Intraoperative angiography with indocyanine green, an aid in the diagnosis and treatment of obscure digestive tract bleeding, a case report.

Lower digestive tract bleeding occurs distal to the angle of Treitz. While many cases remit spontaneously; some pose a diagnostic challenge for surgeons. We present the case of a 68-year-old man with unexplained digestive tract bleeding. Despite various diagnostic efforts, the source remained unknown. Faced with the challenge of persistent bleeding and hemodynamic instability, surgery became necessary. During the procedure, intraoperative angiography with indocyanine green was used to facilitate the identification of the bleeding site, revealing a gastrointestinal stromal tumor in the small bowel. Resection was performed with favorable outcomes. Indocyanine green staining has become popular for locating intestinal bleeding during emergency surgeries, aiding surgeons in making precise decisions.

Applying artificial intelligence on EDA sensor data to predict stress on minimally invasive robotic-assisted surgery.

PURPOSE: This study aims predicting the stress level based on the ergonomic (kinematic) and physiological (electrodermal activity-EDA, blood pressure and body temperature) parameters of the surgeon from their records collected in the previously immediate situation of a minimally invasive robotic surgery activity. METHODS: For this purpose, data related to the surgeon's ergonomic and physiological parameters were collected during twenty-six robotic-assisted surgical sessions completed by eleven surgeons with different experience levels. Once the dataset was generated, two preprocessing techniques were applied (scaled and normalized), these two datasets were divided into two subsets: with 80% of data for training and cross-validation, and 20% of data for test. Three predictive techniques (multiple linear regression-MLR, support vector machine-SVM and multilayer perceptron-MLP) were applied on training dataset to generate predictive models. Finally, these models were validated on cross-validation and test datasets. After each session, surgeons were asked to complete a survey of their feeling of stress. These data were compared with those obtained using predictive models. RESULTS: The results showed that MLR combined with the scaled preprocessing achieved the highest R2 coefficient and the lowest error for each parameter analyzed. Additionally, the results for the surgeons' surveys were highly correlated to the results obtained by the predictive models (R2 = 0.8253). CONCLUSIONS: The linear models proposed in this study were successfully validated on cross-validation and test datasets. This fact demonstrates the possibility of predicting factors that help us to improve the surgeon's health during robotic surgery.

Comparative Study of Ergonomics in Conventional and Robotic-Assisted Laparoscopic Surgery.

BACKGROUND: This study aims to implement a set of wearable technologies to record and analyze the surgeon's physiological and ergonomic parameters during the performance of conventional and robotic-assisted laparoscopic surgery, comparing the ergonomics and stress levels of surgeons during surgical procedures. METHODS: This study was organized in two different settings: simulator tasks and experimental model surgical procedures. The participating surgeons performed the tasks and surgical procedures in both laparoscopic and robotic-assisted surgery in a randomized fashion. Different wearable technologies were used to record the surgeons' posture, muscle activity, electrodermal activity and electrocardiography signal during the surgical practice. RESULTS: The simulator study involved six surgeons: three experienced (>100 laparoscopic procedures performed; 36.33 ± 13.65 years old) and three novices (<100 laparoscopic procedures; 29.33 ± 8.39 years old). Three surgeons of different surgical specialties with experience in laparoscopic surgery (>100 laparoscopic procedures performed; 37.00 ± 5.29 years old), but without experience in surgical robotics, participated in the experimental model study. The participating surgeons showed an increased level of stress during the robotic-assisted surgical procedures. Overall, improved surgeon posture was obtained during robotic-assisted surgery, with a reduction in localized muscle fatigue. CONCLUSIONS: A set of wearable technologies was implemented to measure and analyze surgeon physiological and ergonomic parameters. Robotic-assisted procedures showed better ergonomic outcomes for the surgeon compared to conventional laparoscopic surgery. Ergonomic analysis allows us to optimize surgeon performance and improve surgical training.

Modulation of contextual fear acquisition and extinction by acute and chronic relaxin-3 receptor (RXFP3) activation in the rat retrosplenial cortex.

The retrosplenial cortex (RSC) plays a central role in processing contextual fear conditioning. In addition to corticocortical and thalamocortical projections, the RSC receives subcortical inputs, including a substantial projection from the nucleus incertus in the pontine tegmentum. This GABAergic projection contains the neuropeptide, relaxin-3 (RLN3), which inhibits target neurons via its Gi/o-protein-coupled receptor, RXFP3. To assess this peptidergic system role in contextual fear conditioning, we bilaterally injected the RSC of adult rats with an adeno-associated-virus (AAV), expressing the chimeric RXFP3 agonist R3/I5 or a control AAV, and subjected them to contextual fear conditioning. The R3/I5 injected rats did not display any major differences to control-injected and naïve rats but displayed a significantly delayed extinction. Subsequently, we employed acute bilateral injections of the specific RXFP3 agonist peptide, RXFP3-Analogue 2 (A2), into RSC. While the administration of A2 before each extinction trial had no impact on the extinction process, treatment with A2 before each acquisition trial resulted in delayed extinction. In related anatomical studies, we detected an enrichment of RLN3-immunoreactive nerve fibers in deep layers of the RSC, and a higher level of co-localization of RXFP3 mRNA with vesicular GABA transporter (vGAT) mRNA than with vesicular glutamate transporter-1 (vGLUT1) mRNA across the RSC, consistent with an effect of RLN3/RXFP3 signalling on the intrinsic, inhibitory circuits within the RSC. These findings suggest that contextual conditioning processes in the RSC involve, in part, RLN3 afferent modulation of local inhibitory neurons that provides a stronger memory acquisition which, in turn, retards the extinction process.

Some key parameters in contextual fear conditioning and extinction in adult rats.

Contextual fear conditioning is a behavioral paradigm used to assess hippocampal-dependent memory in experimental animals. Perception of the context depends on activation of a distinct population of neurons in the hippocampus and in hippocampal-related areas that process discrete aspects of context perception. In the absence of any putatively associated cue, the context becomes the salient element that may warn of an upcoming aversive event; and in particular conditions, animals generalize this warning to any new or similar context. In this study we evaluated the effects of the number of sessions, the number of unconditioned stimuli per acquisition session and the distribution of extinction sessions to assess fear acquisition and extinction and determine under which conditions generalization occurred in adult, male rats. We observed that the organization and spacing of sessions were relevant factors in the acquisition and extinction of contextual fear memories. Extinction occurred with significantly greater robustness when sessions were spread over two days. Furthermore, results indicated that exposure to a single 0.3 mA, 0.5 s footshock in two different sessions could produce context-specific fear, while more acquisition sessions or more footshocks within a single session produced a generalization of the fear response to a new context. Notably, when generalization occurred, successive re-exposure to the generalized context produced extinction in a similar way to the paired exposure. Together, the present findings identify clear procedural and behavioral parameters amenable to neural systems analysis of three clinically relevant outcomes of contextual fear conditioning, i.e., memory acquisition, storage and extinction.

Efectividad y seguridad de atezolizumab, nivolumab y pembrolizumab en cáncer de pulmón no microcítico metastásico / Effectiveness and safety of atezolizumab, nivolumab and pembrolizumab in metastatic non-small cell lung cancer

Objetivo: Efectividad y seguridad de atezolizumab, nivolumab y pembrolizumab en cáncer de pulmón no microcítico metastásico.Método: Estudio observacional retrospectivo en pacientes con cáncer de pulmón no microcítico metastásico tratados en segunda línea oposteriores. La efectividad fue evaluada mediante supervivencia globaly supervivencia libre de progresión. La toxicidad mediante los CriteriosComunes de Terminología de Efectos Adversos v5.0.Resultados: Se incluyeron 8 pacientes con atezolizumab, 19 con nivolumab y 16 con pembrolizumab. La mediana de supervivencia libre deprogresión con atezolizumab fue 9,6 meses (intervalo de confianza del95% [IC95%] 2-17,2), 12,6 meses (IC95% 6,9-18,2) para nivolumab y8,5 meses (IC95% 0-19) para pembrolizumab. La mediana de supervivencia global con nivolumab fue 13,4 meses (IC95% 6-20,9) y no se alcanzópara atezolizumab y pembrolizumab. Ambas fueron superiores para lospacientes con 0-1 metástasis para nivolumab y en los pacientes conECOG 0-1 para pembrolizumab. Alrededor de un 85% de los pacientessufrieron efectos adversos. Dos pacientes tratados con nivolumab experimentaron vitíligo, con una supervivencia global mayor de 2,5 años.Conclusiones: En la muestra analizada, la efectividad de nivolumabes menor en pacientes con dos o más metástasis, y la de pembrolizumabes menor en pacientes con ECOG 2. La aparición de vitíligo se relacionócon una respuesta duradera. (AU)

Objective: To determine the effectiveness and safety of atezolizumab,nivolumab and pembrolizumab in patients with non-small cell lung cancer.Method: This is a retrospective observational study including patientstreated in second line and beyond. The effectiveness of treatment wasassessed by means of overall survival and progression free survival measurements. Toxicity was described according to the Common Criteria forAdverse Event Terminology v5.0.Results: The study included 8 patients treated with atezolizumab,19 withnivolumab, and 16 with pembrolizumab. Median progression free survival with atezolizumab was 9.6 months (95%CI 2-17.2), 12.6 months(95%CI 6.9-18.2) for nivolumab, and 8.5 months (95%CI 0-19) for pembrolizumab. Median overall survival was 13.4 months (95%CI 6-20.9)for nivolumab. Both PFS and OS were statistically higher in patients withgrade 0-1 metastasis in the case of nivolumab, and in ECOG 0-1 patientsfor pembrolizumab. Median overall survival was not reached for atezolizumab or pembrolizumab. Around 85% of patients suffered adverse effectsof some degree. Two of the patients treated with nivolumab developedvitiligo. Overall survival of both was higher than 2.5 years.Conclusions: For the patients included in the sample, nivolumab wasless effective in those with two or more metastases; the effectiveness ofpembrolizumab was lower in ECOG-2 patients. Vitiligo was related to amore durable response to treatment. (AU)

Factor estimulante de colonias de granulocitos en pacientes con cáncer / Granulocyte-colony stimulating factor in patients with cancer

Se efectuó un estudio descriptivo, longitudinal y prospectivo de 26 pacientes con cáncer en diferentes localizaciones asociado a leucopenia y neutropenia inducidas por citotóxicos, atendidos en el Servicio de Quimioterapia del Hospital Oncológico Docente Conrado Benítez de Santiago de Cuba, de mayo del 2011 a igual mes del 2012, con vistas a determinar el efecto del factor de colonias granulocítica recombinante Ior® LeukoCIM --producido por el Centro de Inmunología Molecular de Ciudad de La Habana-- en ellos mediante la realización de conteos globales de leucocitos y neutrófilos, antes y después de aplicar el tratamiento. En la serie predominaron el sexo femenino, el cáncer de mama y el estadio clínico II; también se obtuvo que 92,3 por ciento de los pacientes respondieron satisfactoriamente a la terapia, el estadio clínico del cáncer no modificó el efecto mielodepresor de los citotóxicos ni el mieloestimulador de la hormona, y el cisplatino y la adriamicina se relacionaron con las neutropenias mayores y la falta de reacción al factor. Para finalizar, el Ior® LeukoCIM estimuló el sistema granulopoyético de la mayoría de los afectados

A descriptive, longitudinal and prospective study was conducted in 26 patients with cancer in different locations associated with leukopenia and neutropenia induced by cytotoxic drugs, treated at the Chemotherapy Department of Conrado Benítez Teaching Oncology Hospital of Santiago de Cuba, from May 2011 to the same month of 2012, with the purpose of determining the effect of the recombinant granulocyte-colony factor Ior® LeukoCIM --produced by the Center of Molecular Immunology in Havana city-- in them by means of global counts of leukocytes and neutrophils before and after applying the treatment. Female sex, breast cancer and clinical stage II prevailed in the series. It was also found that 92.3 percent of patients responded successfully to the therapy, the clinical stage of cancer did not modify the myelosuppressive effect of cytotoxic drugs nor the myelostimulating effect of hormone, and cisplatin and adriamycin were related to higher neutropenia and lack of reaction to the factor. Finally, the Ior® LeukoCIM stimulated the granulopoietic system of most patients

Factor estimulante de colonias de granulocitos en pacientes con cáncer / Granulocyte-colony stimulating factor in patients with cancer

Se efectuó un estudio descriptivo, longitudinal y prospectivo de 26 pacientes con cáncer en diferentes localizaciones asociado a leucopenia y neutropenia inducidas por citotóxicos, atendidos en el Servicio de Quimioterapia del Hospital Oncológico Docente Conrado Benítez de Santiago de Cuba, de mayo del 2011 a igual mes del 2012, con vistas a determinar el efecto del factor de colonias granulocítica recombinante Ior® LeukoCIM --producido por el Centro de Inmunología Molecular de Ciudad de La Habana-- en ellos mediante la realización de conteos globales de leucocitos y neutrófilos, antes y después de aplicar el tratamiento. En la serie predominaron el sexo femenino, el cáncer de mama y el estadio clínico II; también se obtuvo que 92,3 por ciento de los pacientes respondieron satisfactoriamente a la terapia, el estadio clínico del cáncer no modificó el efecto mielodepresor de los citotóxicos ni el mieloestimulador de la hormona, y el cisplatino y la adriamicina se relacionaron con las neutropenias mayores y la falta de reacción al factor. Para finalizar, el Ior® LeukoCIM estimuló el sistema granulopoyético de la mayoría de los afectados(AU)

A descriptive, longitudinal and prospective study was conducted in 26 patients with cancer in different locations associated with leukopenia and neutropenia induced by cytotoxic drugs, treated at the Chemotherapy Department of Conrado Benítez Teaching Oncology Hospital of Santiago de Cuba, from May 2011 to the same month of 2012, with the purpose of determining the effect of the recombinant granulocyte-colony factor Ior® LeukoCIM --produced by the Center of Molecular Immunology in Havana city-- in them by means of global counts of leukocytes and neutrophils before and after applying the treatment. Female sex, breast cancer and clinical stage II prevailed in the series. It was also found that 92.3 percent of patients responded successfully to the therapy, the clinical stage of cancer did not modify the myelosuppressive effect of cytotoxic drugs nor the myelostimulating effect of hormone, and cisplatin and adriamycin were related to higher neutropenia and lack of reaction to the factor. Finally, the Ior® LeukoCIM stimulated the granulopoietic system of most patients(AU)