm (Intensive vs. Extensive) and during transport and lairage (mixing vs. non-mixing with unfamiliar animals) on the myofibrillar subproteome of Longissimus thoracis et lumborum (LTL) muscle of "Asturiana de los Valles" yearling bulls. It further aimed to study the relationships with beef quality traits including pH, color, and tenderness evaluated by Warner-Bratzler shear force (WBSF). Thus, comparative proteomics of the myofibrillar fraction along meat maturation (from 2 h to 14 days post-mortem) and different quality traits were analyzed. A total of 23 protein fragments corresponding to 21 unique proteins showed significant differences among the treatments (p < 0.05) due to any of the factors considered (Farm, Transport and Lairage, and post-mortem time ageing). The proteins belong to several biological pathways including three structural proteins (MYBPC2, TNNT3, and MYL1) and one metabolic enzyme (ALDOA) that were affected by both Farm and Transport/Lairage factors. ACTA1, LDB3, and FHL2 were affected by Farm factors, while TNNI2 and MYLPF (structural proteins), PKM (metabolic enzyme), and HSPB1 (small Heat shock protein) were affected by Transport/Lairage factors. Several correlations were found between the changing proteins (PKM, ALDOA, TNNI2, TNNT3, ACTA1, MYL1, and CRYAB) and color and tenderness beef quality traits, indicating their importance in the determination of meat quality and their possible use as putative biomarkers.

Determination of glyphosate and aminomethylphosphonic acid in aqueous soil matrices: a critical analysis of the 9-fluorenylmethyl chloroformate derivatization reaction and application to adsorption studies.

The assessment of the environmental fate of glyphosate and its degradation product (aminomethylphosphonic acid) is of great interest given the widespread use of the herbicide. Studies of adsorption-desorption and transport processes in soils require analytical methods with sensitivity, accuracy, and precision suitable for determining the analytes in aqueous equilibrium solutions of varied complexity. In this work, the effect of factors on the yield of the derivatization of both compounds with 9-fluorenylmethyl chloroformate for applying in aqueous solutions derived from soils was evaluated through factorial experimental designs. Interference effects coming from background electrolytes and soil matrices were established. The whole method had a linear response up to 640 ng/mL (R(2) > 0.999) under optimized conditions for high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection. Limits of detection were 0.6 and 0.4 ng/mL for glyphosate and aminomethylphosphonic acid, respectively. The relative standard deviation was 4.4% for glyphosate (20 ng/mL) and 5.9% for aminomethylphosphonic acid (10 ng/mL). Adsorption of compounds on four different soils was assessed. Isotherm data fitted well the Freundlich model (R(2) > 0.97). Kf constants varied between 93 ± 3.1 and 2045 ± 157 for glyphosate and between 99 ± 4.1 and 1517 ± 56 (µg(1-1/) (n)  mL(1/) (n) ( ) g(-1) ) for aminomethylphosphonic acid, showing the broad range of applicability of the proposed method.

Síndrome metabólico en pacientes con hipertensión arterial / Metabolic syndrome in patients with high blood pressure

Introducción: La hipertensión arterial frecuentemente se asocia con varios factores de riesgo cardiometabólico que pueden impactar en el éxito del tratamiento. La presencia del Síndrome Metabólico (SM) en los pacientes Hipertensos No Controlados es frecuente. El SM y la diabetes están asociados a un deficiente control de la presión arterial y a un alto riesgo cardiovascular. Objetivo: determinar la prevalencia de Síndrome Metabólico en pacientes hipertensos. Materiales y Métodos: Se analizaron 238 historias clínicas de pacientes con diagnóstico de hipertensión arterial esencial mayores de 18 años que provenían de consultorios de clínica médica de la ciudad Bahía Blanca. Resultados: Edad promedio: mujeres 67±13 años; varones 66±13 años. La prevalencia de Hipertensos No Controlados fue de 61% . En el grupo de Hipertensos No Controlados se incluyeron: 70% de los diabéticos; 78% de los obesos; 80 % de las glucemias alteradas; 80% de los HDL disminuidos en varones; 88% de los síndromes metabólicos. El 60% de los casos presentaron daño de órgano blanco. Como variable predictora de No Control de la Presión Arterial se halló el Síndrome Metabólico. Conclusiones. Los Hipertensos No Controlados presentan alta prevalencia de Síndrome Metabólico en comparación con los Hipertensos Controlados. En los Hipertensos No Controlados fueron más frecuentes: trastornos del metabolismo hidrocarbonado y lipídico, síndrome metabólico, daño de órgano blanco y consecuentemente, riesgo cardiovascular elevado. Los cambios profundos del estilo de vida juegan un rol fundamental en la reversión del síndrome metabólico.

Introduction: High blood pressure is often associated to several cardiometabolic risk factors that can affect the success of treatments. The presence of the Metabolic Syndrome (MS) in uncontrolled high blood pressure patients is quite frequent. MS and diabetes are associated to deficient control of blood pressure and cardiovascular risk. Objective: to determine the prevalence of Metabolic Syndrome in patients with high blood pressure. Materials and Methods: 238 medical records from patients with essential high blood pressure -18 years of age or older- from clinical private practices in the city of Bahía Blanca were analyzed. Results: Average age: females 67±13 years old; males 66±13 years old. The prevalence of uncontrolled high blood pressure patients was 61%. In the group of uncontrolled high blood pressure patients the following groups were included: 70% of diabetic patients; 78% of obese patients; 80% of patients with altered glycemia; 80% of males with diminished HDL; 88% of patients with metabolic syndrome. 60% of patients presented target organ damage. Metabolic Syndrome was found as predictor variable for uncontrolled blood pressure. Conclusions: Uncontrolled high blood pressure patients show high prevalence of Metabolic Syndrome compared to controlled high blood pressure patients. In uncontrolled high blood pressure patients the following conditions were more frequent: hydrocarbon and lipid metabolism disorders, metabolic syndrome, target organ damage, and consequently, high cardiovascular risk. Deep changes in life style have a major role in reversing metabolic syndrome.

Estado periodontal de una muestra de adultos mayores de la ciudad de Medellín, año 2002 / Periodontal status of elder adults in the city of Medellin, 2002

El propósito de este estudio fue describir el estado periodontal de una muestra de adultos mayores de la ciudad de Medellín y comparar los resultados de al aplicación de diferentes índices en la medicina del problema. Se evaluó una muestra no aleatoria de 300 sujetos de 45 años y mas, captados en centros empresariales y lugares geriátricos. Para efectos de comparaciones la muestra se distribuyó en tres grupos: 100 sujetos entre 45-54 años, 100 entre 55 y 64 y 100 de 65 y más años. Para evaluar el estado periodontal se aplicó el Índice de Extensión y Severidad en su Versión parcial, de boca completa, proximal y de bolsa periodontal. Se midió el nivel de inserción clínica del ligamento, la profundidad clínica al sondaje, los niveles de sangrado y de higiene oral, la movilidad y el compromiso de bifurcaciones. Se evaluó además el estado dental y las necesidades de prótesis en estos sujetos. El 21.7 por ciento (65) de los sujetos eran desdentados totales. Los 235 sujetos restantes tenían un índice de extensión y Severidad parcial de (40, 2.9) a los 54 años hasta (69,4.0) a los 65 y más. Se encontró que el nivel de placa bacteriana aumentó con la edad mientras que los niveles de sangrado el sondaje disminuyen. El mayor incremento en la extensión de sitios con bolsas mayores de 3 mm se observo entre el segundo (55 a 64 años) y tercer grupo (más de 65 años), pero la severidad permaneció estable en los tres grupos (4.7 mm). El estado periodontal de los adultos se deteriora progresivamente con la edad, sin embargo las formas severas de la enfermedad se dan en un pequeño porcentaje de la población. No se observaron diferencias significativas en los valores de los índices cuando se hace evaluación parcial y completa de la boca...

Anemia ferropénica / Iron deficiency anemia

Cuando las reservas corporales de hierro se hacen insuficientes para las necesidades de una eritropoyesis normal, hablamos de anemia ferropénica. La eritropoyesis deficiente en hierro se caracteriza por: - hipocromía y microcitosis de los eritrocitos circulantes. - concentración sérica de hierro y ferritina disminuidas. - saturación de transferrina interior al 15%. - reticulocitos disminuidos. Esta forma de anemia es la de mayor frecuencia, afecta predominantemente a la mujer (20%) y en especial durante el embarazo (50%9 y debe ser considerada un signo y no una enfermedad.