Damsgaard Duus (yarnslice03)

A combination of doxorubicin (DOX) and small interfering RNA (siRNA) is proven effective for the reverse of multidrug resistance. However, rapid degradation and poor cellular internalization of siRNA hinder their synergistic action. To improve the combination effect, asparagine-glycine-arginine peptide (NGR) -modified nanobubbles (NBs) containing cell-penetrating peptide (CPP) decorated DOX and CPP decorated c-myc siRNA were constructed. Diameters of these NBs were about 245 nm and zeta potentials were about -3 mV. Encapsulation efficiencies (EE) of DOX exceeded 80%. Release of DOX could be triggered by ultrasound (US) since above 80% DOX was released from NBs after sonication while less than 5% DOX was discharged without treatment of US. These NBs were considered stable during 24 h since the decrease of particle size was no more than 10 nm, variances of EE were less than 5%, and changes of transmission (ΔT) were less than 3%. More drugs in formulation decorated with CPP and NGR were accumulated in the tumor when combined with sonication. The evident synergistic action of DOX, siRNA, NBs, and US was verified in mice with strong antitumor efficacy. Taken together, NGR-modified NBs containing CPP-DOX and CPP-siRNA are able to realize time- and spatial-controlled drug delivery and show potential application prospects.In the literature, various algorithms have been proposed for automatically extracting blood vessels from retinal images. In general, they are developed and evaluated using several publicly available datasets such as the DRIVE and STARE datasets. For performance evaluation, several metrics such as Sensitivity, Specificity, and Accuracy have been widely used. However, not all methods in the literature have been fairly evaluated and compared among their counterparts. In particular, for some publicly available algorithms, the performance is measured only for the area inside the field of view (FOV) of each retinal image while the rest use the complete image for the performance evaluation. Therefore, performing a comparison of the performance of methods in the latter group with those in the former group may lead to a misleading justification. This study aims to assess fairness in the performance evaluation of various publicly available retinal blood vessel segmentation algorithms. The conducted study allows getting several meaningful results (i) a guideline to assess fairness in performance evaluation of retinal vessel segmentation algorithms, (ii) a more proper performance comparison of retinal vessel segmentation algorithms in the literature, and (iii) a suggestion regarding the use of performance evaluation metrics that will not lead to misleading comparison and justification.Objective Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients who experience brain metastases are usually associated with poor prognostic outcomes. Whole-brain radiotherapy (WBRT) is one of the standard treatment strategies for NSCLC. It is interesting to combine angiogenesis inhibitors such as bevacizumab with radiation therapy. This study aimed to explore the efficacy and safety of stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) with WBRT combined with bevacizumab in the treatment of brain metastases.Methods A total of 21 patients with brain metastases from NSCLC were treated with bevacizumab and WBRT-SRS, while 28 patients were treated with WBRT-SRS only. The bevacizumab average dose was 5-7.5 mg/kg, approximately 2 cycles during radiotherapy. Tumor responses were evaluated every 3 months based on Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors version 1.1.Results The median follow-up time was 13.5 months (range 2.7-88.4 months). The ORR and DCR of patients who received WBRT-SRS with or without bevacizumab were similar (P = 0.458, P = 0.382). OS（42.63 years VS 25.23 years, P = 0.02）and LPFS （39.53 years VS 23 years, P = 0.047）were better in WBRT-SRS with bevacizumab groups. After radiotherapy and 3 months after radiotherapy, the volume of peritumoral edema was significa