scholarly journals Single-institution experience with selective internal radiation therapy for the treatment of primary and secondary hepatic tumors

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kabalan Yammine ◽  
Francois G. Kamar ◽  
Jason Nasser ◽  
Claude Tayar ◽  
Marwan Ghosn ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Numerous studies have demonstrated that radioembolization of the liver with yttrium-90 microspheres provides a survival advantage for patients with unresectable primary or secondary tumors of the liver. The goal of this study was to provide results of the real-world experience of a single center in Lebanon with the use of radioembolization to treat liver-only or liver-dominant tumors. Methods Patients were included in this retrospective review if they were evaluated for radioembolization between January 2015 and June 2017 and had a lung shunt fraction of 20% or less. Tumor responses were determined using the Response Evaluation Criteria In Solid Tumors. Results Of the 23 patients treated with radioembolization, 8 had hepatocellular carcinoma, 4 had cholangiocellular carcinoma, and 11 had liver-only or liver-dominant metastases from other primary cancers. All were Middle Eastern, with a median age of 64 years (range 36-87 years), and 14 were men. A majority (n=19) had an initial tumor volume of 49% or less. Most (n=17) had multifocal lesions, and 8 had a history of branched or main portal vein thrombosis. Eighteen patients required arterial coil occlusion. Two patients had their cystic artery occluded, and one of these patients developed cholecystitis, which was successfully treated with antibiotics and supportive care. Only one other patient developed a postradioembolization complication, which was a peptic ulcer and was not thought to be due to arterial reflux of microspheres because both the gastroduodenal and right gastric arteries were occluded. Median time to progression was 7 months (range 3-36 months), and median overall survival from radioembolization was 12 months (range 3-40 months). Tumor responses include complete response for 5 patients and partial response for 13 patients. One patient had stable disease and 4 had progressive disease. Conclusion While avoiding prophylactic coiling, we had a positive experience with coiling of the gastroduodenal artery and middle hepatic artery for consolidation of radiotherapy. Performing radioembolization in a nonreferral, private center in Lebanon resulted in good patient outcomes with a low rate of complications.

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. e229488
Author(s):  
June S Peng ◽  
Neha L Lad ◽  
Edward J Spangenthal ◽  
David M Mattson ◽  
Steven J Nurkin

An 84-year-old man with a history of deep vein thrombosis on warfarin and coronary artery disease presented with haematochezia and was diagnosed with an ascending colon cancer. He was short of breath with lower extremity oedema at the initial surgical consultation. Evaluation revealed an acute exacerbation of congestive heart failure, and further workup and treatment were recommended by the cardiology team. After multidisciplinary discussion, he underwent radiation for the control of bleeding, followed by cardiac catheterisation and placement of a bare metal stent. The patient subsequently underwent robotic-assisted right hemicolectomy. Pathology demonstrated a complete response, and the patient recovered uneventfully. He is alive swith no evidence of disease recurrence 12 months after surgery and 18 months after initial diagnosis.


Author(s):  
Stefan Winter

This concluding chapter summarizes key themes and presents some final thoughts. The book has shown that the multiplicity of lived ʻAlawi experiences cannot be reduced to the sole question of religion or framed within a monolithic narrative of persecution; that the very attempt to outline a single coherent history of “the ʻAlawis” may indeed be misguided. The sources on which this study has drawn are considerably more accessible, and the social and administrative realities they reflect consistently more mundane and disjointed, than the discourse of the ʻAlawis' supposed exceptionalism would lead one to believe. Therefore, the challenge for historians of ʻAlawi society in Syria and elsewhere is not to use the specific events and structures these sources detail to merely add to the already existing metanarratives of religious oppression, Ottoman misrule, and national resistance but rather to come to a newer and more intricate understanding of that community, and its place in wider Middle Eastern society, by investigating the lives of individual ʻAlawi (and other) actors within the rich diversity of local contexts these sources reveal.


Author(s):  
К.А. Панченко

Abstract The article examines the conquest of the County of Tripoli by the Mamelukes in 1289, and the reaction of various Middle Eastern ethnoreligious groups to this event. Along with the Monophysite perspective (the Syriac chronicle of Bar Hebraeus’ Continuator and the work of the Coptic historian Mufaddal ibn Abi-l-Fadail), and the propagandist texts of Muslim Arabic panegyric poets, we will pay special attention to the historical memory of the Orthodox (Melkite) and Maronite communities of northern Lebanon. The contemporary of these events — the Orthodox author Suleiman al-Ashluhi, a native of one of the villages of the Akkar Plateau — laments the fall of Tripoli in his rhymed eulogy. It is noteworthy that this author belongs to the rural Melkite subculture, which — in spite of its conservative character — was capable of producing original literature. Suleiman al-Ashluhi’s work was forsaken by the following generations of Melkites; his poem was only preserved in Maronite manuscripts. Maronite historical memory is just as fragmented. The father of the Modern Era Maronite historiography — Gabriel ibn al-Qilaʿî († 1516) only had fragmentary information on the history of his people in the 13th century: local chronicles and the heroic epos that glorified the Maronite struggle against the Muslim lords that tried to conquer Mount Lebanon. Gabriel’s depiction of the past is not only biased and subject to aims of religious polemics, but also factually inaccurate. Nevertheless, the texts of Suleiman al-Ashluhi and Gabriel ibn al-Qilaʿî give us the opportunity to draw conclusions on the worldview, educational level, political orientation and peculiar traits of the historical memory of various Christian communities of Mount Lebanon.


2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-99
Author(s):  
Frederick S. Colby

Despite the central importance of festival and devotional piety to premodernMuslims, book-length studies in this field have been relatively rare.Katz’s work, The Birth of the Prophet Muhammad, represents a tour-deforceof critical scholarship that advances the field significantly both throughits engagement with textual sources from the formative period to the presentand through its judicious use of theoretical tools to analyze this material. Asits title suggests, the work strives to explore how Muslims have alternativelypromoted and contested the commemoration of the Prophet’s birth atdifferent points in history, with a particular emphasis on how the devotionalistapproach, which was prominent in the pre-modern era, fell out of favoramong Middle Eastern Sunnis in the late twentieth century. Aimed primarilyat specialists in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies, especially scholarsof history, law, and religion, this work is recommended to anyone interestedin the history of Muslim ritual, the history of devotion to the Prophet, andthe interplay between normative and non-normative forms ofMuslim beliefand practice ...


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akshaya Srikanth Bhagavathula ◽  
Abdullah Shehab ◽  
Anhar Ullah ◽  
Jamal Rahmani

Background: The increasing incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) threatens the Middle Eastern population. Several epidemiological studies have assessed CVD and its risk factors in terms of the primary prevention of CVD in the Middle East. Therefore, summarizing the information from these studies is essential. Aim: We conducted a systematic review to assess the prevalence of CVD and its major risk factors among Middle Eastern adults based on the literature published between January 1, 2012 and December 31, 2018 and carried out a meta-analysis. Methods: We searched electronic databases such as PubMed/Medline, ScienceDirect, Embase and Google Scholar to identify literature published from January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2018. All the original articles that investigated the prevalence of CVD and reported at least one of the following factors were included: hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidaemia, smoking and family history of CVD. To summarize CVD prevalence, we performed a random-effects meta-analysis. Results: A total of 41 potentially relevant articles were included, and 32 were included in the meta-analysis (n=191,979). The overall prevalence of CVD was 10.1% (95% confidence interval (CI): 7.1-14.3%, p<0.001) in the Middle East. A high prevalence of CVD risk factors, such as dyslipidaemia (43.3%; 95% CI: 21.5-68%), hypertension (26.2%; 95% CI: 19.6-34%) and diabetes (16%; 95% CI: 9.9-24.8%), was observed. The prevalence rates of other risk factors, such as smoking (12.4%; 95% CI: 7.7-19.4%) and family history of CVD (18.7%; 95% CI: 15.4-22.5%), were also high. Conclusion: The prevalence of CVD is high (10.1%) in the Middle East. The burden of dyslipidaemia (43.3%) in this region is twice as high as that of hypertension (26.2%) and diabetes mellitus (16%). Multifaceted interventions are urgently needed for the primary prevention of CVD in this region.


Author(s):  
Joseph Ben Prestel

Between 1860 and 1910, Berlin and Cairo went through a period of dynamic transformation. During this period, a growing number of contemporaries in both places made corresponding arguments about how urban change affected city dwellers’ emotions. In newspaper articles, scientific treatises, and pamphlets, shifting practices, such as nighttime leisure, were depicted as affecting feelings like love and disgust. Looking at the ways in which different urban dwellers, from psychologists to revelers, framed recent changes in terms of emotions, this book reveals the striking parallels between the histories of Berlin and Cairo. In both cities, various authors associated changes in the city with such phenomena as a loss of control over feelings or the need for a reform of emotions. The parallels in these arguments belie the assumed dissimilarity between European and Middle Eastern cities during the nineteenth century. Drawing on similar debates about emotions in Berlin and Cairo, the book provides a new argument about the regional compartmentalization of urban history. It highlights how the circulation of scientific knowledge, the expansion of empires, and global capital flows led to similarities in the pasts of these two cities. By combining urban history and the history of emotions, this book proposes an innovative perspective on the emergence of different, yet comparable cities at the end of the nineteenth century.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 570
Author(s):  
James W. Watts

Leviticus 25:39–46 describes a two-tier model of slavery that distinguishes Israelites from foreign slaves. It requires that Israelites be indentured only temporarily while foreigners can be enslaved as chattel (permanent property). This model resembles the distinction between White indentured slaves and Black chattel slaves in the American colonies. However, the biblical influence on these early modern practices has been obscured by the rarity of citations of Lev. 25:39–46 in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sources about slavery. This article reviews the history of slavery from ancient Middle Eastern antiquity through the seventeenth century to show the unique degree to which early modern institutions resembled the biblical model. It then exposes widespread knowledge of Leviticus 25 in early modern political and economic debates. Demonstrating this awareness shows with high probability that colonial cultures presupposed the two-tier model of slavery in Leviticus 25:39–46 to naturalize and justify their different treatment of White indentured slaves and Black chattel slaves.


2019 ◽  
Vol 98 (5) ◽  
pp. 291-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saudamini J. Lele ◽  
Mickie Hamiter ◽  
Torrey Louise Fourrier ◽  
Cherie-Ann Nathan

Sialendoscopy has emerged as a safe, effective and minimally invasive technique for management of obstructive and inflammatory salivary gland disease. The aim of our study was to analyze outcomes of sialendoscopy and steroid irrigation in patients with sialadenitis without sialoliths. We performed a retrospective analysis of patients who underwent interventional sialendoscopy with steroid irrigation from 2013 to 2016, for the treatment of sialadenitis without sialolithiasis. Twenty-two patients underwent interventional sialendoscopy with ductal dilation and steroid irrigation for the treatment of sialadenitis without any evidence of sialolithiasis. Conservative measures had failed in all. Eleven patients had symptoms arising from the parotid gland, 4 patients had symptoms arising from the submandibular gland, while 6 patients had symptoms in both parotid and submandibular glands. One patient complained of only xerostomia without glandular symptoms. The mean age of the study group which included 1 male and 21 females was 44.6 years (range: 3-86 years). Four patients had autoimmune disease, while 7 patients had a history of radioactive iodine therapy. No identifiable cause for sialadenitis was found in the remaining 11 patients. The mean follow-up period was 378.9 days (range: 16-1143 days). All patients underwent sialendoscopy with ductal dilation and steroid irrigation. Twelve patients showed a complete response and 9 patients had a partial response, while 1 patient reported no response. Only 3 patients required repeat sialendoscopy. The combination of sialendoscopy with ductal dilation and steroid irrigation is a safe and effective treatment option for patients with sialadenitis without sialoliths refractory to conservative measures. Prospective studies with a larger case series are needed to establish its role as a definitive treatment option.


1974 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 20-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginia H. Gibbons

Dates in parentheses at the end of each statement represent the combined holdings of the Stanford University-Hoover Institution libraries and are meant to serve as a guide to the publication history of the documents.The bibliography is arranged by country and then by issuing agency. The Arabic form of the agency has been used when available.This bibliography is not a comprehensive listing, but rather serves as an introduction to the wealth of material buried in the confusing array of publications of statistical agencies in the Middle East.


2005 ◽  
Vol 94 (09) ◽  
pp. 498-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Szema ◽  
Chao-Ying Chen ◽  
Jeffrey P. Schwab ◽  
Gregory Schmeling ◽  
Brian C. Cooley

SummaryDeep vein thrombosis (DVT) occurs with high prevalence in association with a number of risk factors, including major surgery, trauma, obesity, bed rest (>5 days), cancer, a previous history of DVT, and several predisposing prothrombotic mutations. A novel murine model of DVT was developed for applications to preclinical studies of transgenically constructed prothrombotic lines and evaluation of new antithrombotic therapies. A transient direct-current electrical injury was induced in the common femoral vein of adult C57Bl/6 mice. A non-occlusive thrombus grew, peaking in size at 30 min, and regressing by 60 min, as revealed by histomorphometric volume reconstruction of the clot. Pre-heparinization greatly reduced clot formation at 10, 30, and 60 min (p<0.01 versus non-heparinized). Homozygous FactorV Leiden mice (analogous to the clinical FactorV Leiden prothrombotic mutation) on a C57Bl/6 background had clot volumes more than twice those of wild-types at 30 min (0.121±0.018 mm3 vs. 0.052±0.008 mm3, respectively; p<0.01). Scanning electron microscopy revealed a clot surface dominated by fibrin strands, in contrast to arterial thrombi which showed a platelet-dominated structure. This new model of DVT presents a quantifiable approach for evaluating thrombosis-related murine transgenic lines and for comparatively evaluating new pharmacologic approaches for prevention of DVT.


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