International Working Group consensus response evaluation criteria in lymphoma (RECIL 2017)

In recent years, the number of approved and investigational agents that can be safely administered for the treatment of lymphoma patients for a prolonged period of time has substantially increased. Many of these novel agents are evaluated in early-phase clinical trials in patients with a wide range of malignancies, including solid tumors and lymphoma. Furthermore, with the advances in genome sequencing, new "basket" clinical trial designs have emerged that select patients based on the presence of specific genetic alterations across different types of solid tumors and lymphoma. The standard response criteria currently in use for lymphoma are the Lugano Criteria which are based on [18F]2-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose positron emission tomography or bidimensional tumor measurements on computerized tomography scans. These differ from the RECIST criteria used in solid tumors, which use unidimensional measurements. The RECIL group hypothesized that single-dimension measurement could be used to assess response to therapy in lymphoma patients, producing results similar to the standard criteria. We tested this hypothesis by analyzing 47 828 imaging measurements from 2983 individual adult and pediatric lymphoma patients enrolled on 10 multicenter clinical trials and developed new lymphoma response criteria (RECIL 2017). We demonstrate that assessment of tumor burden in lymphoma clinical trials can use the sum of longest diameters of a maximum of three target lesions. Furthermore, we introduced a new provisional category of a minor response. We also clarified response assessment in patients receiving novel immune therapy and targeted agents that generate unique imaging situations.

Structural and thermodynamic investigation of AnIVLI(O)HOPO

For the first time, capillary electrophoresis coupled with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry has been used to determine the stability constants of Pu^IV with the multidentate hydroxypyridinonate chelating agents LI(O)HOPO in 0.1 M NaNO₃ solution, p_cH = 1.395 at 25 °C through competition with the NTA ligand.

Investigation of a new “N2S2O2” chelating agent with high Po(iv) affinity

A water-soluble complexing agent for 210-polonium decorporation was designed and synthesised with a high conditional stability constant.

Global sensitivity analysis and Bayesian parameter inference for solute transport in porous media colonized by biofilms

The concept of dual flowing continuum is a promising approach for modeling solute transport in porous media that includes biofilm phases. The highly dispersed transit time distributions often generated by these media are taken into consideration by simply stipulating that advection-dispersion transport occurs through both the porous and the biofilm phases. Both phases are coupled but assigned with contrasting hydrodynamic properties. However, the dual flowing continuum suffers from intrinsic equifinality in the sense that the outlet solute concentration can be the result of several parameter sets of the two flowing phases. To assess the applicability of the dual flowing continuum, we investigate how the model behaves with respect to its parameters. For the purpose of this study, a Global Sensitivity Analysis (GSA) and a Statistical Calibration (SC) of model parameters are performed for two transport scenarios that differ by the strength of interaction between the flowing phases. The GSA is shown to be a valuable tool to understand how the complex system behaves. The results indicate that the rate of mass transfer between the two phases is a key parameter of the model behavior and influences the identifiability of the other parameters. For weak mass exchanges, the output concentration is mainly controlled by the velocity in the porous medium and by the porosity of both flowing phases. In the case of large mass exchanges, the kinetics of this exchange also controls the output concentration. The SC results show that transport with large mass exchange between the flowing phases is more likely affected by equifinality than transport with weak exchange. The SC also indicates that weakly sensitive parameters, such as the dispersion in each phase, can be accurately identified. Removing them from calibration procedures is not recommended because it might result in biased estimations of the highly sensitive parameters.

A route for polonium 210 production from alpha-particle irradiated bismuth-209 target

A method is proposed for production of polonium-210 via the 209Bi(α, 3n)210At nuclear reaction. Bombardment of a bismuth-209 target was performed with a 37 MeV alpha-particle beam that leads to the production of astatine-210 (T 1/2 = 8.1 h), which decays to polonium-210. It is purified from the bismuth target matrix by employing liquid–liquid extraction using tributyl phosphate (TBP) in para-xylene from 7 M hydrochloric acid. Back extraction of polonium-210 was performed by 9 M nitric acid. This method allows to purify a tracer amount of Po-210 (2.6 · 10 –13 mol) from macroscopic amount of Bi (2.8 · 10 –2 mol).