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Uterine serous carcinoma is a unique and biologically aggressive subtype of endometrial cancer and should be studied as a distinct entity. Futures studies should identify the optimized chemotherapy and radiation regimens, sequence of therapy and schedule, and the role of targeted biologic therapy.

Clinical practice guidelines for gynecologic cancers have been developed by many organizations. Although these guidelines have much in common in terms of the practice of standard of care for uterine corpus cancer, practice guidelines that reflect the characteristics of patients and healthcare and insurance systems are needed for each country. The Korean Society of Gynecologic Oncology (KSGO) published the first edition of practice guidelines for gynecologic cancer treatment in late 2006; the second edition was released in July 2010 as an evidence-based recommendation. The Guidelines Revision Committee was established in 2015 and decided to produce the third edition of the guidelines as an advanced form based on evidence-based medicine, considering up-to-date clinical trials and abundant qualified Korean data. These guidelines cover screening, surgery, adjuvant treatment, and advanced and recurrent disease with respect to endometrial carcinoma and uterine sarcoma. The committee members and many gynecologic oncologists derived key questions from the discussion, and a number of relevant scientific literatures were reviewed in advance. Recommendations for each specific question were developed by the consensus conference, and they are summarized here, together with other details. The objective of these practice guidelines is to establish standard policies on issues in clinical areas related to the management of uterine corpus cancer based on the findings in published papers to date and the consensus of experts as a KSGO Consensus Statement.

Pressure-assisted forward osmosis (PAFO) has been considered an alternative of forward osmosis (FO) process to reduce capital expenditure (CAPEX) of FO. This is mainly attributed to the enhanced water flux through the FO membranes which leads to the improved dilution of draw streams. In this regard, it has been expected that employing PAFO in the FO-reverse osmosis (RO) hybrid system for seawater desalination can reduce the overall economics of the hybrid process. However, replacing FO with PAFO causes an additional energy cost in the seawater dilution step which inevitably leads to a question that PAFO-RO hybrid is truly an economically beneficial option over FO-RO and stand-alone RO desalination. More importantly, though serial connection of FO elements (SE) improves the dilution of initial draw water which can induce enhanced energy cost saving in the following RO step, this economic benefit is also compensated with the additional membrane cost in the PAFO unit process. To rationalize its overall performance and economic benefit, the thorough performance and economic evaluation were conducted based on actual pilot-scale PAFO operations for serial connection of three 8040 FO elements(SE1, SE2 and SE3). A scenario was assumed that PAFO is implemented as an additional pretreatment step of existing RO process. The results showed that the FO-RO hybrid process is not an economically feasible option unless a significant unit FO element cost cut-down is guaranteed. On the other hand, PAFO-RO hybrid showed some benefits with regards to a higher range of target RO recovery and unit FO element cost, particularly when two FO elements are serially connected (SE2). However, consideration on overall plant construction and operating cost components led to a conclusion that the skepticism on the hybrid process has to be maintained. This skepticism can be alleviated when a new PAFO-RO hybrid desalination plant is commissioned primarily due to significant potential CAPEX and OPEX savings in the RO process originated from the significant reduction of Highlights  Significant impact of initial draw flowrate and hydraulic pressure on the economics of PAFO in hybridization with RO  Hydraulic pressure dependence of FO membrane element performance  Drastic pressure-drop in the draw channel of the last element in serial configuration  Target RO recovery and FO element cost in PAFO-RO hybrid are important for economics

Membrane fouling is closely related to the concept of critical flux. Therefore, a fouling control stategy for forward osmosis (FO) membranes that is based on the critical flux is necessary. This study systematically investigated the critical flux behavior of FO membranes (CTA and PA-TFC) in the short-term using a stepping method (draw solution (DS) concentration stepping). In addition, to test the reliability of this method, long-term experiments were conducted to evaluate the influences of operational critical flux on the fouling behavior (sustainable operation and fouling reversibility/irreversibility), thereby determining the critical flux for reversibility. Our results showed that the DS concentration stepping could be applied for critical flux determination in FO. Both membranes exhibited higher critical flux values for alginate fouling compared to other single foulants such as colloidal silica or gypsum. The values were 15.9 LMH for a cellulose triacetate membrane (CTA) and 20.5 LMH for the polyamide thin-film composite (PA-TFC). Whilst these values should be adequate in FO applications they were determined for single foulants. The presence of multispecies of foulants caused a significant decline in the critical flux values. This study found 5.4 LMH for the CTA membrane and 8.3 LMH for the PA-TFC membrane for the combined foulants of alginate + gypsum. This indicates that the critical flux behavior in FO was dependent on the foulant type and membrane type. Importantly, 98-100% restoration of water flux was achieved with the PA-TFC membrane at an operation either close to or below critical flux (i.e., in case of negligible fouling), except for the combination of alginate-combined colloidal silica. The critical fluxes for reversibility obtained in this study will aid the efficient operation of practical FO processes.

This meta-analysis suggests that ASC may have poorer outcomes compared with AC of the cervix.

3D-TVUS assessment of the uterus provides an accurate depiction of adhesion and extent of cavity damage in patients with suspected IUA.

Levonorgestrel intrauterine system is an effective and favorable method for treatment of EH.