Muscle-specific, liver-detargeted adeno-associated virus gene therapy rescues Pompe phenotype in adult and neonate Gaa-/- mice.

Pompe disease (PD) is a neuromuscular disorder caused by acid α-glucosidase (GAA) deficiency. Reduced GAA activity leads to pathological glycogen accumulation in cardiac and skeletal muscles responsible for severe heart impairment, respiratory defects, and muscle weakness. Enzyme replacement therapy with recombinant human GAA (rhGAA) is the standard-of-care treatment for PD, however, its efficacy is limited due to poor uptake in muscle and the development of an immune response. Multiple clinical trials are ongoing in PD with adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors based on liver- and muscle-targeting. Current gene therapy approaches are limited by liver proliferation, poor muscle targeting, and the potential immune response to the hGAA transgene. To generate a treatment tailored to infantile-onset PD, we took advantage of a novel AAV capsid able to increase skeletal muscle targeting compared to AAV9 while reducing liver overload. When combined with a liver-muscle tandem promoter (LiMP), and despite the extensive liver-detargeting, this vector had a limited immune response to the hGAA transgene. This combination of capsid and promoter with improved muscle expression and specificity allowed for glycogen clearance in cardiac and skeletal muscles of Gaa-/- adult mice. In neonate Gaa-/- , complete rescue of glycogen content and muscle strength was observed 6 months after AAV vector injection. Our work highlights the importance of residual liver expression to control the immune response toward a potentially immunogenic transgene expressed in muscle. In conclusion, the demonstration of the efficacy of a muscle-specific AAV capsid-promoter combination for the full rescue of PD manifestation in both neonate and adult Gaa-/- provides a potential therapeutic avenue for the infantile-onset form of this devastating disease.

Efficient Unitary Designs with a System-Size Independent Number of Non-Clifford Gates.

Many quantum information protocols require the implementation of random unitaries. Because it takes exponential resources to produce Haar-random unitaries drawn from the full n-qubit group, one often resorts to t-designs. Unitary t-designs mimic the Haar-measure up to t-th moments. It is known that Clifford operations can implement at most 3-designs. In this work, we quantify the non-Clifford resources required to break this barrier. We find that it suffices to inject O ( t 4 log 2 ( t ) log ( 1 / ε ) ) many non-Clifford gates into a polynomial-depth random Clifford circuit to obtain an ε -approximate t-design. Strikingly, the number of non-Clifford gates required is independent of the system size - asymptotically, the density of non-Clifford gates is allowed to tend to zero. We also derive novel bounds on the convergence time of random Clifford circuits to the t-th moment of the uniform distribution on the Clifford group. Our proofs exploit a recently developed variant of Schur-Weyl duality for the Clifford group, as well as bounds on restricted spectral gaps of averaging operators.

Forced to join the Waffen-SS? Chief pharmacist Victor Capesius (1907-1985) and his role in Auschwitz concentration camp.

Victor Capesius (1907-1985) attained sad fame as chief pharmacist in the Auschwitz concentration camp. After the war he outlined himself as a victim of his time and claimed to have been forced into the Waffen-SS as a so-called Romanian "Volksdeutscher" (ethnic German). But does this claim stand up to critical scrutiny? What was his actual role in Auschwitz, how did his life develop in the postwar period, how did he himself evaluate his actions in the Third Reich, and to what extent do self-image and historical facts coincide? These are precisely the questions that this article explores. The study is based on primary sources from various archives. These are supplemented and compared with the existing literature on Capesius, the role of pharmacists in the Third Reich, and the Auschwitz concentration camp.
The analysis shows that Capesius was not only complicit in the criminal acts in the concentration camp, but directly involved in the systematic killing of thousands of Jewish people - among other things, by dispensing Zyklon B and phenol and by the lethal selection of people at the ramp. The alleged compulsion to join the Waffen-SS, on the other hand, cannot be substantiated. After 1945, Capesius was imprisoned twice by the Allies, but only charged in the first Auschwitz trial in the 1960s. Despite a guilty verdict, he was released from prison as early as 1968. At the end of his life, Capesius could look back on a successful career as a pharmacist and businessman in Germany. At no time did he come to a self-critical evaluation of his role in the Third Reich.

Functional Capacity Evaluation Research: Report from the Fourth International Functional Capacity Evaluation Research Meeting.

Purpose To summarize progress of functional capacity evaluation (FCE) research based on the proceedings of the Fourth International FCE Research Conference held in Switzerland on September 21 and 22, 2018. Methods A scientific committee identified key issues in FCE research and developed the program including key note presentations, a call for abstracts, and round table discussions over 2 days. Highlights of the presentations and discussions are summarized in this article. Results Seventy-nine participants from 11 countries attended the conference where 10 keynote lectures and 21 abstracts were presented. There was also an open discussion regarding the need for an International FCE clinical practice guideline (CPG), methods for developing such a guideline, and practical next steps. Full program details and abstracts from this Fourth International FCE Research Conference are available from https://www.sar-reha.ch/interessengemeinschaften/ig-ergonomie.html . Conclusions Researchers and clinicians continue to increase the body of knowledge in the FCE field. A major finding of this conference is the diversity across the different FCE protocols and research groups as well as of the different uses of FCE across cultural and social economic systems. Next steps will include exploring the development of an international, interdisciplinary, evidence-based FCE clinical practice guideline by a committee formed at the conference.

[The pathologist and "short-term rector" Albert Dietrich (1873-1961) and his ambivalent relationship with the Nazi regime : Not Nazi enough? German version]. / Der Pathologe und "Kurzzeitrektor" Albert Dietrich (1873­1961) und sein ambivalentes Verhältnis zum NS­Regime : Nicht nationalsozialistisch genug?

Throughout his professional life, the pathologist Albert Dietrich devoted himself to researching and combating cancer. Due to his considerable reputation and success, he was one of the first doctors to be awarded the Paracelsus Medal for his scientific services in 1952.However, Dietrich's role in the Third Reich was - and still is - far less defined. In May 1933, he became rector of the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen, which at that time was one of the most Nazi-oriented universities. However, his term of office was short - by the end of 1933 he had already been replaced by the protestant theologian Karl Fezer.This article sheds light on Dietrich's ambivalent relationship to National Socialism and analyzes and discusses the background to his dismissal, his later (also politically influenced) emeritus status (1938/39), and his entry into the NSDAP, which took place at retirement age (1941). The study is based on archival sources partly evaluated for the first time and on a reanalysis of the relevant research literature.The study shows that Dietrich was targeted by individual Nazi decision-makers primarily because he advocated a supposedly "liberalist" university policy. Dietrich thus ultimately stands for a type of university lecturer who renounced a decidedly Nazi stance in public without, however, placing himself in a critical relationship to Nazi ideology. Against this background, statements from the postwar period that saw him retrospectively near Nazi opposition are to be classified as the formation of legends.

The hepatopathologist Hans Popper (1903-1988) : An early victim of National Socialism in Austria.

In 1988, the "father of modern hepatology" Hans Popper died. His medical merits are numerous and outstanding and have already been praised many times. In particular, his research on liver diseases has gained widespread recognition. Much less well known is the fact that Popper was dismissed from the University of Vienna due to his Jewish ancestry after the "Anschluss" ("annexation") of Austria to the Third Reich and subsequently emigrated to the USA.Popper's biographers, who primarily belonged to his close circle of friends and colleagues, were unquestionably aware of this central caesura in Popper's life. However, the scientific analysis and presentation of this very event has been incomplete and, moreover, feeds heavily from the personal memories of the authors, which are inevitably subjective. For precisely this reason, the present contribution focuses on Popper's role as a politically persecuted Jew and the resulting implications.The study comes to the conclusion that Popper shows all the characteristics of a Nazi victim, namely a Jewish background, the dismissal from university, the threat of persecution by the Gestapo, and the subsequent forced emigration. Popper decided against remigration after 1945 and instead earned professional recognition in the USA and later worldwide. In the 1980s, Popper was criticized for his permissive attitude towards his former academic teacher, the doctor and Nazi criminal Hans Eppinger. Even if he did not completely succeed in making his behavior in the "Eppinger Case" understandable and comprehensible, the events gradually fell into oblivion, as evidenced by several recent posthumous statements of honor in German-speaking countries.

The pathologist Philipp Schwartz (1894-1977) : From Nazi victim to initiator of the "Emergency Society of German Scholars Abroad".

Without a doubt, Frankfurt Pathologist Philipp Schwartz is one of the most iconic scholars in recent medical history. As the son of Jewish parents, he was forced to emigrate after Hitler seized power in 1933. Despite this repressive experience, he succeeded in founding the "Notgemeinschaft deutscher Wissenschaftler im Ausland" ("Emergency Association of German Scientists Abroad") in 1933, with which he helped hundreds of forcibly emigrated university teachers find academic positions. In addition, he had a decisive influence on the reform of the higher education system in Turkey, rendered outstanding achievements in neuropathology, and attained leading positions as a scientist in the exile countries Turkey and the USA.However, as successful as the pathologist's scientific career in exile may have been, his relationship with Germany remained problematic throughout his life. Against this background, this article focuses on the reception of Philipp Schwartz in the different political systems of Germany - from the Weimar Republic to the Third Reich, and from post-war Germany to the recent past in the Federal Republic. This study is essentially based on primary sources from the University Archive of Frankfurt.Schwartz had a promising career in the Weimar Republic. In the aftermath of Hitler's takeover (1933) he was deprived of any perspectives in Germany and fled to Switzerland in the spring of 1933. His achievements as a full professor in Istanbul and as initiator of the Notgemeinschaft are remarkable in both scientific and political regards. Still, he was denied employment at the Goethe University Frankfurt. Until well after his death (1977), Philipp Schwartz's life and work received little attention in Germany. It was only after the turn of the millennium that he received the recognition he was denied during his lifetime.

A career start in the Third Reich : The pathologist and Rudolf Virchow Award recipient Walter Müller (1907-1983).

The pathologist Walter Müller is undoubtedly one of the most prominent post-war representatives of his profession. He became full professor and founding dean in Essen, and in 1983 the German Society for Pathology (DGP) awarded him the Rudolf Virchow Medal - the highest distinction of the society - for his merits to the field of pathology.But this glorious career was by no means predetermined. Rather, after the end of the Second World War there were signs of a career break that were still largely unknown. After fleeing Königsberg from the approaching Red Army, Müller had to fear for his professional existence and his scientific advancement, as he was threatened with a ban on his profession in connection with denazification. As a young assistant doctor, Müller had joined the Berlin SA soon after the National Socialists took power and had also applied for membership of the NSDAP in 1937.Using Müller as an example, this article deals with the political influences and effects of National Socialism on young scientists and their career development. It poses the question of typical political barriers and overarching patterns of adaptation.On the basis of the personal written estate, personal archive sources, and a reanalysis of the available secondary literature, existing self-portrayals and narratives of Walter Müller are critically reviewed and supplemented. Several examples show that Müller's career development was characterized by a willingness to adapt politically. After a brief career slump in the years 1946/47, he succeeded in consolidating his career thanks to a mild denazification process and subsequently became one of the leading experts in German-language pathology.

Risk factor heterogeneity for medial and lateral compartment knee osteoarthritis: analysis of two prospective cohorts.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the etiologic heterogeneity between medial and lateral tibiofemoral radiographic osteoarthritis (ROA). METHODS: Knees without medial or lateral tibiofemoral ROA at baseline were followed for 60-month in Multicenter Osteoarthritis Study (MOST) and for 48-month in Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI). We examined the relation of previously reported risk factors to incident medial and lateral tibiofemoral ROA separately and determined the etiology heterogeneity with a ratio of rate ratios (RRs) (i.e., the RR for medial tibiofemoral ROA divided by the RR for lateral tibiofemoral ROA) using a duplication method for Cox proportional hazard regression. RESULTS: Of 2,016 participants in MOST, 436 and 162 knees developed medial or lateral tibiofemoral ROA, respectively. Obesity and varus malalignment were 95% and 466% more strongly associated with incident medial tibiofemoral ROA than with lateral tibiofemoral ROA, respectively (ratios of RRs, 1.95 [95% confidence interval (CI):1.05-3.62] and 5.66 [95% CI:3.20-10.0]). In contrast, the associations of female sex and valgus malalignment with incident medial tibiofemoral ROA were weaker or in an opposite direction compared with lateral tibiofemoral Osteoarthritis (OA) (ratios of RRs, 0.40 [95% CI:0.26-0.63] and 0.20 [95% CI:0.12-0.34], respectively). Older age tended to show a weaker association with incident medial tibiofemoral ROA than with incident lateral tibiofemoral ROA. No heterogeneity was observed for the relation of race, knee injury, or contralateral knee ROA. These findings were closely replicated in OAI. CONCLUSION: Risk factor profiles for medial and lateral tibiofemoral ROA are different. These results can provide a framework for the development of targeted prevention and potential treatment strategies for specific knee OA subtypes.

[The double exclusion of the pathologist and Nazi victim Paul Kimmelstiel (1900-1970). German version]. / Die doppelte Ausgrenzung des Pathologen und NS-Opfers Paul Kimmelstiel (1900­1970).

The Hamburg pathologist Paul Kimmelstiel (1900-1970) gave his name to diabetic glomerulosclerosis (Kimmelstiel-Wilson syndrome) and thus conquered a place in the history of medicine. Far less known, however, is the fact that Kimmelstiel was one of the Jewish victims of the Third Reich. He was dismissed in 1933, saw himself forced to emigrate in 1934, and fought for "rehabilitation" ("Wiedergutmachung") after 1945.The present article focuses on Kimmelstiel's role as a politically persecuted and disenfranchised Jew.It examines (1) the background to his dismissal and forced emigration, (2) the question of "compensation" for his deprivation in postwar Germany, but also (3) the interactions between this racially motivated exclusion and biographical uprooting on one hand and the subsequent, highly remarkable international career development on the other.The study is based on previously unknown archival sources and on a reanalysis of the relevant research literature.This paper concludes that Kimmelstiel's emigration took place under traumatic circumstances. More astonishing is the fact that he quickly developed into a highly respected and famous exile scientist. However, the political and professional treatment of Kimmelstiel in post-war Germany was much less favorable. His efforts for rehabilitation were only partially successful, taking a long time and requiring considerable efforts. Only laying a Stolperstein monument in front of the University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf in 2014 marked a provisional, conciliatory conclusion in dealing with the victim Paul Kimmelstiel.

[The hepatopathologist Hans Popper (1903-1988) : An early victim of National Socialism in Austria. German version]. / Der Hepatopathologe Hans Popper (1903­1988) : Ein frühes Opfer des Nationalsozialismus in Österreich.

In 1988, the "father of modern hepatology" Hans Popper died. His medical merits are numerous and outstanding and have already been praised many times. In particular, his research on liver diseases has gained widespread recognition. Much less well known is the fact that Popper was dismissed from the University of Vienna due to his Jewish ancestry after the "Anschluss" ("annexation") of Austria to the Third Reich and subsequently emigrated to the USA.Popper's biographers, who primarily belonged to his close circle of friends and colleagues, were unquestionably aware of this central caesura in Popper's life. However, the scientific analysis and presentation of this very event has been incomplete and, moreover, feeds heavily from the personal memories of the authors, which are inevitably subjective. For precisely this reason, the present contribution focuses on Popper's role as a politically persecuted Jew and the resulting implications.The study comes to the conclusion that Popper shows all the characteristics of a Nazi victim, namely a Jewish background, the dismissal from university, the threat of persecution by the Gestapo, and the subsequent forced emigration. Popper decided against remigration after 1945 and instead earned professional recognition in the USA and later worldwide. In the 1980s, Popper was criticized for his permissive attitude towards his former academic teacher, the doctor and Nazi criminal Hans Eppinger. Even if he did not completely succeed in making his behavior in the "Eppinger Case" understandable and comprehensible, the events gradually fell into oblivion, as evidenced by several recent posthumous statements of honor in German-speaking countries.

[The pathologist Philipp Schwartz (1894-1977) : From Nazi victim to initiator of the "Emergency Society of German Scholars Abroad". German version]. / Der Pathologe Philipp Schwartz (1894­1977) : Vom NS-Opfer zum Initiator der "Notgemeinschaft deutscher Wissenschaftler im Ausland".

Without a doubt, Frankfurt Pathologist Philipp Schwartz is one of the most iconic scholars in recent medical history. As the son of Jewish parents, he was forced to emigrate after Hitler seized power in 1933. Despite this repressive experience, he succeeded in founding the "Notgemeinschaft deutscher Wissenschaftler im Ausland" ("Emergency Association of German Scientists Abroad") in 1933, with which he helped hundreds of forcibly emigrated university teachers find academic positions. In addition, he had a decisive influence on the reform of the higher education system in Turkey, rendered outstanding achievements in neuropathology, and attained leading positions as a scientist in the exile countries Turkey and the USA.However, as successful as the pathologist's scientific career in exile may have been, his relationship with Germany remained problematic throughout his life. Against this background, this article focuses on the reception of Philipp Schwartz in the different political systems of Germany - from the Weimar Republic to the Third Reich, and from post-war Germany to the recent past in the Federal Republic. This study is essentially based on primary sources from the University Archive of Frankfurt.Schwartz had a promising career in the Weimar Republic. In the aftermath of Hitler's takeover (1933) he was deprived of any perspectives in Germany and fled to Switzerland in the spring of 1933. His achievements as a full professor in Istanbul and as initiator of the Notgemeinschaft are remarkable in both scientific and political regards. Still, he was denied employment at the Goethe University Frankfurt. Until well after his death (1977), Philipp Schwartz's life and work received little attention in Germany. It was only after the turn of the millennium that he received the recognition he was denied during his lifetime.

[Pathologists as victims of National Socialism : Results of a quantitative cross-sectional study]. / Pathologen als Opfer des Nationalsozialismus : Ergebnisse einer quantitativen Querschnittstudie.

AIMS OF THE STUDY: This explorative study focuses on those pathologists who became victims of the Third Reich by being dismissed, disenfranchised, persecuted, expelled, murdered, or driven to suicide. Accordingly, it examines the question of how many - and which - pathologists were oppressed in the Nazi dictatorship. It also looks at the reasons for this and the effects that repression has had on the lives of those affected - both in the Third Reich and in postwar Germany. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The study is based on archival source material, which was supplemented by a systematic evaluation of the relevant research literature. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: In total, the biographies of 89 pathologists could be reconstructed and evaluated. Of these, 67 persons were persecuted for "racial" or anti-Semitic reasons. Until their disenfranchisement, the majority were employed at a university. The majority of the examined pathologists fled abroad, with most immigrating to the USA and Great Britain and successfully establishing themselves there professionally. No indications of a return to their homeland could be found in the sample presented here. Reasons included a lack of career options and negative personal experiences in postwar Germany, such as in reparation proceedings. Quite a lot of those who remained in the German Reich died violently, either in concentration camps or by suicide.

[A career start in the Third Reich : The pathologist and Rudolf Virchow Award recipient Walter Müller (1907-1983)]. / Ein Karrierestart im "Dritten Reich" : Der Pathologe und Rudolf-Virchow-Preisträger Walter Müller (1907­1983).

The pathologist Walter Müller is undoubtedly one of the most prominent post-war representatives of his profession. He became full professor and founding dean in Essen, and in 1983 the German Society for Pathology (DGP) awarded him the Rudolf Virchow Medal - the highest distinction of the society - for his merits to the field of pathology.But this glorious career was by no means predetermined. Rather, after the end of the Second World War there were signs of a career break that were still largely unknown. After fleeing Königsberg from the approaching Red Army, Müller had to fear for his professional existence and his scientific advancement, as he was threatened with a ban on his profession in connection with denazification. As a young assistant doctor, Müller had joined the Berlin SA soon after the National Socialists took power and had also applied for membership of the NSDAP in 1937.Using Müller as an example, this article deals with the political influences and effects of National Socialism on young scientists and their career development. It poses the question of typical political barriers and overarching patterns of adaptation.On the basis of the personal written estate, personal archive sources, and a reanalysis of the available secondary literature, existing self-portrayals and narratives of Walter Müller are critically reviewed and supplemented. Several examples show that Müller's career development was characterized by a willingness to adapt politically. After a brief career slump in the years 1946/47, he succeeded in consolidating his career thanks to a mild denazification process and subsequently became one of the leading experts in German-language pathology.

[History of the anatomical and clinical autopsy]. / Geschichte der anatomischen und klinischen Obduktion.

The history of the autopsy is naturally also a part of the history of anatomy and pathology and spans over about 2300 years. The first documented autopsies were conducted in about 300 B.C. Thereafter, due to the prohibition of dissections due to religious, social, or hygienic reasons, a long period of stagnation took place. With the onset of the Renaissance in the 15th and 16th century, interest in the ancient sciences such as anatomy began to rise and consequently an increasing number of dissections for anatomical studies were conducted. Nevertheless, it took nearly 200 years until clinical symptoms and/or causes of disease and death were correlated with anatomical findings. In the second half of the 19th century, the clinical autopsy based on the combination of macroscopic and microscopic findings became more and more important as a precondition for the systematic description of diseases. Based on autopsy findings and together with several new techniques, modern pathology could be established at the beginning of the 20th century as a source of scientific knowledge for the clinical medicine and as a theoretical discipline of its own.

Recovering Quantum Gates from Few Average Gate Fidelities.

Characterizing quantum processes is a key task in the development of quantum technologies, especially at the noisy intermediate scale of today's devices. One method for characterizing processes is randomized benchmarking, which is robust against state preparation and measurement errors and can be used to benchmark Clifford gates. Compressed sensing techniques achieve full tomography of quantum channels essentially at optimal resource efficiency. In this Letter, we show that the favorable features of both approaches can be combined. For characterizing multiqubit unitary gates, we provide a rigorously guaranteed and practical reconstruction method that works with an essentially optimal number of average gate fidelities measured with respect to random Clifford unitaries. Moreover, for general unital quantum channels, we provide an explicit expansion into a unitary 2-design, allowing for a practical and guaranteed reconstruction also in that case. As a side result, we obtain a new statistical interpretation of the unitarity-a figure of merit characterizing the coherence of a process.

Outcomes in video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery lobectomies: challenging preconceived notions.

BACKGROUND: Most thoracic surgical procedures in the United States are being performed by general surgeons (GSs) without any advanced training. With the recent approval of computed tomography screening for lung malignancy in high-risk populations, the number of thoracic oncologic resections is expected to rise. Previous literature has demonstrated consistently worsened outcomes for patients undergoing thoracic surgical procedure when done by nonthoracic fellowship-trained surgeons. Using the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Project database, we examined short-term outcomes in patients undergoing video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) lobectomy for malignancy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Data were obtained from the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Project from 2010-2015. We identified patients who had an International Classification of Disease 9 diagnosis of lung cancer (162) who underwent VATS lobectomy (current procedural terminology 32663). We included only adults (≥18y) and elective cases. We excluded patients who had preoperative diagnosis of sepsis, contaminated wound class, or those patients with missing American Society of Anesthesiologists classification, morbid obesity, functional status, length of stay (LOS), or sex, and race information. We identified two groups by specialty: GS versus cardiothoracic (CT) surgeon. We then performed univariate analysis. We then performed propensity score analysis using a 1:3 ratio of general surgery patients to CT patients. Outcomes of interest included 30-d postoperative mortality, 30-d postoperative morbidity, and LOS. RESULTS: A total of 4105 patients were identified, 607 performed by GSs, 3508 performed by CT surgeons. The mean age for patients who underwent lobectomies by GSs was 68.6 versus 67.8 in the CT surgeon group (P < 0.05). The majority were female (58.09% GS versus 57.74% CT surgeon). There was a statistically significant difference in race between groups; patients were more likely to be African American in the CT surgeon group. Operative time was lower in the GS group as opposed to the CT surgeon group 179 min versus 196 (P < 0.01). Univariate analysis (mortality <0.1 CT surgeon and GS) and 1:3 propensity score matched analysis (0.08 GS% versus 0.08% CT surgeon) failed to demonstrate a significant difference in mortality. There was a statistically significant difference in median LOS between groups (6.2 GS versus 5.1 CT surgeon). Univariate and propensity matched analyses of pneumonia, sepsis, wound infection, deep vein thrombosis, transfusion requirement, myocardial infarction stroke, postoperative renal insufficiency, failure to wean, pulmonary embolism, reintubation, and deep organ space infection all failed to demonstrate a statistically significant difference between our groups of interest. Urinary tract infection was noted to be higher in the GS group operating room 2.29 as compared to the CT surgeon group (P value 0.02). CONCLUSIONS: In this large observational study, we found that VATS lobectomies performed by GS compared to the matched CT surgeon cohort had shorter operative time, and there was no difference in major postoperative morbidity or mortality. However, LOS was higher and there was increased risk of urinary tract infection in the GS compared to matched CT surgeon cohort.

Functional Capacity Evaluation Research: Report from the Third International Functional Capacity Evaluation Research Meeting.

Purpose Based on the success of the first two conferences the Third International FCE Research Conference was held in The Netherlands on September 29, 2016. The aim was to provide ongoing opportunity to share and recent FCE research and discuss its implications. Methods Invitations and call for abstracts were sent to previous attendees, researchers, practicing FCE clinicians and professionals. Fifteen abstracts were selected for presentation. The FCE research conference contained two keynote lectures. Results 54 participants from 12 countries attended the conference where 15 research projects and 2 keynote lectures were presented. The conference provided an opportunity to present and discuss recent FCE research, and provided a forum for discourse related to FCE use. Conference presentations covered aspects of practical issues in administration and interpretation; protocol reliability and validity; consideration of specific injury populations; and a focused discussion on proposed inclusion of work physiology principles in FCE testing with the Heart Rate Reserve Method. Details of this Third International FCE Research Conference are available from http://repro.rcnheliomare.nl/FCE.pdf . Conclusions Researchers, clinicians, and other professionals in the FCE area have a common desire to further improve the content and quality of FCE research and to collaborate to further develop research across systems, cultures and countries. A fourth, 2-day, International FCE research conference will be held in Valens, Switzerland in August or September 2018. A 'FCE research Society' will be developed.

Karl Blumenreuter (1881-1969): Himmler's chief pharmacist and medical supply quartermaster of the SS.

The present article elucidates the role and function of SS Gruppenführer Karl Blumenreuter (1881-1969), the leading pharmacist of the SS. The aim is to clarify how he participated in the crimes of the Nazi Party and especially the SS during the "Third Reich" and the extent to which he was brought to justice after 1945. Central elements of the study are based on researched archival primary sources. The latter were compared with each other and supplemented with the currently available secondary literature on the subject. It can be established that Blumenreuter was a zealous National Socialist with marked career ambitions who advanced within the SS to the rank of SS Gruppenführer and Lieutenant General of the Waffen SS (Generalleutnant der Waffen SS). He supplied pre-measured phenol ampoules for the murder of prisoners in the concentration camps. Blumenreuter furthermore organised equipment and material supplies for various experiments on humans. After 1945 he succeeded in playing down his participation in the crimes in the time of National Socialism. Blumenreuter died in 1969 without having being brought to justice by the judiciary and without having reflected self-critically on his role in the "Third Reich".

[Safety of Hyaluronic Acid in Postoperative Treatment after Penetrating Keratoplasty]. / Verträglichkeit von Hyaluronsäure zur Oberflächenpflege nach perforierender Keratoplastik.

BACKGROUND: The objective of this clinical trial was to confirm the safety of phosphate-free high molecular weight hyaluronate (HYLO®-GEL) as lubricant for postoperative care after penetrating keratoplasty. PATIENTS AND METHODS: 51 eyes were followed up 6 weeks after penetrating keratoplasty under therapy with phosphate-free high molecular weight hyaluronate. Visual acuity, intraocular pressure, conjunctival hyperaemia, conjunctival chemosis, corneal fluorescein staining, corneal infiltrates, corneal endothelial-epithelial decompensation, Descemet's folds, Tyndall effect, cells in the anterior chamber and subjective assessment of lacrimation, foreign body sensation, pressure sensation, burning, mucus and itching were recorded on the first, third and fifth postoperative days and six weeks postoperatively. Tolerance was rated by the patient and the attending ophthalmologist. RESULTS: The following objective parameters improved significantly from day 1 to week 6 in patients treated with phosphate-free high molecular weight hyaluronate: visual acuity, conjunctival hyperaemia, conjunctival chemosis, corneal fluorescein-staining, corneal endothelial-epithelial decompensation, Descemet's folds, the maximum diameter of corneal erosion, Tyndall effect and cells in the anterior chamber. In addition, there was significant improvement in the course of the following subjective complaints: lacrimation, foreign body sensation, pressure sensation and itching. In total 63 % (32/47) of the study patients reported excellent local tolerance of phosphate-free high molecular weight hyaluronate on day one postoperatively. This proportion rose to 86 % (37/43) 6 weeks postoperatively. The safety of phosphate-free high molecular weight hyaluronate was rated by the ophthalmologists as "perfect" in 92 %, as "acceptable" in 6 % and as "unacceptable" in 2 % of eyes. CONCLUSION: Therapy with phosphate-free high molecular weight hyaluronate results in significant improvements in objective findings and subjective symptoms after penetrating keratoplasty. Tolerance was rated as "excellent" by the ophthalmologist in 92 % of patients in the early postoperative follow-up.