Quality assessments of untreated and washed quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa) seeds based on histlogical and foaming capacity investigations

Quinoa seed has a high nutritional value, but has a coating of bitter-tasting saponins, making it unpalatable. Therefore the seeds are usually processed in order to remove the naturally occurring saponins from the seeds. To investigate the impact of processing, untreated and washed seeds of the white and brown types of quinoa were investigated histologically and by foaming capacity evaluations. Reference samples of known origin and treatment were investigated as well as unknown samples. The results revealed a relationship between the presence of saponin containing papillose cells at the outermost layer of the seed hull in the histological sections and the foaming capacity of the seeds. After washing, the papillose cells were severely damaged or completely removed and virtually no foam formation was observed. This investigation indicatedthat washing resulted in an effective removal of the saponin layer, leading to quality improvement of the seeds intended for human and animal consumption. The same features were observed for the unknown samples. These results imply that the treatment of the investigated samples was based on washing. The determination of the type of treatment applied provided useful information for the correct tax classification for Custom purposes

Amyloid imaging in prodromal Alzheimer's disease

Patients with mild cognitive impairment are at an increased risk of progression to Alzheimer's disease. However, not all patients with mild cognitive impairment progress, and it is difficult to accurately identify those patients who are in the prodromal stage of Alzheimer's disease. In a recent paper, Koivunen and colleagues report that Pittsburgh compound-B, an amyloid-beta positron emission tomography ligand, predicts the progression of patients with mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer's disease. Of 29 subjects with mild cognitive impairment, 21 (72%) had a positive Pittsburgh compound-B positron emission tomography baseline scan. In their study, 15 of these 21 (71%) patients progressed to Alzheimer's disease, whilst only 1 out of 8 (12.5%) Pittsburgh compound-B-negative patients with mild cognitive impairment did so. Moreover, in these mild cognitive impairment patients, the overall amyloid burden increased approximately 2.5% during the follow-up period. This is consistent with other longitudinal amyloid imaging studies that found a similar increase in amyloid deposition over time in patients with mild cognitive impairment. These studies together challenge current theories that propose a flattening of the increase of brain amyloid deposition already in the preclinical stage of Alzheimer's disease. These findings may have important implications for the design of future clinical trials aimed at preventing progression to Alzheimer's disease by lowering the brain amyloid-beta burden in patients with mild cognitive impairment

The costs of peripheral blood progenitor cell reinfusion mobilised by granulocyte colony-stimulating factor following high dose melphalan as compared with conventional therapy in multiple myeloma

In a retrospective study, we calculated the treatment costs of 26 patients, who received either high dose melphalan combined with granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF; filgrastim)(n=7) or without G-CSF (n=11) or alternatively, peripheral blood progenitor cell reinfusion (PBPC) mobilised by G-CSF following high dose melphalan. In comparison with the control group, a shortening of the pancytopenic period and platelet recovery was noticed in the PBPC group. This resulted in a reduction in hospital costs, diagnostics, laboratory services, total parenteral nutrition and transfusions. The average costs per treatment in the PBPC group amounted to about US$179 08 as compared to US$ 32 223 in the control group, implying a cost reduction of 44% when changing to PBPC reinfusion

Health related quality of life in patients with multiple myeloma undergoing a double transplantation

Objectives: To investigate the subjective well-being of patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma who were treated in a tandem transplantation programme. Methods: Fifty-one patients participated in the prospective, longitudinal questionnaire study. The EORTC QLQ-C30 and the EuroQol-5D were administered 2 wk after completion of vincristine, adriamycin and dexamethason/vincristine, adriamycin and methyl prednison (VAD/VAMP) chemotherapy, both at hospital discharge after treatment with high-dose melphalan (HDM) and 1 month after this hospital discharge, at hospital admission, at the day of hospital discharge for peripheral stem cell transplantation (PSCT) and at 6 and 12 months following discharge after PSCT. Results: Overall, patients' functioning improved during treatment and follow-up, with significant decreases shortly following PSCT. Shortly after HDM and PSCT, patients reported a considerable increase in levels of soreness in the mouth (+ 26/ + 36 points on a scale ranging form 0 to 100; P < 0.01), change of taste (+ 23/ + 21 points; P < 0.05/ NS), nausea/vomiting (+ 26

Value of infliximab (Remicade) in patients with low-risk myelodysplastic syndrome. Final results of a randomized phase II trial (EORTC trial 06023) of the EORTC Leukemia Group

peer reviewedTumor-necrosis factor alpha activity has been correlated to ineffective erythropoiesis in lower risk myelodysplastic syndromes. Infliximab (Remicade) is an anti-tumor-necrosis factor alpha chimeric antibody that is used in the treatment of patients with heumatoid arthritis or Crohn's disease. Forty-six patients with myelodysplastic syndromes and a relatively low risk of developing acute leukemia were included in a randomized phase II study assessing the therapeutic activity of two dosages of infliximab administration (3 mg/kg versus 5 mg/kg). The primary endpoint was the response rate. Responses were observed in 3 of 22 patients (13.1%) randomized to the 3 mg/kg arm, versus 0 of 21 patients randomized in the 5 mg/kg arm. According to the statistical design of the current study, neither of the two infliximab dose schedules tested showed sufficient activity as a single agent in this cohort of unselected patients with early myelodysplastic syndrome

High INDO (indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase) mRNA level in blasts of acute myeloid leukemic patients predicts poor clinical outcome

Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase degrades the amino acid tryptophan which is essential for T cells. Tryptophan depletion causes T-cell cycle arrest and solid tumors that express high levels of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase can create immune suppression. Recently, blasts of patients with acute myeloid leukemia were shown to express indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase. We determined INDO (encoding gene for indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase) mRNA expression in leukemic blasts of 286 patients with acute myeloid leukemia by gene-expression profiling. Results were validated by quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis in blasts of an independent cohort of 71 patients. High INDO expression was correlated to significantly shortened overall and relapse-free survival. Correlation of INDO expression to relevant known prognostic factors and survival identified high INDO expression as a strong negative independent predicting variable for overall and relapse-free survival. Inhibition of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase expressed by myeloid leukemic blasts may result in breaking immune tolerance and offers new therapeutic options for patients with acute myeloid leukemia

High INDO (indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase) mRNA level in blasts of acute myeloid leukemic patients predicts poor clinical outcome

Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase degrades the amino acid tryptophan which is essential for T cells. Tryptophan depletion causes T-cell cycle arrest and solid tumors that express high levels of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase can create immune suppression. Recently, blasts of patients with acute myeloid leukemia were shown to express indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase. We determined INDO (encoding gene for indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase) mRNA expression in leukemic blasts of 286 patients with acute myeloid leukemia by gene-expression profiling. Results were validated by quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis in blasts of an independent cohort of 71 patients. High INDO expression was correlated to significantly shortened overall and relapse-free survival. Correlation of INDO expression to relevant known prognostic factors and survival identified high INDO expression as a strong negative independent predicting variable for overall and relapse-free survival. Inhibition of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase expressed by myeloid leukemic blasts may result in breaking immune tolerance and offers new therapeutic options for patients with acute myeloid leukemia

Application of Machine Learning to Arterial Spin Labeling in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer Disease

PURPOSE: To investigate whether multivariate pattern recognition analysis of arterial spin labeling (ASL) perfusion maps can be used for classification and single-subject prediction of patients with Alzheimer disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and subjects with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) after using the W score method to remove confounding effects of sex and age. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Pseudocontinuous 3.0-T ASL images were acquired in 100 patients with probable AD; 60 patients with MCI, of whom 12 remained stable, 12 were converted to a diagnosis of AD, and 36 had no follow-up; 100 subjects with SCD; and 26 healthy control subjects. The AD, MCI, and SCD groups were divided into a sex- and age-matched training set (n = 130) and an independent prediction set (n = 130). Standardized perfusion scores adjusted for age and sex (W scores) were computed per voxel for each participant. Training of a support vector machine classifier was performed with diagnostic status and perfusion maps. Discrimination maps were extracted and used for single-subject classification in the prediction set. Prediction performance was assessed with receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis to generate an area under the ROC curve (AUC) and sensitivity and specificity distribution. RESULTS: Single-subject diagnosis in the prediction set by using the discrimination maps yielded excellent performance for AD versus SCD (AUC, 0.96; P .05). CONCLUSION: With automated methods, age- and sex-adjusted ASL perfusion maps can be used to classify and predict diagnosis of AD, conversion of MCI to AD, stable MCI, and SCD with good to excellent accuracy and AUC values

Comparison of prefrontal atrophy and episodic memory performance in dysexecutive Alzheimer’s disease and behavioural-variant frontotemporal dementia

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) sometimes presents with prominent executive dysfunction and associated prefrontal cortex atrophy. The impact of such executive deficits on episodic memory performance as well as their neural correlates in AD, however, remains unclear. The aim of the current study was to investigate episodic memory and brain atrophy in AD patients with relatively spared executive functioning (SEF-AD; n = 12) and AD patients with relatively impaired executive functioning (IEF-AD; n = 23). We also compared the AD subgroups with a group of behavioral-variant frontotemporal dementia patients (bvFTD; n = 22), who typically exhibit significant executive deficits, and age-matched healthy controls (n = 38). On cognitive testing, the three patient groups showed comparable memory profiles on standard episodic memory tests, with significant impairment relative to controls. Voxel-based morphometry analyses revealed extensive prefrontal and medial temporal lobe atrophy in IEF-AD and bvFTD, whereas this was limited to the middle frontal gyrus and hippocampus in SEF-AD. Moreover, the additional prefrontal atrophy in IEF-AD and bvFTD correlated with memory performance, whereas this was not the case for SEF-AD. These findings indicate that IEF-AD patients show prefrontal atrophy in regions similar to bvFTD, and suggest that this contributes to episodic memory performance. This has implications for the differential diagnosis of bvFTD and subtypes of AD