The pathogenic role of antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL) in the development of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in patients with malignancies has not been established. From May 2006 to April 2008, 258 consecutive patients with solid-organ malignancies who developed VTE (VTE+) were recruited. A group of 142 patients matched for age, sex and tumor type cancer patients without VTE (VTE-) and an age-an...

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are cells that drive tumorigenesis, as well as giving rise to a large population of differentiated progeny that make up the bulk of the tumor, but that lack tumorigenic potential. CSCs have been identified in a variety of human tumors, as assayed by their ability to initiate tumor growth in immunocompromised mice. Further characterization studies have demonstrated that ...

Solid organ transplantation provides lifesaving therapy for patients with end-organ disease. The Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR) report announced that 17,654 kidney, 6455 liver, 1946 lung, 2554 heart, and 109 intestinal transplants were performed in 2013, superseding the number of transplants from prior years (1). It also reports continual improvement in death-censored graft...

The presence of growth-induced solid stresses in tumors has been suspected for some time, but these stresses were largely estimated using mathematical models. Solid stresses can deform the surrounding tissues and compress intratumoral lymphatic and blood vessels. Compression of lymphatic vessels elevates interstitial fluid pressure, whereas compression of blood vessels reduces blood flow. Reduc...

The stress harbored by the solid phase of tumors is known as solid stress. Solid stress can be either applied externally by the surrounding normal tissue or induced by the tumor itself due to its growth. Fluid pressure is the isotropic stress exerted by the fluid phase. We recently showed that growth-induced solid stress is on the order of 1.3 to 13.0 kPa (10–100 mmHg) – high enough to cause co...

The epidemiology of genitourinary cancer varies depend on the organ. Prostate cancer is the most common solid neoplasm in males (15%) and renal cell neoplasm involves since 3% of all adult cancers. Urothelial carcinomas are the fourth most common tumors, after prostate, breast (females), lung and colorectal cancer. In particular, bladder cancer is the 9th most common cancer diagnosis worldwide....

Specific delivery of therapeutic agents to solid tumors and their bioavailability at the target site are the most clinically important and challenging goals in cancer therapy. Liposomes are promising nanocarriers and have been well investigated for cancer therapy. In spite of preferred accumulation in tumors via the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect, inefficient drug release at t...

Childhood cancer is the leading cause of death by disease among U.S. children between infancy and age 15. Despite successes in treating solid tumors such as Wilms tumor, disappointments in the outcomes of high-risk solid tumors like neuroblastoma have precipitated efforts towards the early and accurate detection of these malignancies. This review summarizes available solid tumor serum biomarker...

The direct synthesis of methacrylic-based soft polymeric nanoparticles via reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer dispersion polymerization (RAFTDP) is described. The use of poly[2-(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate]s, of varying average degree of polymerization (X¯n), as the stabilizing blocks for the RAFTDP of 3-phenylpropyl methacrylate (PPMA) in ethanol at 70 °C, at various total s...

OBJECTIVE Collecting unnecessary data when assessing quality of care wastes valuable resources. We evaluated three approaches for estimating quality-measure adherence and determined minimum visit data required to achieve accurate estimates. DESIGN We abstracted medical records for calculating physician-level pain screening rates as: visit-specific, using single-visit data for each patient; vi...