Wetting Behaviour of Water, Ethanol, Rhamnolipid, and Triton X-165 Mixture in the Polymer-Solution Drop-Air System.

Despite the fact that the wetting properties of multicomponent mixtures including the surface active compounds play a very important role in many practical applications, they are not sufficiently known. Thus, the wettability of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) by the water + ethanol (ET) solution of rhamnolipid (RL) with Triton X-165 (TX165) mixture was studied. The investigations involved measuring the advancing contact angles of this solution on PTFE and PMMA by varying the concentration of TX165 while maintaining a constant concentration of ET and RL. Additionally, a thermodynamic analysis was conducted to obtain the compositions and concentrations of the ET, RL, and TX165 mixtures at the different interfaces. The composition and concentration of the interface mixed layer were considered using two different approaches to the wetting process. From these considerations, it follows that, depending on the ET concentration, it is possible to form the TX165 + RL layer at the solid-water + ET mixed solvent, as well as the water + ET-air interfaces, but not at the solid-water and water-air ones. This conclusion is in accordance with the Gibbs standard free energy of adsorption of particular components of the studied mixture at the solution-air and solid-solution interfaces.

Thermodynamic Characterization of Rhamnolipid, Triton X-165 and Ethanol as well as Their Mixture Behaviour at the Water-Air Interface.

In many industrial fields, in medicine or pharmacy, there are used multi-component mixtures of surfactants as well as more and more often mixtures containing biosurfactants. Thus, in our study the mixtures of rhamnolipid (RL), ethanol (ET) and Triton X-165 (TX165) were applied. For these mixtures the surface tension of aqueous solutions with constant concentration and composition of ET and RL as well as the variable concentration of TX165 was measured. Based on the obtained results and the literature data, thermodynamic analyses of the adsorption process of ET, RL, TX165, binary mixtures of ET + RL, ET + TX165 and RL + TX165 as well as the ternary mixtures of RL + ET + TX165 at the water-air interface were made. This analysis allows to propose a new equation for calculation of the total ethanol concentration at the water-air interface using the Guggenheim-Adam adsorption isotherm. The constants in the Langmuir and Szyszkowski equations for each component of the studied mixtures as well as the composition of the mixed monolayer at the water-air interface were also successfully analysed based on the contribution of particular surface active compounds to the water surface tension reduction as well as based on the Frumkin isotherm of adsorption.

Detecting undetectable - epidemiology, etiology, and diagnosis of carcinoma of unknown primary - systematic review.

Carcinoma of unknown primary (CUP) is a heterogeneous group of oncological diseases in which it is impossible to determine the primary tumor. The incidence is 3-5% of oncologic patients, but the survival time varies from 6 weeks to 5 months. The diagnostics should begin with a clinical evaluation and basic laboratory tests. For CUP placed in head and neck the positron emission tomography - computed tomography is recommended; pancreatic or lung neoplasms are diagnosed with the computed tomography as well. Recently, the magnetic resonance, especially whole-body diffusion-weighted imaging has been introduced to the imaging panel. The lesion obtained during surgically removed metastases or biopsy material should be histopathological and molecularly examined to define the type of tumor. The basic immunoexpression panel should include cytokeratin-5/6, -7 and -20, EMA, synaptophysin, chromogranin, vimentin and GATA3 and molecular expression of ERBB2, PIK3CA, NF1, NF2, BRAF, IDH1, PTEN, FGFR2, EGFR, MET and CDK6. During the accurate diagnostics enable to classify malignancy of undefined primary origin as provisional CUP or finally confirmed CUP in which the primary place of tumor remains undetectable. The detailed diagnostics should be performed in highly specified centers to establish an accurate diagnosis and to initiate personalized treatment. Majority of patients are diagnosed with adenocarcinoma (70%), undifferentiated carcinoma (20%), squamous cell or transitional cell/uroepithelial carcinoma (5-10%), neuroendocrine tumor (5%) and with minor incidence other histological types, including melanoma.