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- Boehmer, John P, et al.
(författare)
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Adjudication of mortality events in a heart failure-arrhythmia trial by a multiparameter descriptive method: comparison with methods used in heart failure trials and methods used in arrhythmia trials.
- 2008
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Ingår i: Journal of interventional cardiac electrophysiology : an international journal of arrhythmias and pacing. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1383-875X. ; 23:2, s. 101-10
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- INTRODUCTION: Mortality events in studies of cardiovascular disease are currently adjudicated using different methodologies depending on the investigators' preferences. Traditionally, deaths have been categorized by a single term, such as sudden, ischemic, or pump failure, a method that can be referred to as "categorical". In contrast, deaths may be categorized using several specific pieces of information about the event, a method that can be referred to as "multiparameter descriptive." Herein, we describe an adaptation of this descriptive method in a trial of patients with heart failure and arrhythmias. METHODS AND RESULTS: Case examples were selected from two clinical trials of an investigational implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD)-biventricular pacing system in patients with symptomatic heart failure and a class I indication for ICD implantation, and the complete results for one of the trials are given. Deaths were classified according to the new descriptive method, and also according to published categorical methods for heart failure and arrhythmia trials. The descriptive method preserved traditional arrhythmia and heart failure trial single category classifications of death. Furthermore, there was agreement between the arrhythmia and heart failure category classifications in 126 of the 148 of the mortality events adjudicated (85%). CONCLUSION: A descriptive method for the classification of death retains more data and allows for comparison among trials using different classification schemes. This may allow greater mechanistic insight into study populations that have diverse and frequently multiple etiologies of death.
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- Brennan, Donal J, et al.
(författare)
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Altered cytoplasmic-to-nuclear ratio of survivin is a prognostic indicator in breast cancer
- 2008
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Ingår i: Clinical Cancer Research. - 1078-0432. ; 14:9, s. 2681-2689
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose: Survivin (BIRC5) is a promising tumor biomarker. Conflicting data exist on its prognostic effect in breast cancer. These data may at least be partly due to the manual interpretation of immunohistochemical staining, especially as survivin can be located in both the nucleus and cytoplasm. Quantitative determination of survivin expression using image analysis offers the opportunity to develop alternative scoring models for survivin immunohistochemistry. Here, we present such a model. Experimental Design: A breast cancer tissue microarray containing 102 tumors was stained with an anti-survivin antibody. Whole-slide scanning was used to capture high-resolution images. These images were analyzed using automated algorithms to quantify the staining. Results: Increased nuclear, but not cytoplasmic, survivin was associated with a reduced overall survival (OS; P = 0.038) and disease-specific survival (P = 0.0015). A high cytoplasmicto-nuclear ratio (CNR) of survivin was associated with improved OS (P = 0.005) and disease-specific survival (P = 0.05). Multivariate analysis revealed that the survivin CNR was an independent predictor of CIS (hazard ratio, 0.09; 95% confidence interval, 0.01-0.76; P = 0.027). A survivin CNR of >5 correlated positively with estrogen receptor (P = 0.019) and progesterone receptor (P = 0.033) levels, whereas it was negatively associated with Ki-67 expression (P = 0.04), p53 status (P = 0.005), and c-myc amplification (P = 0.016). Conclusion: Different prognostic information is supplied by nuclear and cytoplasmic survivin in breast cancer. Nuclear survivin is a poor prognostic marker in breast cancer. Moreover, CNR of survivin, as determined by image analysis, is an independent prognostic factor.
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- O'Brien, Sallyarm L., et al.
(författare)
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CENP-F expression is associated with poor prognosis and chromosomal instability in patients with primary breast cancer
- 2007
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Ingår i: International Journal of Cancer. - : Wiley. - 0020-7136. ; 120:7, s. 1434-1443
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- DNA microarrays have the potential to classify tumors according to their transcriptome. Tissue microarrays (TMAs) facilitate the validation of biomarkers by offering a high-throughput approach to sample analysis. We reanalyzed a high profile breast cancer DNA microarray dataset containing 96 tumor samples using a powerful statistical approach, between group analyses. Among the genes we identified was centromere protein-F (CENP-F), a gene associated with poor prognosis. In a published follow-up breast cancer DNA microarray study, comprising 295 tumour samples, we found that CENP-F upregulation was significantly associated with worse overall survival (p < 0.001) and reduced metastasis-free survival (p < 0.001). To validate and expand upon these findings, we used 2 independent breast cancer patient cohorts represented on TMAs. CENP-F protein expression was evaluated by immunohistochemistry in 91 primary breast cancer samples from cohort I and 289 samples from cohort II. CENP-F correlated with markers of aggressive tumor behavior including ER negativity and high tumor grade. In cohort I, CENP-F was significantly associated with markers of CIN including cyclin E, increased telomerase activity, c-Myc amplification and aneuploidy. In cohort II CENP-F correlated with VEGFR2, phosphorylated Ets-2 and Ki67, and in multivariate analysis, was an independent predictor of worse breast cancer-specific survival (p = 0.036) and overall survival (p = 0.040). In conclusion, we identified CENP-F as a biomarker associated with poor outcome in breast cancer and showed several novel associations of biological significance. (c) 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
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- Sankaran, M, et al.
(författare)
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Determinants of woody cover in African savannas
- 2005
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 438:7069, s. 846-849
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Savannas are globally important ecosystems of great significance to human economies. In these biomes, which are characterized by the co-dominance of trees and grasses, woody cover is a chief determinant of ecosystem properties(1-3). The availability of resources ( water, nutrients) and disturbance regimes ( fire, herbivory) are thought to be important in regulating woody cover(1,2,4,5), but perceptions differ on which of these are the primary drivers of savanna structure. Here we show, using data from 854 sites across Africa, that maximum woody cover in savannas receiving a mean annual precipitation (MAP) of less than similar to 650 mm is constrained by, and increases linearly with, MAP. These arid and semi-arid savannas may be considered 'stable' systems in which water constrains woody cover and permits grasses to coexist, while fire, herbivory and soil properties interact to reduce woody cover below the MAP-controlled upper bound. Above a MAP of similar to 650 mm, savannas are 'unstable' systems in which MAP is sufficient for woody canopy closure, and disturbances ( fire, herbivory) are required for the coexistence of trees and grass. These results provide insights into the nature of African savannas and suggest that future changes in precipitation(6) may considerably affect their distribution and dynamics.
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- Zhao, Hongjuan, et al.
(författare)
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Alteration of gene expression signatures of cortical differentiation and wound response in lethal clear cell renal cell carcinomas.
- 2009
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Ingår i: PloS one. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 4:6, s. e6039-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is the most common malignancy of the adult kidney and displays heterogeneity in clinical outcomes. Through comprehensive gene expression profiling, we have identified previously a set of transcripts that predict survival following nephrectomy independent of tumor stage, grade, and performance status. These transcripts, designated as the SPC (supervised principal components) gene set, show no apparent biological or genetic features that provide insight into renal carcinogenesis or tumor progression. We explored the relationship of this gene list to a set of genes expressed in different anatomical segments of the normal kidney including the cortex (cortex gene set) and the glomerulus (glomerulus gene set), and a gene set expressed after serum stimulation of quiescent fibroblasts (the core serum response or CSR gene set). Interestingly, the normal cortex, glomerulus (part of the normal renal cortex), and CSR gene sets captured more than 1/5 of the genes in the highly prognostic SPC gene set. Based on gene expression patterns alone, the SPC gene set could be used to sort samples from normal adult kidneys by the anatomical regions from which they were dissected. Tumors whose gene expression profiles most resembled the normal renal cortex or glomerulus showed better survival than those that did not, and those with expression features more similar to CSR showed poorer survival. While the cortex, glomerulus, and CSR signatures predicted survival independent of traditional clinical parameters, they were not independent of the SPC gene list. Our findings suggest that critical biological features of lethal ccRCC include loss of normal cortical differentiation and activation of programs associated with wound healing.
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