Feasibility of intraoperative injection of radioactive tracer and blue dye for sentinel lymph node biopsy in vulvar cancer.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to examine the feasibility and success rate of intraoperative injection of radiotracer and blue dye performed by the surgeon without the use of preoperative lymphoscintigraphy for the detection of sentinel lymph nodes in clinically early stage vulvar cancer. METHODS: All patients with clinically early stage vulvar cancer who underwent attempted sentinel lymph node biopsy using intraoperative injection of Technetium-99 m (99mTc) tracer and blue dye performed by the surgeon after induction of anesthesia at single academic institution from 12/2009 to 5/2022 were identified. Demographic and clinicopathologic variables were collected. Data were compared using descriptive statistics. RESULTS: One hundred sixty-four patients (median age 66.4 years) underwent intraoperative injection of radioactive tracer and dye for sentinel lymph node biopsy. Most patients (n = 156, 95.1%) were white. Squamous cell carcinoma accounted for 138 cases (84.1%), melanoma for 10 (6.1%), extra-mammary invasive Paget's disease for 11 (6.7%), and other histologies for 5 (3%). A majority of cases were stage I disease on final pathology (n = 119, 72.6%). Most patients (n = 117, 71%) had tumors located within 2 cm of the midline and underwent planned bilateral groin assessment, while 47 (29%) had well lateralized lesions and underwent unilateral groin assessment. For the patients undergoing unilateral groin assessment, 44 of 47 (93.6%) had successful unilateral mapping. Of the patients who underwent bilateral groin assessment, 87 of 117 (74.4%) had successful bilateral mapping, and 26 of 117 (22.2%) had successful unilateral mapping. Of the 26 patients who underwent bilateral assessment but only had unilateral mapping, 19 had unilateral mapping to ipsilateral groin but failed contralateral mapping, six had midline lesions with successful mapping to one groin but failed mapping to the other groin, and one had unilateral mapping to the contralateral groin but not ipsilateral groin. The total successful sentinel lymph node mapping rate in this cohort was 86.5% (243/281 total sentinel lymph node attempts). CONCLUSION: In this cohort, the overall success rate of sentinel lymph node mapping and biopsy was 86.5%. The high rate of successful sentinel lymph node mapping supports the use of intraoperative radiotracer and blue dye injection by trained providers.

Imaging beta-amyloid (Aß) burden in the brains of middle-aged individuals with alcohol-use disorders: a [11C]PIB PET study.

No in vivo human studies have examined the prevalence of Alzheimer's disease (AD) neuropathology in individuals with alcohol-use disorder (AUD), although recent research suggests that a relationship between the two exists. Therefore, this study used Pittsburgh Compound-B ([11C]PiB) PET imaging to test the hypothesis that AUD is associated with greater brain amyloid (Aß) burden in middle-aged adults compared to healthy controls. Twenty healthy participants (14M and 6F) and 19 individuals with AUD (15M and 4F), all aged 40-65 years, underwent clinical assessment, MRI, neurocognitive testing, and positron emission tomography (PET) imaging. Global [11C]PiB standard uptake value ratios (SUVRs), cortical thickness, gray matter volumes (GMVs), and neurocognitive function in subjects with AUD were compared to healthy controls. These measures were selected because they are considered markers of risk for future AD and other types of neurocognitive dysfunction. The results of this study showed no significant differences in % global Aß positivity or subthreshold Aß loads between AUD and controls. However, relative to controls, we observed a significant 6.1% lower cortical thickness in both AD-signature regions and in regions not typically associated with AD, lower GMV in the hippocampus, and lower performance on tests of attention as well as immediate and delayed memory in individuals with AUD. This suggest that Aß accumulation is not greater in middle-aged individuals with AUD. However, other markers of neurodegeneration, such as impaired memory, cortical thinning, and reduced hippocampal GMV, are present. Further studies are needed to elucidate the patterns and temporal staging of AUD-related pathophysiology and cognitive impairment. Imaging ß-amyloid in middle age alcoholics as a mechanism that increases their risk for Alzheimer's disease; Registration Number: NCT03746366 .

Acute Elevations in Cortisol Increase the In Vivo Binding of [11C]NOP-1A to Nociceptin Receptors: A Novel Imaging Paradigm to Study the Interaction Between Stress- and Antistress-Regulating Neuropeptides.

BACKGROUND: An imbalance between neuropeptides that promote stress and resilience, such as corticotropin-releasing factor and nociceptin, has been postulated to underlie relapse in addiction. The objective of this study was to develop a paradigm to image the in vivo interaction between stress-promoting neuropeptides and nociceptin (NOP) receptors in humans. METHODS: [11C]NOP-1A positron emission tomography was used to measure the binding to NOP receptors at baseline (BASE) and following an intravenous hydrocortisone challenge (CORT) in 19 healthy control subjects. Hydrocortisone was used as a challenge because in microdialysis studies it has been shown to increase corticotropin-releasing factor release in extrahypothalamic brain regions such as the amygdala. [11C]NOP-1A total distribution volume (VT) in 11 regions of interest were measured using a 2-tissue compartment kinetic analysis. The primary outcome measure was hydrocortisone-induced ΔVT calculated as (VT CORT - VT BASE)/VT BASE. RESULTS: Hydrocortisone led to an acute increase in plasma cortisol levels. Regional [11C]NOP-1A VT was on average 11% to 16% higher in the post-hydrocortisone condition compared with the baseline condition (linear mixed model, condition, p = .005; region, p < .001; condition × region, p < .001). Independent Student's t tests in all regions of interest were statistically significant and survived multiple comparison correction. Hydrocortisone-induced ΔVT was significantly negatively correlated with baseline VT in several regions of interest. CONCLUSIONS: Hydrocortisone administration increases NOP receptor availability. Increased NOP in response to elevated cortisol might suggest a compensatory mechanism in the brain to counteract corticotropin-releasing factor and/or stress. The [11C]NOP-1A and hydrocortisone imaging paradigm should allow for the examination of interactions between stress-promoting neuropeptides and NOP in addictive disorders.

Development of an adjective checklist to measure five FACES of fatigue and sleepiness. Data from a national survey of insomniacs.

Development and initial validation of the FACES of fatigue and sleepiness adjective checklist. An initial item pool of 65 adjectives, descriptive of fatigue, sleepiness and related deprivation states, was developed and administered to 372 individuals referred by their family physicians for psychiatric investigation and treatment of severe insomnia. Participants attended one of six Canadian university-affiliated sleep clinics where they completed a psychiatric assessment and a 766-item questionnaire, including a number of standard indices of sleep-related behavior and symptoms, medical history, sleep hygiene, psychosocial well-being and psychopathology. Principal-components and item analyses were undertaken to refine the initial 65-item pool to a smaller 50-item set, consisting of five subscales: Fatigue, Anergy, Consciousness, Energized and Sleepiness. Coefficient alpha was calculated and indicated high internal consistency reliability for all subscales. Convergent and discriminant validity were also evaluated by calculating correlations between FACES subscales and a number of independent indices. The resulting five-scale FACES questionnaire appears to offer a promising self-report instrument for the measurement of fatigue and related subjective experiences.