Structural Investigation of Bond-Isomeric Hexakis (Thiocyanato-isothiocyanato) osmates (III) from Os LIII-Edge EXAFS

The extended x-ray absorption fine-structure (ENAFS) has been used to determine bond lengths and coordination numbers around the central Os-atom in bond-isomeric hexakis (thiocyanato-isothiocyanato) osmates (III) [Os(NCS)n(SCN)6-n]3-, n = 1,...,6: The above assignment of the species with w-values is confirmed. The Os-N bond length decreases with increasing n while the Os-S bond length is the same in all compounds. The N-bonded ligands form an undistorted linear chain with the central Os-atom. The bond angles between the S-bonded ligands and Os-atoms are distorted by at least 10° around their average value (~ 105°).

Tobacco and otorhinolaryngology: epic and disaster

More than 500 papers are retrieved from the PubMed database by the keywords "Tobacco" and "Otorhinolaryngology", none of which, however, is devoted to the history of a plant that has a major impact on our specialty and practice. The present report describes and analyzes how tobacco conquered the world, the conflicts it triggered and the impact it has had in our field over the past centuries.

Abstract P6-06-48: Breast cancer subtypes and metastatic pattern at the Regional Breast Center Dresden

Background: Breast cancer is classified into the subtypes luminal A, luminal B (HER2 positive or negative), HER2 enriched (not luminal) and triple negative (St. Gallen International Breast Cancer Conference 2011). These breast cancer subtypes show differences in response to therapies and prognosis. Amongst others prognosis is depended on hormone receptor positivity, extent and localization of metastases. Routine screening for metastatic disease is not part of the guidelines for breast cancer aftercare although in oligometastatic disease surgery or local ablative therapies can be used to improve outcome. We evaluated if tumor aftercare should be individualized due to different patterns of metastases of the breast cancer subtypes.

Methods: Four hospitals incorporated into the Regional Breast Center Dresden as a certified center of excellence for treating breast cancer. We retrospectively evaluated sites and characteristics of metastases and survival data according to the intrinsic breast cancer subtypes from patients treated between 2006 and 2011. Immunohistochemical detection of estrogen and progesterone receptor, grading and overexpression of HER2 oncogene was used for identifying tumor subtypes. All data were collected at the Clinical Cancer Registry Dresden.

Results: In 2006 routinely identification of overexpression of HER2 started. Since that time 2334 patients had therapy for breast cancer- 12,4% (290/2334) with metastatic disease (7.2%; 168/2334 primary and 5.2%; 122/2334 relapse). Mean duration of follow up was 38 months. Metastatic disease was more frequently found in HER2 enriched, 27.2%; 30/110, and triple negative, 19.7%; 44/223, than in the luminal subtypes: luminal A 8.3%; 107/1284, luminal B HER2 negative 12.2%; 23/188, luminal B HER2 positive 16%; 36/225. Luminal A and B HER2 negative subtypes showed a preference for solely bone metastases (43%; 56/130) which was rare in triple negative breast cancer (6.8% 3/44). If bone metastases occurred in triple negative breast cancer they mostly appeared together with visceral and/or brain metastatic disease (27%; 12/44). Solely visceral metastases were found in the HER2 enriched subtype (46.7%; 14/30), luminal B HER2 positive (38.9%; 14/36), and triple negative breast cancer (20.2%; 19/44). Brain metastases were more frequently observed in triple negative breast cancer (22.7%; 10/44). Overall survival rate at 5 years for metastatic disease was 38.5% (95%CI 28.2-52.5) for luminal A, 23.1% (95%CI 12.0-44.5) for luminal B (HER2 negative), 11.9% (95%CI 5.5-25.7) for luminal B (HER2 positive), 27.6% (95%CI 14.4-52.8) for HER2 enriched and 6.5% (95%CI 2.4-17.1) for triple negative subtype.

Conclusion: Different patterns of metastatic disease were seen according to the subtypes of breast cancer. An individualized tumor aftercare that includes screening for visceral metastasis might improve prognosis of patients with luminal B HER positive, HER enriched and triple negative subtype. Further investigation on patients eligible for metastatic surgery should be performed with longer follow up and evaluated with respect to post-interventional survival.

Citation Information: Cancer Res 2013;73(24 Suppl): Abstract nr P6-06-48.

Bayesian soft X-ray tomography using non-stationary Gaussian Processes

In this study, a Bayesian based non-stationary Gaussian Process (GP) method for the inference of soft X-ray emissivity distribution along with its associated uncertainties has been developed. For the investigation of equilibrium condition and fast magnetohydrodynamic behaviors in nuclear fusion plasmas, it is of importance to infer, especially in the plasma center, spatially resolved soft X-ray profiles from a limited number of noisy line integral measurements. For this ill-posed inversion problem, Bayesian probability theory can provide a posterior probability distribution over all possible solutions under given model assumptions. Specifically, the use of a non-stationary GP to model the emission allows the model to adapt to the varying length scales of the underlying diffusion process. In contrast to other conventional methods, the prior regularization is realized in a probability form which enhances the capability of uncertainty analysis, in consequence, scientists who concern the reliability of their results will benefit from it. Under the assumption of normally distributed noise, the posterior distribution evaluated at a discrete number of points becomes a multivariate normal distribution whose mean and covariance are analytically available, making inversions and calculation of uncertainty fast. Additionally, the hyper-parameters embedded in the model assumption can be optimized through a Bayesian Occam's Razor formalism and thereby automatically adjust the model complexity. This method is shown to produce convincing reconstructions and good agreements with independently calculated results from the Maximum Entropy and Equilibrium-Based Iterative Tomography Algorithm methods.