Synchronous gastric and duodenal metastases from head and neck squamous cell carcinoma: a unique presentation of upper gastrointestinal bleeding.

Metastatic disease to the stomach or duodenum is an infrequent diagnosis, and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is one of the least common primary malignancies that lead to gastric or duodenal metastases. We report the case of a 65-year-old man with human immunodeficiency virus infection and previously diagnosed HNSCC who presented with melena. The patient had a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tube placed 3 months prior to his presentation. Laboratory testing was significant for normocytic anemia and a digital rectal examination was positive for melena. Esophagogastroduodenoscopy revealed numerous cratered nodules with contact bleeding in the stomach as well as the duodenum that appeared malignant. Biopsies of the gastric and duodenal nodules were positive for p40 and CK 5/6, consistent with metastatic squamous cell carcinoma

Metastatic Uveal Malignant Melanoma: A Case Report

Case Report A 77-year-old woman presented with a chief complaint of one day history of severe, acute abdominal pain. The patient described the pain as intense, non-radiating, and located primarily in the left upper abdominal quadrant.The pain was associated with nausea and multiple episodes of non-bilious, non-bloody emesis. She denied melena and hematochezia. On physical examination, her abdomen was soft and exquisitely tender in the left upper quadrant and epigastric regions. Aside from trace lower extremity edema.the remainder of her physical examination was unremarkable. Laboratory results at the time of admission were notable for:hemoglobin 10.8 g/dL, alkaline phosphatase 459 U/L, aspartate transaminase 56 U/L, and alanine transaminase 66 U/L. The patient\u27s past medical history was significant for hypertension, gastroesophageal reflux disease, papillary thyroid carcinoma. and right eye uveal melanoma. The ocular melanoma was treated 16 years ago with radioactive plaque followed by transpupillary thermal therapy. The patient was diagnosed with metastatic disease to her liver approximately 6 years prior and she had received several rounds of hepatic radiation and chemotherapeutic embolizations. The patient\u27s oncologist closely monitored her for disease progression through regular abdominal imaging studies

Clumped isotope evidence for episodic, rapid flow of fluids in a mineralized fault system in the Peak District, UK

We have used clumped isotope thermometry to study a fault-hosted hydrothermal calcite vein associated with the Mississippi Valley Type (MVT) mineralization on the Derbyshire Platform in the southern Pennines, UK. This is the first published dataset obtained using a new mass spectrometer, MIRA, optimized for clumped isotope analysis and an associated clumped isotope-temperature calibration. We analysed multiple generations of vein growth at high spatial resolution in two transects across the vein. The vein grew episodically at temperatures between 40 and 100°C. We interpret each episode of growth as being associated with an increasing flux of formation waters from deep sedimentary basins next to the mineralized platform and an accompanying increase in the precipitation temperatures. Heat is conserved in the fluid as it ascends along the fault surface and, thus, flow must have been fast and restricted to short-lived pulses. The flux could have been driven by high pore pressures associated with rapid sedimentation, hydrocarbon generation and diagenesis in the basinal facies of the Visean Bowland-Hodder group. Natural hydraulic fracturing of shale units and failure of capillary seals, possibly triggered by uplift, allowed the release of fluids into aquifers within the sediment pile. The transmission of high pore fluid pressures from the shales to the fault zone, aided by the compressibility of the gas phase in two-phase pore fluids, may have resulted in fault rupture, accompanied by enhanced fracture permeability and rapid fluid flow. Vein growth ceased as pore pressures dissipated. Such behaviour is closely related to a seismic valve type model for mineralization

Simple measures of climate, soil properties and plant traits predict national scale grassland soil carbon stocks

1. Soil carbon (C) storage is a key ecosystem service. Soil C stocks play a vital role in soil fertility and climate regulation, but the factors that control these stocks at regional and national scales are unknown, particularly when their composition and stability are considered. As a result, their mapping relies on either unreliable proxy measures or laborious direct measurements. 2. Using data from an extensive national survey of English grasslands we show that surface soil (0-7cm) C stocks in size fractions of varying stability can be predicted at both regional and national scales from plant traits and simple measures of soil and climatic conditions. 3. Soil C stocks in the largest pool, of intermediate particle size (50-250 µm), were best explained by mean annual temperature (MAT), soil pH and soil moisture content. The second largest C pool, highly stable physically and biochemically protected particles (0.45-50 µm), was explained by soil pH and the community abundance weighted mean (CWM) leaf nitrogen (N) content, with the highest soil C stocks under N rich vegetation. The C stock in the small active fraction (250-4000 µm) was explained by a wide range of variables: MAT, mean annual precipitation, mean growing season length, soil pH and CWM specific leaf area; stocks were higher under vegetation with thick and/or dense leaves. 4. Testing the models describing these fractions against data from an independent English region indicated moderately strong correlation between predicted and actual values and no systematic bias, with the exception of the active fraction, for which predictions were inaccurate. 5. Synthesis and Applications: Validation indicates that readily available climate, soils and plant survey data can be effective in making local- to landscape-scale (1-100,000 km2) soil C stock predictions. Such predictions are a crucial component of effective management strategies to protect C stocks and enhance soil C sequestration

Deep learning segmentation of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) patient derived tumor xenograft (PDX) and sensitivity of radiomic pipeline to tumor probability boundary

Preclinical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a critical component in a co-clinical research pipeline. Importantly, segmentation of tumors in MRI is a necessary step in tumor phenotyping and assessment of response to therapy. However, manual segmentation is time-intensive and suffers from inter- and intra- observer variability and lack of reproducibility. This study aimed to develop an automated pipeline for accurate localization and delineation of TNBC PDX tumors from preclinical T1w and T2w MR images using a deep learning (DL) algorithm and to assess the sensitivity of radiomic features to tumor boundaries. We tested five network architectures including U-Net, dense U-Net, Res-Net, recurrent residual UNet (R2UNet), and dense R2U-Net (D-R2UNet), which were compared against manual delineation by experts. To mitigate bias among multiple experts, the simultaneous truth and performance level estimation (STAPLE) algorithm was applied to create consensus maps. Performance metrics (F1-Score, recall, precision, and AUC) were used to assess the performance of the networks. Multi-contrast D-R2UNet performed best with F1-score = 0.948; however, all networks scored within 1-3% of each other. Radiomic features extracted from D-R2UNet were highly corelated to STAPLE-derived features with 67.13% of T1w and 53.15% of T2w exhibiting correlation ρ ≥ 0.9

Measurement of proton, deuteron, triton, and α particle emission after nuclear muon capture on Al, Si, and Ti with the AlCap experiment

Background: Heavy charged particles after nuclear muon capture are an important nuclear physics background to the muon-To-electron conversion experiments Mu2e and COMET, which will search for charged lepton flavor violation at an unprecedented level of sensitivity. Purpose: The AlCap experiment aimed to measure the yield and energy spectra of protons, deuterons, tritons, and α particles emitted after the nuclear capture of muons stopped in Al, Si, and Ti in the low-energy range relevant for the muon-To-electron conversion experiments. Methods: Individual charged particle types were identified in layered silicon detector packages and their initial energy distributions were unfolded from the observed energy spectra. Results: The proton yields per muon capture were determined as Yp(Al)=26.64(28stat.)(77syst.)×10-3 and Yp(Ti)=26.48(35)(80)×10-3 in the energy range 3.5-20.0 MeV, and as Yp(Si)=52.5(6)(18)×10-3 in the energy range 4.0-20.0 MeV. Detailed information on yields and energy spectra for all observed nuclei are presented in the paper. Conclusions: The yields in the candidate muon stopping targets, Al and Ti, are approximately half of that in Si, which was used in the past to estimate this background. The reduced background allows for less shielding and a better energy resolution in these experiments. It is anticipated that the comprehensive information presented in this paper will stimulate modern theoretical calculations of the rare process of muon capture with charged particle emission and inform the design of future muon-To-electron conversion experiments.</p