high predictivity, despite missing data. ( http://www.clinicaltrials.gov , NCT01117441, first submitted date May 3, 2010).

Use of parenteral amikacin to treat refractory nontuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) lung disease is limited by systemic toxicity. A population pharmacokinetic model was developed using data pooled from two randomized trials to evaluate the pharmacokinetic properties of once-daily amikacin liposome inhalation suspension (ALIS) in patients with treatment-refractory NTM lung disease.

In phase 2 (TR02-112) and phase 3 (CONVERT) studies, patients with sputum cultures positive for Mycobacterium avium complex (both studies) or M. abscessus (TR02-112) despite ≥ 6 months of guideline-based therapy were treated with once-daily ALIS 590 mg.

Fifty-three patients (28 Japanese; 25 White) were assessed. At baseline and ≈ 6 months after daily dosing, median maximum concentration (C

) was < 2 mg/L and median area under the concentration-time curve (AUC

) was <20 mg·h/L, suggesting low systemic exposure at both time points. Exposure estimates were similar between Japanese and White patients. The median unchanged amikacin fraction excreted in urine was <10% of inhaled dose throughout the TR02-112 study, indicating that relatively small amounts reached systemic circulation. Median t

was 5.5 h. Amikacin concentrations were much higher in sputum than in serum, demonstrating the ability to achieve higher drug concentration at the site of infection. Median sputum amikacin concentrations in the CONVERT study were high at 1-4 h postdose (range 242-426 μg/g) and decreased by 8 h (median 7 μg/g).

Systemic exposure to amikacin in serum and urine following once-daily ALIS administration in patients with treatment-refractory NTM lung disease was notably lower than that previously reported for parenteral amikacin.

ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01315236 (registered March 15, 2011) and NCT02344004 (registered January 22, 2015).

ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01315236 (registered March 15, 2011) and NCT02344004 (registered January 22, 2015).Classification of Homo sapiens gene behavior employing computational biology is a recent research trend. But monitoring gene activity profile and genetic behavior from the alphabetic DNA sequence using a non-invasive method is a tremendous challenge in functional genomics. The present paper addresses such issue and attempts to differentiate Homo sapiens genes using linear discriminant analysis (LDA) method. Annotated protein coding sequences of Homo sapiens genes, collected from NCBI, are taken as test samples. Minimum entropy-based mapping (MEM) technique assists to extract highest information from the numerical DNA sequences. The proposed LDA technique has successfully classified Homo sapiens genes based on the following features composition of hydrophilic amino acids, dominance of arginine amino acid, and magnitude and size of individual amino acids. The proposed algorithm is successfully tested on 84 Homo sapiens healthy and cancer genes of the prostate and breast cells. Classification performance of the proposed LDA technique is judged by sensitivity (89.12%), specificity (91.9%), accuracy (90.87%), F1 score (92.03%), Matthews’ correlation coefficients (81.04%), and miss rate (9.12%), and it outperforms other four existing classifiers. The results are cross-validated through Rayleigh PDF and mutual information technique. Fisher test, 2-sample T-test, and relative entropy test are considered to verify the efficacy of the present classifier.Obesity is commonly associated with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and is a significant cause of chronic liver disease and cirrhosis. Some patients undergoing bariatric surgery suffer from cirrhosis of the liver. Currently, there is a lack of consensus on the management of these patients and the safety and efficacy of bariatric surgery in this group. This review aims to update our previously published systematic review on the same topic. A total of 21 studies reporting experience on patients with cirrhosis undergoing bariatric surgery were included. Sleeve gastrectomy was the most common surgery performed, followed by Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. The results show that bariatric surgery may be feasible in carefully selected patients with obesity and cirrhosis although they have slightly higher morbidity and mortality rates.

To compare texture feature estimates obtained from

F-FDG-PET images using three different software packages.

PET images from 15 patients with head and neck cancer were processed with three different freeware software CGITA, LIFEx, and Metavol. For each lesion, 38 texture features were extracted from each software package. To evaluate the statistical agreement among the features across packages a non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test was used. Differences in the features between each couple of software were assessed using a subsequent Dunn test. Correlation between texture features was evaluated via the Spearman coefficient.

Twenty-three of 38 features showed a significant agreement across the three software (P < 0.05). The agreement was better between LIFEx vs. Metavol (36 of 38) and worse between CGITA and Metavol (24 of 38), and CGITA vs. LIFEx (23 of 38). All features resulted correlated (ρ >  = 0.70, P < 0.001) in comparing LIFEx vs. Metavol. Seven of 38 features were found not in agreement and slightly or not correlated (ρ < 0.70, P < 0.001) in comparing CGITA vs. LIFEx, and CGITA vs. CCT245737 inhibitor Metavol.

Some texture discrepancies across software packages exist. Our findings reinforce the need to continue the standardization process, and to succeed in building a reference dataset to be used for comparisons.

Some texture discrepancies across software packages exist. Our findings reinforce the need to continue the standardization process, and to succeed in building a reference dataset to be used for comparisons.Heart failure (HF) is the only cardiovascular disease with an ever increasing incidence. HF, through reduced functional capacity, frequent exacerbations of disease, and repeated hospitalizations, results in poorer quality of life, decreased work productivity, and significantly increased costs of the public health system. The main challenge in the treatment of HF is the availability of reliable prognostic models that would allow patients and doctors to develop realistic expectations about the prognosis and to choose the appropriate therapy and monitoring method. At this moment, there is a lack of universal parameters or scales on the basis of which we could easily capture the moment of deterioration of HF patients’ condition. Hence, it is crucial to identify such factors which at the same time will be widely available, cheap, and easy to use. We can find many studies showing different predictors of unfavorable outcome in HF patients thorough assessment with echocardiography imaging, exercise testing (e.g., 6-min walk test, cardiopulmonary exercise testing), and biomarkers (e.